[After writing this post it sounds sort of depressing. I want to preface it by saying that I am having the time of my life teaching. It is an incredible amount of work, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.]
Today is a special day; it marks the day of being exactly half way done with my credential program (time wise of course, not experientially). I just finished my last presentation of the last paper I had to write. I realized that this week I have turned in three essays totaling about ninety-five pages (though thirty-five were appendices, title pages, and tables of contents). I never thought of myself as much of a writer, but I guess times change.
So how would you celebrate this feat? I think I am going to celebrate by getting sick. Well, maybe celebrate is the wrong word. I merely haven’t allowed myself to be sick in a while because I know that that given the amount I was working that it would completely destroy me. I have felt this coming for a long time, but now I don’t have any important reason to why I need to be in peak health.
In any case, now that I am done with this hellish week I can take a moment to step back and think about my experiences teaching. I have observed my CT and my school a lot this semester. My school is definitely a unique place. One of the defining characteristics of my work environment is that the teachers essentially run the school and that they work incredibly hard for their students. Often times my host teacher is still at the high school by the time I get out of classes from graduate school. It seems like he is constantly at the limit of what he can humanly do. The amount of time he puts into his job outside of the actual teaching part is phenomenal (he once told me that the only time he doesn’t feel stressed out is when he is teaching). The funny thing is that I don’t think he is unique. I have heard similar sentiments from many others about how much work there is when you’re teaching the way you really want to.
Often times in the past few years I would find myself thinking that my goal as a teacher is to provide my students with the best education possible. Recently I have been second guessing my definition of what exactly is ‘possible.’ I can’t help but wonder whether or not the education I want to give to my student requires that I give up every single other aspect of my life; whether or not the way I want to teach will require me to schedule sick days so they fit into my calendar.
It seems to me that the fact of the matter is that teachers aren’t underpaid – they’re overworked. What if I had only forty students? Could I provide the best possible education then? What if I could provide assistance to every student when they come asking for it. What if I didn’t have to sacrifice attention to one student just so I could help another? Would things be better then? I know that none of this is going to happen in the foreseeable future, but it’s just a thought.
I feel like I am in a double bind. On one hand, I want to do everything in my power to be a good teacher. On the other hand, I don’t want to burn myself out or sacrifice my own life to my profession. Are these two goals at all compatible? Sometimes I wonder if I really want my job to be the only feature of my identity. Given my personal goals, I can’t help but question whether or not this is inevitable.
What do you do?
Get out of my mind Shiner! I was probably like your CT until I had my first kid. Then my world changed. I’m fiercely protective of my time with my kids. I *try* to make it time with them only. I find school creeping in but I attempt to push it out. That being said, I do stress out that I’ll never come close to that mythical teacher me that’s in my head. Where every kid learns and my class is full of rainbows and unicorns.
That being said, the bulk of my free time that’s not with my kids is devoted to teaching in some way. Either actually planning or just reading teaching books or blogs etc. Like you said, there’s just not enough time. I’ve learned to cope by trying to focus on getting really good at just a couple things. I think a lot about assessment. I work on a few schoolwide issues. But I spend literally zero time on other parts of being a good teacher. I’m not a bang up classroom manager and I don’t devote huge amounts of time to developing these incredible labs/projects. Some teachers are really good at those. The amount that I’ve improved in those areas just came from teaching experience, not any sort of dedicated effort.
I think a good example is Dan Meyer who’s basically spent the last four years thinking about what makes a good problem. I’m sure he would tell you that other parts of his teaching repertoire stagnated because he had to choose his priorities.
I think that’s helped with burnout. I know I’m getting better at those things. It feeds me. OTOH, if I was just trying to get better at everything, the lack of visible progress would kill me.
Wow, Jason. I could not possibly agree more with you even if I crawled into your head and took a seat on your reptilian brain stem.
So much of succeeding at this teaching life is about choosing your battles. And focusing on exceeding expectations at some important part of the job. And making a proactive decision to let go of everything else.
There really isn’t enough time to focus on everything. I feel fortunate to have had enough time in previous careers and educational paths to have experienced this directly. It helps to hear other great and more experienced teachers like you and Dan Meyer and Sam Shah and Kate Nowak say as much about your own teaching practice. The only way to not burn out is to focus on doing the greatest possible good for the widest possible audience while also taking good care of your own brain and body so you can wake up and do it again the next day — and the next and the next.
So thank you, Z, for bringing this up. And thank you Jason for confirming based on your own experience. I have to go call a student’s parent and then go to bed so I can wake up and make some modicum of sense tomorrow.
Elizabeth (aka @cheesemonkeysf on Twitter)
Setting realistic goals is important but necessary. In my dream job I would have three or four hours to prepare each lesson, like my friends who teach university math have. I, and you, have a lot less time – and that’s just the constraints if our jobs. So even though I really really want to improve everything at once, especially now that through blogging I’ve seen how much there is to improve, it’s just a fact of life that I have to prioritize.
I find it helps to make explicit other values as well: time with family, time to relax, time to be ill. Also, to separate ambition from responsibility. You, me, and all teachers have the right to have a meaningful life outside of work, and if being sick interferes with our students progress then that’s the students’ or school leaders’ responsibility, not ours, even if ambitionwise of course we want the best for the students. It also helps to work only 80% and have Fridays off, this gives me time to snap out of work-mode during weekends.