I want to be completely honest. Being a teacher is extremely exhausting! Every teacher out there knows just how much goes into planning each lesson. There can be countless hours of time spent planning an engaging and creative lesson, not to mention the prep work that goes into that lesson. But, being a teacher has so much more to it than just planning. As a teacher you are responsible for constant encouragement, being the disciplinary, educating future leaders, and teaching students how to be good people. On top of all that being a student teacher is really, really tough, you start from nothing. When you have been in the profession for years you accumulate resources, you find different, easier, more efficient ways of teaching, and you just know more, PERIOD. There is a lot that goes into this profession and I can’t even pretend there is a way to get rid of all that burnout that comes along with it. However, there are some things you can do to limit student teacher burnout.
GET IN HABITS
Habits always make life just a little bit easier and this is especially true when you are completing a teaching practicum. Getting in daily or weekly habits will eliminate, or at least lessen a lot of potential stress that comes along with student teaching. With teaching comes a whole lot of assessment, documenting, and educating. With every summative assignment or assessment you give get in the habit of marking these right away. Ideally, the day of! One of the best habits I got into during my first student teaching placement was marking as my students actually completed their assignments. When my students performed their T.U.S.C presentations every Monday I would have them go up to the front, give their speech, and by the time their 5 minutes was up and they were sitting in their desk I would have their marks and comments back to them. Honestly, this was a life saver for me. This meant that when the students were done their assignment I was also done my marking!
Although report cards weren’t really one of my requirements, assessment was and I believe written feedback is far better than numerical feedback. Therefore, after every assignment I would type out 2-4 sentences saying what each student was successful with, what they struggled with, and what their next step should be.
The habits you create will depend very much on your class, teaching style, and the classes you teach. No matter what these might be, creating habits will really help you stay on top of all your teacher duties and will help you do the best you can as an educator.
THINGS AREN’T ALWAYS GOING TO GO AS PLANNED, ACCEPT IT
One of the easiest ways to get into burnout phase as a student teacher is to not accept change. As a student teacher you work extremely hard to create the best lesson possible and you know that it might not go exactly as planned but sometimes that lesson will go NOTHING like you had planned. This can be really hard when you put your all into your teaching. But, as a student teacher you have limited time in the classroom so accepting change is crucial not only to the success of your teaching, but most importantly to the success of your students.
If you spend your time trying to make something work that your students really aren’t on board with then you are setting yourself up to crash and burn. Although it is tough to accept change you need to. I always tell myself that change is good and adapting to change is going to make me a better teacher. When you accept that things aren’t always going to go as planned then you save yourself a whole lot of emotional stress.
STAY TRUE TO YOU
“Don’t smile until Christmas!” You are going to hear that or similar things time and time again. This basically means let the kids know you don’t put up with nonsense and that your buttons cannot be pushed. Although respect for the teacher and students should always be #1 in every classroom, some teachers are really tough on their students. My first placement I was told not to be so nice and that I need to show the students I am mad when they do not meet classroom expectations. I tried taking this advice and implementing it in my second student teaching placement but let me tell you, this was hard. Getting mad is not something I do, it takes a lot to push my buttons, and pretending otherwise was by far the most exhausting thing I did as a student teacher.
Fighting to be someone you are not is not the answer. Students see right through any part of you that is not authentic and in turn connecting with them will be more challenging, which will make your day to day life in the classroom more difficult than you know.
Everyone has a different teaching style because everyone is a different teacher and that is one of the most amazing things about education!!! No matter what your style is: tough, empathetic, humorous, nerdy, being true to who you are will make teaching the most enjoyable it can be.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
At my university we have a faculty supervisor come evaluate us periodically throughout our student teaching placement and the best advice my supervisor gave me was to take time for myself and to not feel guilty about it.
When you’re working in a school there are germs literally everywhere and you are going to catch something at some point. So get lots of sleep and avoid sickness at all cost. You are also going to want to do an amazing job on your placement so inevitably you are going to put a ton of time into your teaching. Although this hard work is admirable, take time for yourself, pamper yourself, give yourself lots of breaks, spend time with people who make you happy, read and watching things not related to education, hit the gym, go out with friends, do things that make you happy. You are going to be working harder than you anticipated, you deserve time to do what you want to do. And these should be things that have nothing to do with teaching, and you do not need to feel guilty about that.
Teachers are always the most successful when they enjoy what they do. So, do yourself and your students a favour and do what you can to not burn yourself out!