Apr 10, 2024 at 6_04_25 PM

The podcast episode discusses the topic of teacher burnout and the importance of normalizing this experience. Teacher burnout is defined as losing passion for teaching and being unable to complete daily tasks with joy. The episode provides tips for identifying teacher burnout, such as increased anxiety around school, feeling constantly on edge, and losing joy in the job. It also offers strategies to prevent burnout, including setting boundaries, following a routine, finding interests outside of school, prioritizing rest, and remembering that teaching is a job, not one's entire life. The next episode will focus on preparing for state testing. Hello and welcome back to the podcast A Day in the Life. I'm your host April Altmeyer and today we're going to talk about another teacher topic because on this podcast we talk about teacher topics that would happen a day in the life. This podcast is important because we talk about things and we normalize things so that teachers know that they're not alone. These are things that all teachers experience in their life while being teachers and I think it's important that we start to normalize that a day in the life of teaching looks different for everyone but there are things that happen to all of us. So today's topic is one that is very important to me and one that I've been wanting to talk about for a long time now and that is teacher burnout. Teacher burnout seems to be happening a lot lately. If you follow any form of social media, if you're in any world of teaching, you know that teachers are leaving the field of education at an astronomical rate and a lot of that is due to teacher burnout. Teacher burnout is defined as, it's defined as when you no longer have passion for your job. You don't find joy in teaching and you don't see yourself being able to complete the normal task of teaching on a daily basis anymore. Teaching is a job of passion and when we are unable to complete our job with passion then this job simply becomes too hard and that's when you hit your wall of teacher burnout. So today I'm going to discuss some ways to identify teacher burnout, see if you have these things and then of course getting into how you can prevent these things and how you can help because not everyone who has teacher burnout wants to leave the classroom. Some people want to stay but they want some things to change. So first let's talk about how you can identify yourself as having teacher burnout and if you are experiencing these things you may be someone who is falling into that window of teacher burnout. So the first one is having increased anxiety around school. Maybe on the weekends or when it starts to hit nine o'clock you start to experience some kind of anxiety. At first you may not even know that it's about teaching, you're not related to it but you when you start to track it your anxiety is because of school or around the time of school. Another thing is feeling fight or fight, that fight or flight anxiety when you're at school. Always feeling on edge, never seeming to find a rhythm, always looking over your shoulder. These are things that show that you are tense at school and you are not willing to do your job at that time or not able to do your job. And finally not talking about your job with joy or not finding joy in your job. This is a telltale sign that you are in teacher burnout. You're no longer laughing about your students, laughing about your kids but you are more feeling like everything is just a downer and you cannot find the joy in the day-to-day. So how are some tips to avoid that? I know we don't have a lot of time on this podcast today so I want to quickly go through some tips that could help you avoid teacher burnout. We're all going to laugh at this one together when I say it but find that work-life balance. I know that sounds silly but I'm going to tell you how to do that. First set boundaries for yourself and stick to them. Tell yourself these are my hours to work. We all say contract hours but if you need 30 before and 30 after take it and stick to it. Follow a routine. This is one that is huge. I am someone who can't get all my work done during the day at school but following a routine of okay this is what I do on Tuesday night. I get my plans ready for the next week on Wednesday night. During this planned time I do this. Having a plan and a routine helps you stay ahead of your work and so you don't feel so burnt out. Find something you're interested in outside of school. Not your whole life has to be about teaching so make sure you have a hobby. Pickleball is huge right now. Working out, reading, book club, dinner with friends. Give yourself something to look forward to outside of the classroom because that is going to give you that little bit of joy and make you feel human again. A big one that's important is rest. You cannot do this job when you are burnt out and when you are tired. Give your body time to recover. Give yourself time to not do everything perfect. And finally be okay with doing things tomorrow. This is a hard one for me to get over but once you do it a couple times you'll survive. Be okay with closing the computer because that's the boundary you set and picking it back up again tomorrow. Finally remind yourself that teaching is a job. It's not your life but it is a job so just remember that as you move forward. We didn't have a lot of time on this podcast today so I know we're only diving deep into future burnout but I hope if I identified you that you were able to get something an aha moment or get a light bulb from this and you were able to set a routine or put something in place to remind yourself that teaching is a job and it's not your life. Next week we're going to talk about something that is looming over everybody's heads right now and that is state testing. We're going to talk about how to prep for state testing for yourself and your students and how to do the best on the test. We'll see you next time on A Day in the Life. Have a good week.