Four Tips to Prevent Teacher Burnout
Teacher burnout is all the buzz. Psychology today describes burnout as, "a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment."
Many teachers experience this burnout due to the ever-changing demands of being an educator in the 21st century. Below are four ways to curve teacher burnout.
Time Management- Having a system for managing all the demands of teaching is vital to ensuring you don’t get overwhelmed and over worked.
Work in chunks- I recommend creating specific blocks of time to work on tasks needed to fulfill teaching requirements. For example: On Mondays you could lesson plan for the week ahead. On Tuesdays you could create PowerPoints and gather materials for said lessons. On Wednesdays you could follow up with parents, On Thursdays you could grade papers. Lastly, you could use Friday’s for any other administrative duties. The key is to do the same TYPE of work at the same time.
Plan ahead- When you fail to plan you plan to fail! If you know in the coming weeks you have Parent Teacher Conferences and grades due it’s probably important to start creating portfolios for students in your class. By looking ahead at your calendar you can curve stressful weeks and walk into them knowing you are prepared because you planned ahead.
Take frequent breaks- While doing your work take small breaks to hydrate yourself, talk to a family and/or watch/read something funny. Try not to take yourself too seriously!
I hope these tips helped you! Do you have any tips that will curve teacher burnout?
