My mom and I took a cruise to Alaska over the summer. It was a more formal cruising style and for dinner we were assigned dining partners. Our first dining partner was a 65+ retired man who spent his time travelling around the western hemisphere with various companions. I kid you not. The one this year (well, the last 2 years) was a 40-something home economics teacher from Texas. They were a hoot.
But this lady, goodness…she should not be allowed back into the classroom. She called her former students “gnats.” She told me I should never go into teaching, especially not high school. That I’d never change or impact these kids lives. I had to stop myself from laughing. I wanted to tell her that if she really thought that she never made an impact, positive or negative, on her student’s lives then she was surely delusional. During dinner, this woman got up to use the bathroom. My mom leaned over and whispered (not that she would have needed to, the man already had 2 bottles of wine so he wasn’t much occupied with us) that she was clearly burnt out and needed to get out of the school. She probably was impacting her students negatively. I shouldn't let her get to me.
Last week in my education preparation class we started talking about teachers and stress. How new teacher stress is different from normal teacher stress. How 40% of education grads will get a job and won't hold it for 3 years before leaving the field permanently. It's over 60% for after 5. And maybe it's that they changed career paths, maybe it's that they are now married with kids, maybe they died of being over-stressed. Regardless. They're gone from being a formal educator for good.
I'm concerned about becoming one of those statistics. I helped out one hour last Monday and then on an all day field trip and I thought to myself that I simply couldn't stand it. On Wednesday I felt ill, so I told my teacher I wouldn't be coming in. I probably could have, but I was so relieved to just have an excuse to not go in, even just for that hour. I actually did get worse as the day went on, so I ended up not going to volunteering later, but I had been dreading that since waking up in the morning. If there were any doubt in my mind about being a high school educator, this would have knocked the questions out of me. I can't deal with people who are younger than 14 for days on end. I simply can't deal with it. I'm not certain I'll be able to deal with 14 year olds every day, but hopefully I'll serve my time and then get the Honors track kiddos, or higher power willing, the college bound AP students.
So I'm starting to focus on how I can prevent burn out. They say it's because of a lot of stress, so you have to know how to balance your work life and your home life. Try not to bring grading home with you, get it all done at school. Go in early and stay late and deal with all your students' problems (b/c you're their awesome teacher, you have to be there for them 24/7), but don't let that flow into your home. It seems contradictory to me, so I'm ignoring that. I'm going to find an outside place to relieve stress. I'm also hoping to incorporate exercise into this.
I've been researching yoga studios in the city and there's a few different options. Unfortunately, yoga isn't exactly an inexpensive thing to pick up, so I'm starting with a few community classes on the weekends after break. We'll see where things go from there. This is kinda my only idea for stress relief so far. I'm trying to think of what I do when I get angry or need to get away. I go driving on random roads, I eat a lot of ice cream, I roller blade, I spend time with dogs. This semester it's been mostly the ice cream. I'd do the roller blading more if the trails around here were paved and not gravel. I can volunteer at the local humane society, but I need to get my future job in order. I know most of the roads around the city by now and, as I said, cutting back on the ice cream. So! Yoga! What do you guys think? Will I completely fail at this or will it actually do some good?
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