An experience of Teacher burn-out

I began this article intending to write about my experience with occupational burnout in the hopes that other teachers would find solace in the knowledge that they are not alone; I thought of a niche to fill beyond the “Work smart, not hard”, “X number of ways to deal with burnout” or “The Y stages of burnout” (is this an algo thing? Must be). 

But instead, I want to talk about something unrelated, but not entirely.

Our societies, and consequently our schools, are in crisis mode. 

In the US, “extreme jobs” are increasingly the norm, the choice of drugs being extraordinary time demands and performance stressors; the feeling of constantly being pushed to the limit and overcoming the challenge gives a high that makes extreme work both exhilarating and seductive. A culture that lionizes extremism is likely to brag about pulling all-nighters, having no time for vacation, or typing away at our electronic devices – we see this in white-collar professionals as well as college students. 

Arguably, teaching can also be considered an “extreme” profession; however without the generous paycheck at the end of the month. I often hear that no one becomes a teacher with the hopes of becoming a billionaire. Sure, and in one way, I am grateful that there have been no salary raises in teaching (imagine the types we would attract then) because a financial incentive would only justify the long hours and stress toll, rather than address the root of the issue. 

The American School of Education lists four primary causes for teacher burnout: #1 poor funding; #2 high emotional demands; #3 inadequate preparations; and #4 challenging teaching situations. I’ve already addressed the first and would like to stress the second: high emotional demands. 

In the book The Body Keeps the Score, author and trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk presents “trauma as our most urgent public health issue”. Van der Kolk explores how children with trauma are more likely to experience challenges with learning and emotional self-regulation. Movement-based activities like dance, sports, theatre, and music are all recommended as healing modalities, something that can offer students a space and community that allows them to be seen and heard in ways beyond the rigour of formal education. This may not be news to most teachers reading this, but it leads to a few other questions: to what extent do our school schedules reflect a willingness to accommodate these activities? How much of this is dumped on teachers (linked to #3 inadequate preparations)? How much (and what kind of) support is provided to teachers who are coping with student trauma?

Here in India, Narayan Murthy the founder of Indian tech giant Infosys, claimed that Indian youth need to work 70 hours a day to enhance national work productivity. Murthy went on to cite the examples of Japan and Germany Post-WW2 (interestingly, van der Kolk also discusses how hyperfocus and workaholism are born out of trauma). At present, India has the world’s largest working population, with India’s IT boom often hailed as our golden ticket to “Developed” country status; however, a recent ILO report has found that Indians work the longest, earn the least, and are left with virtually no time for leisure. 

In a society that is hell-bent on producing billionaires and workaholics, that believes technological ingenuity to be the answer to our environmental and socioeconomic woes, it’s no surprise that the funding and demand for the arts have dropped significantly in recent years and are consequently slowly disappearing from school schedules altogether. Ask yourself this: If a STEM teacher needs an extra hour, which is the first class that’s considered? I don’t need to give you the answer to that. Teachers themselves, working long hours to meet the demands of their profession, are hardly sources of inspiration. Whether students are traumatised or not, we are hardly creating the space for them to cultivate empathy within themselves and others. Nor are our cultures accommodating anyone who diverges from the norm of conventional “nation-building” STEM careers. 

A friend of mine recently told me that his second-grade teacher was his favourite for the simple reason that she put in an hour a week to help him cope with the demands of the class. “It was the first time I’d felt seen and noticed in that way” is what he said. 

Strategies to “engage” and “enhance student performance” fall under the umbrella of differentiation during professional development. Brain breaks (who came up with the ridiculous idea to call it “brain gym”?), multi-ability grouping (or is it grouping according to ability? Not sure what’s in trend anymore), et al are deployed as ways for students of all learning styles to access the lesson. We have to equate better differentiation with the time to produce more differentiated materials and creative differentiating strategies. One without the other is only offering lip service. 

Let’s consider “strategies” through which we can allow our students to be seen, I mean, really feel recognised and valued as a part of the community. Not so easy to fit into a PowerPoint presentation, is it? 

At one of the schools I worked in, I had nine classes across middle and high schools. It felt impossible to be attentive to each student as well as the relationships among the different groups. Seating plans and word walls? Forget it. To then simply blame teachers for not grasping “student agency” or “inquiry-based learning” is gaslighting and, frankly speaking, ignorance of the ground reality. Teachers need time and support to design an authentic and responsive learner-centred experience. 

Hurt people hurt people – this is oft-quoted amongst mental health professionals. Consequently, most mental health therapists in training have a supervisor and a therapist of their own. Teacher trainees too, are paired with mentors, but this relationship is usually lost in the rigmarole of daily demands. When we hear of cynical teachers, of teachers who routinely lose their temper at their students, it’s not because they’re terrible people; their cynicism may be an outcome of burnout (Level 3 according to Edutopia’s “How Burned Out Are You” Scale) poor student behaviour (that can sometimes teeter on the verge of verbal and/or physical abuse). 

Behaviour management in schools often falls back on punitive punishment strategies such as strikes, detentions, and suspensions to “correct” students. Teaching teachers and students to become aware of their own perceptions of dangers; how to manage their relationships; and how to befriend their bodies is going to take more than a brief PSHE unit delivered through Google Slides – it requires a radical curriculum reform that gives social-emotional learning an equal standing to academic learning. 

Furthermore, there is little support provided to staff who may be traumatised by such experiences or are experiencing what the USA-based National Child Traumatic Stress Network calls secondary trauma (also known as vicarious trauma): the serious emotional and psychological stress experienced when one person hears about the firsthand traumatic experiences of another. This becomes especially salient when teachers themselves are emotionally drained and lack the language and space to process and articulate these feelings and experiences.

I first suspected burnout when the doctor prescribed me three days off (followed by a week and then two…) as a remedy to a mysterious stomach illness that left my body fatigued and incapable of absorbing any nutrients. Twice I was on drips. “Sleep, take a walk, go look at some art”, is how he responded, “but DON’T work”. After the two-week-long break, I returned to a pile of unmarked exam papers at my desk and a “suggestion” from the management that they hire a former employee to lighten my load. The suggestion felt patronising. There was no recognition on their end of an unrealistic workload, and no offer for mentoring beyond “You hold yourself to standards that are too high”. 

Quitting teaching is a grieving process. I am mourning the loss of a life I expected, and I am angered with the current state of the profession as well as my inability to “stick with it”.  I am 30 years old and feel like a 22-year-old college graduate because the only experience I have is in this very niche profession that nobody really knows much about. Teachers are smart, creative, and capable, and yet the only positions I’m qualified for are that of an intern.