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Today we’re talking about stress and burnout that comes from being a teacher, and this includes everything from primary school, high school and university teaching. Regardless of the people you are teaching; there are going to be common stressors and common strategies, which we are going to discuss shortly, for overcoming these stressors and preventing burnout in the teaching profession.
I have had some experience casually teaching at the university level, but I have not for school-aged teachers, so I have made sure to do this alongside my wife, Loren, who is an experienced primary school teacher.
Stresses of being a teacher
Stresses of being a teacher
Where does one even begin when discussing the stressors of being a teacher?
Using the definition of a stressor being a challenge, threat or demand of a teacher’s resources, we can suggest that, broadly, there are going to be many demands on a teacher’s resources, often more than the teacher has available. And here, we are talking about teacher’s resources in terms of their personal energy, focus and time.
The first demand of teacher’s resources can be their required workloads, which includes lesson planning. Some schools require that large chunks of planning for the school year be done up-front, which means weeks of high pressure and long hours for teachers trying to get the necessary paperwork done before they’ve even had a chance to teach their lessons. This workload can also increase throughout the year as lessons need to be adapted when they see how their students respond to the lessons, understandably this can frustrate teachers when they feel they’ll need to ‘redo the work’ of lesson planning again at a later date anyway.
Throughout the year, marking and assessing student work can also put a lot on a teacher’s plate. This can be highly repetitive and mentally exhausting as some schools require that every workbook page, reflection question or math equation be commented on in detail. With a classroom of 25 students and 6 – 8 lessons a day, that results in a lot of activities to mark. Many teachers feel that this isn’t the most effective way to track student progress, so this work can be unmotivating.
In some cases, the professional development required to keep your teaching certification can put an extra burden on teachers. They have a minimum number of hours that need to be completed to keep their teaching registration, and when this is left for them to find on their own it can take extra time (and sometimes money) for them to complete it.
Another challenge that teachers often face is pressure from others who are invested in the children’s education. This can include, for primary and high school-aged students, parents aren’t on the same page as teachers. Understandably, parents and teachers can have different ideas on what they feel is best for a student based on what they see from that student in the time they spend with them. This can cause tensions and conflict. Some parents can become quite confrontational and critical of teachers, and if an individual teacher doesn’t have much support from their employer it can be very stressful. Some parents can try to contact teachers at times outside of their work hours, like in the evenings, on weekends or during holidays. Sometimes parents have unreasonable expectations of what a teacher can achieve during the school day, and when they don’t see the desired outcomes for their child, will be quick to blame the teacher. This can be emotionally exhausting for teachers to deal with, especially when they have 25 or more students with sets of parents to communicate with. Often the teacher is genuinely trying to do their best for the student so it can be disheartening when that’s not appreciated.
A resource demand, specifically in the classroom, can be that teachers need to cater to a wide diversity of students with varying needs and their challenges whether that be, for example, learning needs, emotional needs, social needs, behavioural needs or support with physical access to resources. Teachers have limited time and resources, so to cater to each student’s individual needs is almost impossible. This puts a strain on teachers as they try to work out what to prioritise, how many adaptations to make to their lessons, how they can request the extra support or resources needed, and how to stay in communication with parents and school specialists to update them on each student’s progress. Particularly when it comes to behavioural needs, some students require a lot of attention, monitoring, correction and patience. Some students can be confrontational or aggressive either to other students or to the teacher, and when dealing with this behaviour every day it can be mentally exhausting and tiring. Let’s not forget that teachers are also trying to get through a set curriculum, so constant interruptions to deal with behavioural challenges can be very stressful if they see they are falling behind in the curriculum.
We also must discuss the administrative aspects of being a teacher. This can vary widely, depending on where one is teaching, and there can be significant bureaucratic challenges, changing expectations and budget cuts. Budgets are particularly relevant for U.S. teachers or Australian teachers in schools with low funding. Many teachers spend their own personal money on educational materials for their classroom which can put a strain on their personal material resources.
Another challenge can be the policies teachers need to keep up with which are in many cases outdated or impractical. Many teachers can feel as though the people putting these guidelines in place aren’t able to empathise with what the day-to-day reality of teaching is like in the classroom. Some teachers may feel that the curriculum they’re following is setting an impossible standard, yet each year they need to aim to meet that standard with each of their students.
Signs and symptoms of teacher stress and burnout
These demands of your resources we’ve just discussed can take you away and distract you from doing what you love most.
Most teachers begin teaching because they are passionate about education and want to help raise the next generation. Most teachers are really trying to set their students up for success in the future and are often thinking of how to best support each individual child in their care.
The most prevalent sign of burnout is exhaustion; teachers can feel burnt out when they have exhausted their physical, emotional or mental resources for dealing with the challenges in their lives.
This exhaustion can leave you feeling disheartened and unsure about your abilities to be a teacher. It can also cause you to feel cynical about the care of others around you, including other staff, school leadership and parents.
These stressors can keep you up at night and contribute to you making less-than-ideal healthy choices, which can further contribute to your tiredness.
The distractions of challenges can also lead to more frequent errors, which can, in a cycle, leave you feeling further unsure about your abilities as a teacher. Teachers may stop trying to implement the strategies that they feel will best support their students because they either don’t have the mental energy left to try new things or they’re not feeling supported in their role.
They may also find it harder to be mentally present with their students as they are distracted by their thoughts.
In many cases, sadly, teachers end up leaving the profession altogether due to burnout.Coping with teacher stresses
Coping with teacher stresses
So we know teachers can experience burnout from the many stressors, (again that is challenges, threats and demands) they face from doing their job, but what can we do about it? How can we cope with the stressors and prevent our burnout?
Let’s start by discussing coping with stressors.
There are a number of short-term coping strategies we can use for dealing with stress. Not every strategy will work for every person or situation, but you are the expert on what ultimately will work in your situation.
The first strategy to discuss is addressing the stressors; what exactly are the causes of the stressors in your situation? I’d recommend sitting down and actually seeing if you can write out what you feel the challenges are, and how those challenges make you feel. Sometimes it can be necessary to talk to a trusted friend or mentor about what the challenges are. Writing down the stressors can help you to better understand the quantity or severity of the stressors in your life. The next step is to identify whether addressing the stressors requires gaining some additional or different resources for handling the challenges. See if you can write down who you can talk to to acquire these resources. Again, you might need to talk to a trusted friend or mentor for help in identifying the available resources.
For example, if lesson planning is putting a strain on your resources and is causing stress, you can try to find teaching materials online to help get this task done in a more reasonable time. There are many other teachers out there who are teaching the same thing as you and have shared resources that can help. Using these resources means you don’t need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ and can get your planning done faster.
You could also consider asking another teacher who is a mentor or peer at your school to help you with your planning. Sometimes being able to sit and do some planning together can make the task less overwhelming.
From writing down the stressors, you might identify that there is no clear resource ‘solution’ to a stressor, and instead, it may require a change in your own perspective on a challenge. I know it can be really hard to gain a new perspective on a situation, and that it again, can often require discussion with an outsider to the situation, a trusted friend or mentor.
For example, if a student’s consistent behavioural challenges are causing you to be cynical about the effectiveness of your teaching or even to feel less warm towards the student, you could try- and I know this can be really hard and can take a lot of dedication on your part- consider the students’ experience. Why are they acting up? What are they trying to gain from their behavioural responses? If they are trying to gain attention, perhaps they need to know someone cares about them. If they’re trying to get out of their work, perhaps it’s because they’re really struggling with their lessons. If they simply don’t know a different way to respond and get overstimulated by their environment, perhaps they need some guidance in learning new coping strategies. Sometimes taking the time to sit and have a casual chat with the challenging student about how they’re finding school can be very helpful for giving us a new perspective.
Of course, it might be the completely wrong time to think about a new perspective on a situation. You might be lying in bed late at night, ruminating again and again about that parent who yelled at you in the meeting and said you were the worst teacher they had ever seen. Sometimes, we need to focus on overcoming our exhaustion as quickly as possible to give ourselves a chance to rest before addressing the core challenges of a stressor.
There are a few strategies that can help us overcome exhaustion through rest. If you feel there are things in your head that you can’t get out; these may be thoughts about situations that just happened, or things you are concerned about happening in the future, one strategy is to write the thoughts down, without judging yourself for having the thoughts, and set aside a specific time in the future to go through the thoughts and consider what you might need to do to deal with the thoughts. But, here, you are giving yourself permission to not dwell on your thoughts while you have a rest. If the thought comes back, you can say to yourself; ‘I don’t need to think about that, as I’ve written it down and I know I have time to think about it at say ‘6 pm tomorrow evening’.’ If you have a new thought, even if it is just a variation on the first thought, write it down as well, anytime it comes. You might inevitably have a long list, but you can give yourself permission to not think about those things until your designated time.
An additional strategy for resting may be the need to practice mindfulness, which simply means learning to focus on your immediate present environment, rather than ruminating about the past or thinking about the future. There are many different things one can focus on their environment, including the sounds around you, the sensations in your body, or your breathing. If you are attempting to focus on your environment and thoughts come up, it is important not to judge yourself for the thoughts coming up, but rather acknowledge the thoughts as just that; thoughts, and then bring your attention back to your environment.
Practically, teachers could even start a mindfulness moment or simply a quiet reflection time in their classroom. This could be just 5 minutes that you add to your daily routine where your students have time to reflect and journal or practise mindfulness and you can use that time for your personal reflections and mindfulness too.
Preventing teacher burnout
Those were a few stress-coping strategies, but how do we prevent teacher burnout? Well, ultimately the prevention of burnout experiences, and exhausting our resources, requires preventing further demands on our resources. Burnout prevention will, ultimately, depend on the sources of our challenges, threats and demands on our resources, and identifying what is required to reduce those demands on our resources; burnout prevention and burnout recovery often go hand-in-hand.
Even though, as a teacher, you work for a school and there are many students you care deeply about, you are the one responsible for your resources. You may need to consider whether there needs to be further emphasis put on your assertiveness and boundaries to help you when others, be it other teachers or leadership, are requiring more of your resources than you have to give.
As a teacher, you likely care so much about your students and want to do your job to the best of your abilities. Remember that you can serve your students best when you’re looking after yourself. If your personal resources are drained, you won’t have the capacity to offer your students the best you can. If setting some boundaries helps you to better meet your student’s needs as well as your own needs, then it’s worth it. You may even need to gently remind leadership or other staff members of this fact; having the appropriate resources to do your job will result in a better outcome for the students.
Concluding thoughts
Concluding thoughts
Thank you for reading today.
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