Written in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week

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Burning man allows people to come together as a community to celebrate and showcase creativity and talent. Ideally, teaching would allow and encourage the same thing, but this is not always the case. People are quick to list teachers and other community workers as people who are under-recognized and underfunded – anything more active than that is rare. This is fine. As a teacher, I don’t need to be praised for doing what I’m being paid to do…I need support from administration, coworkers, parents, and the students themselves.

There’s a reason teacher turnover is so high. In 2013, ~8.1% of teachers transferred to a different school and ~7.9% of teachers left the profession all together. There are plenty of trends related to gender, race, salary, and education level, but one of the most important indicators seems to be whether or not the teacher has a mentor during their initial time at their school. While this is great for teachers who have a present mentor, my own experience has been that I have an on-paper mentor – I have those who are listed as my mentors…but who aren’t present or approachable. As a new teacher, it is sometimes overwhelming and intimidating to confront new students, a new administration, a new school culture, and a new curriculum…and then be expected to seek out a mentor to answer questions you didn’t even know you had. As a new teacher, you are constantly reminded to not take it home. Well. Easier said than done.

It’s hard to focus on your own well being when faced with the leading causes of teacher burnout. Of the following list:

• Teaching those who lack motivation
• Maintaining discipline
• Time pressure and workload
• Coping with change
• Being evaluated by others
• Dealing with colleagues
• Self-esteem and status
• Administration and management
• Role conflict and ambiguity
• Poor working conditions,

I personally struggle the most with the motivation and discipline of my students and support from administration, although I’ve been faced with stress from the others at one time or another during my last two years of teaching (which are also my first two years).

I work at a school that has a mixed academic population. What does this mean? Well, half of the school is considered magnet and the other half “traditional.” The magnet students can be bused in from out of our area and are from all over the school district. The traditional students are from the local neighborhoods – thus our school is considered a Title I school. This has given us an interesting and diverse, although sometimes fractured, school culture. At this point, am I burned out? Yes. At least, for the foreseeable future. But in a few weeks I’ll have the summer and will be geared up to be burned out again by this time next year.

Much like Eric, I am finding myself too tired to even do my day-to-day mundane tasks. Showering is a victory while dishes lie strewn about my apartment, forgotten. Even my students have started asking “Are you okay?” I don’t really know how to answer that question when they ask. How do you say, “I’ve struggled with y’all not listening to me for months now, and I’m exhausted from it. I’ve struggled with meetings, panels, papers, grading, and just balancing my life for months and am exhausted from it. I’ve struggled with staying fit and saving money and maintaining relationships, and I’m exhausted from it” 

I look up like this and they draw back in fear and then I just sigh. They don’t understand the struggle that it has been to get up and drive to work. They don’t go home and take a three hour nap before being able to face just taking out the trash. I’m officially out of forks and spoons and plates…

Teaching Those Who Lack Motivation

I am lucky enough to teach seniors who say they want to go to college. They’re driven to “do what they need to do.” This, unfortunately, drives the focus away from learning and to mentalities like cheat or repeat and well is this going to be on the ACT? Just recently I gave a post-test as mandated by our district, and the first comment I was met with was “Well give us the answers. It’s good for you and your money (bonus) and good for us.” I was appalled. Even more so when they said “Well Mr. __ & Mrs. ___ & … did it, why can’t you?” Cheating is rampant throughout the school, especially with digital tools to help out, such as Group Message. One student may find the answers (whether one works it, they find the key online, or see the key on a teacher’s desk) and snaps a pic. They then use Group Message to send the photo to everyone, so everyone has the picture to copy and thus everyone has the answers to the assignment without working it. Then, when it comes to tests, they try to do the same thing (pictures to circulate of one person’s tests) or simply fail them because they didn’t do the initial work in the first place. There aren’t too many things I can do as a consequence – especially since much of this is hearsay or not directly observed. I had always loved to learn myself, so the idea that someone would cheat to circumvent that is foreign to me. I was lucky enough to have parents who loved to show us new things, to attend a high school that encouraged learning, and to be exposed to my favorite book, The Phantom Tollbooth, at an early age. The students don’t share my same motivation for knowledge, just a drive to get out and get to the magical land of college one way or another.

Many places you would like to see are just off the map and many things you want to know are just out of sight or a little beyond your reach. But someday you’ll reach them all, for what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.

Maintaining Discipline

While these students are college-bound, they are still in high school, so while sometimes I’d like to just send them away forever, I can’t. I can, however, send them to the office. Which is just about as effective as wishing them away forever. Both times I wrote up a student (for blatant and severe disrespect), nothing has happened. Students (not just the ones I directly teach) will walk away when confronted by a teacher or even an administrator. Those who are suspended will miss school for a few weeks and then come back demanding their work. Students have brought guns to school with no notification to teachers, students have fought so badly they’ve knocked each other out. These are more severe examples of discipline problems, but there are smaller and more prevalent issues that are rampant throughout my classes. There’s no volume control when it comes to voices, students will talk/yell over the teacher and then complain they don’t know what’s going on. It’s exhausting to struggle with students who talk over me then want extra tutoring. You’re tasked with finding where to draw the line between being taken advantage of and doing your job. It’s stressful to both not be able to control your class, but also know that your students are 17-18 year old “adults” who just refuse to entertain the idea of respecting a teacher.

What you CAN do is often simply a matter of what you WILL do.

Administration and Management 

I know it’s dangerous to talk about this sort of thing (work) online, even on a personal blog, but I really don’t have any complaints about the personnel here. I actually like what I understand their vision for our school to be. What has been difficult for me is the turnover rate. I have taught at my school since August 2014. Since then, we have had six acting principals and many new assistant principals Having that turnover rate is difficult. Each person has their own vision for the school that they try to instill (which is good), but it’s difficult to switch methodologies, especially when they affect how we’re supposed to teach. There are a lot of different rules we have to adhere to that are good in theory, but to keep up with everything is a struggle. I try my hardest to not bring my work home, but sometimes, even if the papers don’t follow me, the worry does. I worry what if I’m not fulfilling their expectations, what if I won’t be considered effective, what happens if I am considered ineffective? Will I be asked to return to my position? Will I have a job next year?

Whether or not you find your own way, you’re bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it’s quite rusty.

Burnout is a very real psychological stressor that many teachers experience. I feel like I’m on a one-way train to exhaustion via frustration and cynicism. I want to be happy and really enjoy my job, but sometimes it’s difficult. I am a social introvert, so dealing with so many people on a daily basis is already difficult, but when I struggle with maintaining control of the classroom while fulfilling the duties given to be by the school it’s even harder. I don’t dislike teaching. In fact, there are many times that I really really enjoy it, but the problems associated go beyond not being recognized or having to buy supplies myself. A lot of it is recognizing burnout and being supportive when you see it. Understanding that the small victories of doing laundry and sweeping the kitchen are enough for now, and that to ask any more of us before summer is just too much.

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Sources:

• http://www.shankerinstitute.org/blog/update-teacher-turnover-us
• http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2015/05/research_teacher-retentions_ra.html
• http://www.schoolmentalhealth.org/Resources/Educ/CAMHPS/Coping%20with%20teacher%20burnout.pdf
• http://www.gtlcenter.org/sites/default/files/Good_to_Great_Report.pdf