Teacher burnout is an actual condition that affects a large number of both newer and older teachers every year. When you first leave college and obtain a teaching license, you probably look forward to helping develop young minds and forming friendships with your students and fellow teachers. After a few years or more of grading assignments, trying to find new information for your students, dealing with parents and facing lower budgets though, you may feel a little burned out. Teachers like yourself can find ways to avoid this burnout.
Make Learning More Fun
When you teach straight from the textbook, you’ll feel just as bored as your students do. While most school districts require that you use the same materials year after year, you can still find ways to make learning a little more fun. Give your students assignments that let them come up with new activities relating to those materials that they can use in the classroom. You might hold trivia contests, watch movies relating to those topics and even take field trips to local sites. Those activities can keep you from burning out and keep your kids entertained too.
Change the Classroom
Changing things up a few times a year can also help you avoid burnout. If you stick to the same decorations all year long, you might find yourself staring at the walls and wishing that you were anywhere but in your classroom. Look for simple things you can do to change those decorations. You might hang up a bulletin board that you decorate with new streamers and cut outs around major holidays like Halloween and Christmas. Some teachers also like rearranging their rooms and changing the location of the students’ desks and other furniture.
Be More Flexible
A common reason why some suffer from teacher burnout is because they follow a rigid schedule. When you create your lesson plan, provide some flexibility within that plan. Instead of requiring that students spend five minutes reading quietly, 10 minutes of discussion and then more quiet time, give your students more time to go over the materials they read in class and the work they did at home. Encourage the kids to think outside of the box and connect their own lives to the materials. The more flexible you are, the less you’ll feel burned out using the same materials and resources year after year.
Take Advantage of Breaks
Franchesca Warren, who teaches herself, recommends that other teachers take full advantage of their breaks. According to Warren, teachers should spend the summers doing things that interest them and working in jobs other than teaching. If you teach all year long, you may burn out faster than those who take a few months off every year. Instead of working as a tutor, teaching classes part time or working with kids in a summer program, use the summer to relax and unwind from the previous year. Spend time taking walks outside, reading your favorite books and taking relaxing vacations with your loved ones.
No matter what career you choose, you may find yourself feeling burned out after a few years, but this problem is more common with teachers. Taking advantage of your breaks, being more flexible, changing up your classroom and making learning a little more fun helps you avoid teacher burnout.
Related Reading: 5 Signs It’s Time to Retire from Teaching
