Teacher Burnout: Why?

Angie Miller, through Valerie Strauss, at WaPo:

It is August, the Sunday of summer, and teachers everywhere are battling their back-to-school demons, trying to balance precious time with their families while also reflecting on how to improve their practices and preparing for (more) rolled-out districtwide initiatives. I don’t know a teacher right now who isn’t riddled with the anxiety created by a career in which this delicate balance always feels impossible. We have all locked ourselves in a proverbial bathroom.

But it’s not because we don’t want to go to school. It’s not because our summers were spent lounging around, being lazy. It was just that during the summer we were able to read professional books and really think about them, take grad classes, rewrite curriculum, think about why we do what we do. We had the space to gather our teaching selves back up. We were able to get enough sleep and exercise and eat dinners with our families. In a nutshell, we were able to find ourselves again—and that’s hard to let go of every fall.

I have never met a teacher who hasn’t struggled with the personal life/school life balance. Teachers make critical sacrifices that impact their families and health. And many leave the profession because after so long, one can only continue to perform under unreasonable circumstances and constraints before losing our very minds. Or our very selves….

If we remember that our work is the intimate intersection of our beliefs and our worlds, we may not feel like we’re losing ourselves to this profession, but rather that it is a way to find ourselves every day.