I came home from school nearly every day this week with that deep tiredness that you feel right down to your bones.
It has never been this acute or severe in my 18 years of teaching.
A colleague pulled me aside in my first year and said, “teaching maybe the only profession in which your responsibility on the first day of the job is the same on the last day of the job.” He was trying to get me to realize two things: First, that there is an unrealistic expectation put on new teachers because they are thrown right into the deep end of the swimming pool. There is no wading in from the shallow end. Second, you don’t pay your dues early in your career to have it easier later in your career. The job stays the same, so buckle up for the long haul.
I’m not running on adrenaline like I was in my first few years of teaching, but why does the job feel more challenging and exhausting now, 18 years in the classroom, than those first few years?
I am still passionate about my subject and still love way in which I can connect and inspire students through lessons, but this level of fatigue is really getting to me.
As this is happening, I am mindful of what it is doing to me as a teacher and a person. I’ve caught myself in moments when I’ve become cynical, felt overwhelmed, and experienced deep exhaustion. I’m trying to figure out what is at the root of it all. What has changed in teaching and what has changed about my teaching that is causing all this?
Here’s what I’ve realized:
COMPETENCY INEVITABLY LEADS TO MORE
When I began teaching, I had a full teaching load and I coached a middle school basketball team. In time, I worked to become successful at both. That success led me to become an AP teacher and varsity coach. I worked hard again, rising to the new challenges, and in time I became successful at both. I began on to take on extra work within the AP community, serving on the test Development Committee, building a Facebook community, and hosting Twitter chats. In time I learned to handle it all and started a chess club at school and became a building rep for my teachers’ union. I found ways to manage that, too.
Each time I reached a level of stasis, I believed it carved out a space for something else. Being able to handle what I had at the moment filled me with the belief that there always was a newer and high manifestation of myself out there if I added something else to the mix. With each new addition, I only saw the benefits — it would open a new scope of students for me to mentor, it would deepen my content knowledge, it would bring stronger connections with other teachers. This is what made it exciting and promising. All I saw where the potential benefits, but none of the costs.
But in Essentialism, which is the best book I’ve read in the past five years, Greg McKewon asks, “What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”
He encouraged readers to give themselves permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone. He believes that when that happens, that is when you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.
I need to realize that saying no to things isn’t a sign of weakness or an admission that something is beyond your ability. No recognizes there are limits, and anytime those limits extend, it thins out something that is already dear.
AS CHANNELS INCREASE SO DOES THE COGNITIVE LOAD
When I began teaching, the primary method of contact between teachers and students was a quick conversation after class. It was actual interaction, not virtual, and I used my voice to express sincerity and empathy while also processing what my students were saying, reading their body language and non verbal cues. All this transpired within the school day, which meant that when the day ended, the communication ended. These conversations easy to decode tone and mood. Now, the channels of communication have increased exponentially, and almost always the method is virtual. This is not just true of my communication with students, everyone is resorting to virtual communication — administration, guidance, even advertisers. I am bombarded with messages all throughout the working day. Yet, it doesn’t ending there as messages come in at all hours of the night. Some of the time stamps I see are deeply concerning, coming well past the point where anyone should be communicating.
As communication has become so cheap, ubiquitous, and impersonal, it has also lowered the bar for access. Anyone, whether welcomed or not, can get to my inbox. This has not only created information overload; it has created access overload. Part of each day’s necessary evil is to sift the handful of meaningful messages from dozens and dozens of spam. It is, as one of my colleagues so accurately calls it, “death by a thousand papercuts.”
I need to realize that I am resigning myself to a system that is taking me away from my true talents as a teacher. Success as a teacher does not come as a result of replying to emails and Google Chats as fast as possible. Instead, what I need to do is use my energy to set up a system that prioritizes in-person, sincere, and necessary communication while diminishing its virtual counterpart.
MY CREATIVE CAPACITY HAS DIMINISHED
When I was in my early 30s, my children had such basic needs in their infancy. They needed to be well fed, well rested, and loved and comforted in between. This allowed me the mental bandwidth to handle the simplicity of those needs, while still providing the space for me to think creatively about my lessons and units. I could, after they were put to bed, explore the internet and research authors, be inspired by great ideas, and synthesize it all into new ways to reach my students.
While those basic needs still need to be met, there are a bounty of other concerns that go along with raising kids as they get older. The activities increase, the homework increases, the schedule increases, and, of course, the worry increases.
Since they take up so much more of my mind, this has left me with little time or energy at the end of the day to get lost in the means methods to develop spectacular lessons. I wish I could scour the AP Lit Facebook community and be inspired by my colleagues. I wish I had more time to read the newest best sellers and consider how I might bring them into my classroom. I wish I had the time to let my mind wander to through an idea and become fascinated with it.
But I can’t.
My children are my priority.
While I do look back on those days with such nostalgia for how energizing and fun it was to have an idea the night before and execute it the next day in the classroom, it has also made me fear that I am slipping as a teacher. It has made me doubt if I still burn with the same passions.
I need to realize that those days aren’t fully gone. Unlike 10 years ago when I first pushed myself to be a more creative teacher, I now have a warehouse of great teaching ideas that is well stocked and furnished. It is one I should be proud of. Not everything needs to be new every time.
13 comments
Tracy
Brian – I feel like you just read my brain. I’m in year 18 as well and I have hit such a wall of exhaustion and just apathy. This is the first time this profession I love has felt like a job.
Kendra Miller
I feel this. Thank you for putting it into words and sharing.
Lynne C
I feel so many of us are exhausted from school this year especially. The pandemic may be waning (although it seems everyone is still getting sick), but the flatness and neediness of the kids is at an all-time high. My own kids are grown so I have plenty of time to recreate the English classroom wheel. But I don’t. Instead I rely on what I know is good (and sometimes just good enough), and when I get home from school I nourish myself with rest, exercise, tea, TV, and books I was once too much of a snob to read. I think we all need at give ourselves a break until the overwhelming exhaustion takes a break. Thanks for these great insights, Brian!
Lynne Colligan
I feel so many of us are exhausted from school this year especially. The pandemic may be waning (although it seems everyone is still getting sick), but the flatness and neediness of the kids is at an all-time high. My own kids are grown so I have plenty of time to recreate the English classroom wheel. But I don’t. Instead I rely on what I know is good (and sometimes just good enough), and when I get home from school I nourish myself with rest, exercise, tea, TV, and books I was once too much of a snob to read. I think we all need at give ourselves a break until the overwhelming exhaustion takes a break. Thanks for these great insights, Brian!
Valerie Person
Thank you, Brian, for such a candid and personalized portrait of exactly what teaching for the long haul looks like for many. I’m in my 28th year of teaching, and so much of what you shared was spot-on for me. The one thing, for me, that has not changed is the joy I experience from teaching, designing authentic assignments that fuel creativity and guide students to finding and developing their voices as writers. Having the energy to do this, however, seems to be predicated on learning what to say “no” to. I pray 2023 is a year full of the joy for you that can be found this profession while embracing the joy that comes from deep commitment to your precious family. Thank you for sharing your heart.
Dana Cole
I blog a fair amount about the push to just keep adding more, whether it’s in our lesson planning, (https://teachingreflection.wordpress.com/2017/12/01/educational-triage/), in our personal commitments (https://teachingreflection.wordpress.com/2021/07/07/the-myth-of-balance-as-a-teacher/), or just in life in general (https://teachingreflection.wordpress.com/2022/04/06/this-too-shall-pass/). I think our society does that to everyone, but I also think that teachers seem to receive more of it than most.
I’m trying some big new things in my classroom this term, and I’m … 17 years in? 18? I lose track and have to do the arithmetic. It’s less that I can’t do new stuff, though, and more that the bar is higher. Like you, I have a lot of ideas already — ones that I’ve used and tweaked and improved term by term. Ones that I know are effective. And so any new idea has to be weighed against what it would replace. Not every new idea makes the cut, and that’s not a bad thing. It gives me reason to be pleased with what I’ve developed over the years.
ron
An honest reflection on how teaching has changed over the years. As a retired teacher, I split my career into pre-Internet and post-Internet. Before the tech wave, students regarded the teacher as the ‘keeper of knowledge’ in the classroom far superior than the encyclopedia in their homes. And with that came great respect from both students and parents. But then the internet and its descendants came along which shifted the dynamic in this relationship. It’s no wonder that the Apple logo has a bite taken out of it as students (and the public) have consumed the ‘fruit’ and desire more and more of it. Again, it’s no wonder that students (and public) are more excited about a new gadget or iphone than. . . well, you name it. Also, along the way, schools bought into the business model of education in which the admin are the employers and the parents are the consumers. So how to please the consumer? Make sure the product, students, do not experience any stress or anxiety that might negatively impact their mental health. And how to do that? Reward students with high grades. I know this is rather simplistic but there is truth to it as well. Add to all this the push for college admission. And, again, that has become all about grades. In this thinking, the product supersedes the process. With regards to writing, the mindset becomes for many students to ‘just get it done’ rather than work through the process which often results in greater learning than the end result. Anyway, I understand your thinking on teaching in this day and age. Kids still need good teachers and, sadly, there are fewer and fewer of them sticking around for the long haul. Thanks.
Kim Kimpton
Thank you for this. I feel that you have put to words what so many of us are feeling while providing valid reasons for our feeling this way. I found myself nodding as I was reading. It is comforting to know that I am not alone.
Jenny H
Thank you for sharing this. I have been teaching for 24 years now and am feeling the exhaustion too. I have two teenage daughters at home, one a senior and the other a freshman. The senior has been working on driving, getting into college, applying for scholarships as well as keeping up with her regular school workload and extra curriculars. Of course, it’s not just her working toward those goals, it is also my husband (also a teacher of 18 years) and myself. On top of that, attempting to transition my younger daughter from middle to high school and help her through the anxiety related with that, and her anxiety over violence in schools has left me feeling drained. I never really considered being a stay at home mom until the middle and high school years, but now I find myself wanting it so badly but unable to afford to make that life choice. With that being said, I love teaching; I love the interactions I get to have every day with my students; I love my collegues; I love learning from all around me. I don’t however love the system that teaching has become. I don’t love the huge amount of time I’m having to put into the newer aspects of the job, like loading everything onto our LMS and trying to figure out how to make all of my lessons accessable to all of my students if they are out for a week with Covid. I don’t love, as you mentioned, that feeling of needing to be accessible to eveyone at all times of the day and night. I’m in a quandry. I have about 15 more years until retirement and don’t know how I will make it. It does help to hear that I’m not alone though, so thank you for sharing your frustrations. I appreciate all you do, not just for your family and your students, but for our AP community. Sending you as much energy as I can spare and lots of love.
Garreth Heidt
Very much appreciate this post, Brian. I’m 30 years in…, but 8 years in to the HS gig (taught MS for 22 years before that). My worries mirror yours as I have three children, all in their teens, one high functioning but with special needs. I am no the teacher I was 7, 10, 20 years ago. But I have found ways to carve out space for myself and to explore new areas of learning. After all, if WE aren’t learning, the job isn’t working for us.
(By the way, so much THIS: “I need to realize that I am resigning myself to a system that is taking me away from my true talents as a teacher. Success as a teacher does not come as a result of replying to emails and Google Chats as fast as possible.”
I’m presenting at this year’s Educon in Philadelphia on a few topics with some of my students. But I awoke at 3 AM the other morning with an idea for next year’s Educon–Something to the effect of how to stay “in the game” as a late-career teacher. I know you’re “mid-career” but you’ve accomplished so much and I was wondering if you’d consider talking over ideas and “life notes” and possibly thinking about co-presenting next year. It’s all in its nascent stages so far, but I’ll keep pecking at it. (No need to reply if you’d rather not. I appreciate the time you took to read this. )
But in the meantime, if you’d like to know a bit more about me. I blog here (https://onlyconnects.wordpress.com) and I maintain a website for my co-created class, NOVA Lab, here: http://www.pvhsnovalab.com )
Julie R
I’m 27 years in, and I have experienced all your post bemoans. Though I was never as ambitious as you to get involved in the AP community, and I stopped coaching after 9 years when I picked up Honors and AP Lit, I have also grappled with these pressures, some self-imposed, as I think the best teachers are always angling to get better. I admire you being the better dad when the kids were young. I found their infant and toddler years to be the hardest for me.
I have no magic answer. I don’t think there is one. My quit year was last year (2021-22), where I actively started looking for other jobs. I happen to work where my children attend school, though, and in my search elsewhere, it came to me, somewhat forcibly, that though I teach high school and they are not there yet, I don’t want to bail out on getting a front seat to their high school experience when they do. So I’ve stayed. (I also don’t want to loom too largely while they’re there, but that’s a different conversation . . . .)
Here are some thoughts, which will echo yours, but maybe with a couple other ideas:
1. This job pushes our boundaries all the time, so setting them is vital. Even doing so, I know there are weeks where I’ll have to blow past them to get the job done, but, like you: family first. I’ve had to go to my bosses and tell them that I will work very hard for them on-campus and that I’m willing to have work at home in the evenings, but I may not get to it if my children need help with their homework or we have their activities to account for. The overachiever in me who wants validation and gold stars from her superiors has been an inner voice I have to directly talk to in order to be a good Mom. But it’s an argument worth having with myself, even if I’m stubborn and have to have it almost every day.
2. I also have decided there has to be one day a week (usually Sunday for me, and though I am a person of redemptive faith, it is also the slowest day of our week) where I am not going to do any work for school. It’s counterintuitive, and there are times where I can’t completely step away. You’re also probably already doing the same, even if on a different day–a lot of people I know instinctively seem to recognize the need, even if it’s not been presented to them via fact. But that day clears my mind, gives me uninterrupted time with family, gives me some time to write creatively or get to projects near and dear to me. Then I go back at least mentally refreshed and ready to tackle the week.
3. From what I’ve read of your posts, you are great teacher. Your worst day of teaching is probably someone else’s best. An administrator said that to me once, and it has helped me when I haven’t met my own standards of what I had hoped to accomplish by way of research and/or planning better activities in class. I don’t suggest any teacher ever let themselves coast, but if we are feeling burnt out, it may be good to step back and benefit from the time and effort we’ve put in to this point, particularly if it helps us reset the sails to get our wind back.
4. When I was younger (and single), I used to be able to overhaul curriculum in a single bound (summer), but, alas, no longer. Bemoaning this with a colleague, he said he wrestles with the same problem. But he also said that if he made one positive change to his class(es) a year, in five years, his teaching would look completely different. So I’ve become content with smaller, more consistent changes over the long haul of time. You’re in for 18 years–you can already see the sea change from when you started. The same is true for me–I am a radically different, more polished teacher than when I started, and I am still morphing as I discover new techniques, even if I have implement them in bite-size pieces versus the preferred revolution.
I don’t know if any of this helps at all, but I offer them up as someone who felt very burned out last year and wanted OUT. This year has been better . . . not perfect, but better. Circle back to me in March when I’m buried under essays, and I may not chirp the same song. But I am thinking and wrestling with this every year, too. Part of my trouble is the restlessness I’ve always grappled with personally. This is the first time in my life I have an 18-year-plan–I currently foresee teaching until my kids graduate and probably through their college years. I can’t know that for certain, but if I look at it, it feels constraining. So I talk to myself about the benefits of staying planted in one place: to see its (hopeful) growth, to see its stability, to be part of an institution that constantly seeks to better itself and to have some contribution in that . . . and that’s along with the continued opportunity to interact with bright young minds, even if some of them I have to drag to the fountain of knowledge and hold their heads under till they take a sip. Thanks for your honesty about how hard this job is and how much it takes a toll. I hope you get your legs fully back under you soon.
Meredith
I can relate to this so much! I think of creative things I used to do and I’m wowed by my former self who was so inspired! I’d love to get her back somehow. I try to just create new, small things and not put too much pressure on myself.
Tom Panarese
Am I sure I didn’t write this? It’s like you’re in my head.
I can echo so much of what the other commenters said about how they feel, especially as this year grinds on. I’ve made a concerted effort to “work to the rule” as much as possible this year and it’s been very tough to do so. I have, however, been absolutely consistent in not even checking my email after I get home and on weekends. It can wait and those who are contacting me need to know that.
One thing I can add is that earlier in my career, I fell prey to the mentality that it wasn’t enough to be “just a teacher.” This was during the halcyon days of teacher blogging where being a “connected educator” meant that you were … I don’t know, important or something. I had a blog that I kept up pretty regularly, I participated in various twitter chats, and I really took this approach of educating as some sort of lifestyle choice. I stopped that a number of years ago, partially because I was interested in doing things other than talking about work on my free time, and because the whole experience made me feel sour. Too many echo chambers, too much deference to “influencers” and “thought leaders”, too much self-righteousness … I didn’t feel like people were being truly honest in their conversations and were more interested in either repeating talking points or selling their wares. From time to time, I think about starting something up again (I even have a plan written up for something) but then I remember why I don’t do it anymore. Plus, I have also come to realize that I’m allowed to be a teacher and think of this as a job. That’s been the most freeing thing about it.
ANYWAY, great post!