Education Week presented four tips from Kelly Scott, in her eighth year as a secondary English teacher in Chesterfield, Va., to ease the year-end emotional drain when you’re already feeling burnt out.
1) Limit negative teacher social media.
Following teacher accounts on Instagram and TikTok is pretty much synonymous with teaching these days. But if your feed is inundated with only the most harrowing tales of bad student behavior, deplorable admin antics, and teachers confessing their desperate longings to leave the profession, this negativity will affect your own mindset and attitude.
Try balancing the negative with some lighthearted professional content and be sure to follow some humorous nonteacher-related accounts to sprinkle in humor. Getting through the long haul is difficult enough without immersing yourself in anecdotes about how awful teaching can be.
2) Watch out for venting vampires.
“Venting vampires” release all their pent-up anger, frustration, and disillusionment with a particular class, this particular school year, or the entire public education system in general.
Listening to a colleague vent now and then can be validating and build camaraderie, but being on the receiving end of nonstop venting can suck the energy from you, leaving you feeling worse.
If you find yourself on the constant receiving end of a venting vampire, offer a vaguely positive statement to interrupt the negativity such as “My class has actually been pretty cooperative this week” and move on.
Be aware of how the attitudes of those around you can shape your feelings toward your time in the classroom, especially during long stretches without a break.
3) Limit mindless scrolling for job opportunities.
If you are feeling burnt out, or seasonal depression is sinking in, be mindful of how much time you devote to job scrolling. It may turn into obsessive searching and thinking the grass is greener elsewhere. This could lead to applying for jobs just to “see what happens,” which might lead to making a rash decision about your career.
Excessive job searching can also make you disengage from your current job, compounding negative feelings you may already have. If you didn’t think about leaving the profession before the long days of winter, stay in touch with how much time you are spending looking at other job opportunities. If you are using it to escape reality, this could result in feeling even more dissatisfied.
4) Take a strategic mental health day.
Taking a strategically timed mental health day can give you something to look forward to, but it’s essential to make it count. Once you schedule the day, activate an out-of-office email response to completely unplug.
Don’t use your day off to grade papers or to get ahead on planning. Your only planning should be an indulgent activity for yourself. For this day to be worth using your sick time, it must be beneficial to your mental well-being. So be selfish and make the day all about you. This could be the very boost you need to keep you going.
Education Week
