Teacher Stress in Public Education

Everyone knows that teaching is a stressful job, but many outside education have a hard time understanding exactly what makes it so stressful. People always used to say to me, "Teaching kids all day must be really stressful!" I'm here to tell you, it's actually not. Don't come after me, let me finish. Teaching kids is the single best and most rewarding part of the job. If that's the case, then why is the profession so stressful? A number of reasons.

Compassion Fatigue During COVID is Becoming Overwhelming

Teaching requires a tremendous amount of compassion. At any given moment, a teacher can expect a majority of her students to be struggling with something outside the classroom. Parents' job loss, relationship and family problems, issues with money...these are just some of the factors that weigh heavy on the minds of even our youngest learners. During a global pandemic, these problems have been exacerbated exponentially. Lockdown put millions of people out of work. People everywhere got sick; many died. Kids are coming into the classroom devastated and scared. Those emotional needs must be addressed (or at least taken into account) before meaningful learning can occur. For many students, the most trusted adult in their lives are their teachers. Teachers serve as parental figures and counselors along with many of them caring for their students basic needs (like food and personal care items) as well. When I taught at a Title I high school, there wasn't a teacher in the building that didn't have a stash of items like granola bars and deodorant in their rooms. It's hard watching kids suffer. When the ones who are suffering outnumber those who aren't, it can be impossible to keep continuing the fight.

Teaching is Only a Fraction of What the Job Is Now

Decades ago in the halcyon days of education, a young teacher would breeze into her classroom, deliver her lesson to a group of enraptured students who would then immediately start their assignments while she worked at her desk. Or at least that was I envision teaching during decades past was like. It probably wasn't nearly so idyllic. But I can say, with 100% certainty that the demands of the job outside the classroom grow at a breakneck pace with every passing year.

When administrators are observing teachers, they aren't ever supposed to be just "sitting at their desks." In the eyes of admin, this means they must "doing nothing." These are the same administrators who want teachers to take perfectly accurate roll, check their emails every half hour, ensure grades are always up-tp-date, contact parents, fill out endless paperwork, write referrals, type and send lesson plans... Those tasks must get accomplished, but they cannot get accomplished during the classroom day. That list doesn't even include the single biggest time-suck teachers face-grading.

Self-Care is a Luxury Teachers Can't Afford

Administrators and mental health professionals alike, like to repeat the mantra, "Make time for self-care!" I can't tell you how many times in the last two years I've heard that useless line. What makes it so infuriating? We simply do not have the time.

Self-care looks different to different people. For some, it might be engaging in a favorite hobby. For others, it might be exercise or meditation. But with all the demands that a teaching job entails, there just largely isn't time for these activities. For teachers who have kids and families of their own, you can bet that they're devoting almost every available free second in their long days to being there for their kids and partners. A teacher's third-grader still needs help with her homework. A teacher's high school basketball star wants her to be at his twice-weekly varsity games.

So when admin says, "make time for self-care and rest" while continuing to get all your grading, lesson planning and paperwork done during your free time, it's impossible not to laugh.

Systems Change at an Impossible Pace

There is no denying technology is central in most of our lives. (I apologize for just having written the most cliche sentence to ever enter the blogosphere.) It's central to teaching as well The problem is this-there is no one company or system or software tool designed to do it all in the classroom. Here's an average breakdown of the systems an average teacher uses:

One for grading & attendance
One master LMS (learning management system) where all the lessons are stored and presented
One for their professional development and evaluations
One for student test data
One to create engaging lessons
One for helping students enter college (writing recommendation letters)
One for tracking special populations
One for entering help desk tickets
One for state testing
One for requesting a substitute/calling in
One for viewing their benefits/direct deposits

And every year, a teacher can expect at least 3 of these to have either been replaced or undergone sweeping changes. For those of us who grew up on the internet, it's a pain, but it's a doable annoyance. For the older generation, it's "If I have to learn a new program, that's it. I'm retiring." Schools are losing some of their most qualified and experienced educators because they're being forced to teach in a language they don't understand that changes with the passing whims of their school board.

When Students Fail, it's Always Seen as the Teacher's Fault

In my last year in the classroom, I had well over 100 students. I was not allowed to give a student a failing grade until I had made three attempts to contact their parent, offered tutoring to the student both before or after school, used at least three intervention strategies within the class period, and documented all of these actions. This is true for every student who fails-even the ones who refuse to so much as pick up a pencil. In short, I was working harder to earn their grades than the students were. This system results in students who think (and rightly so) they'll receive endless chances and teachers who are burned out.

In my last semester, I had a failure rate that hovered around 15% (a number that was viewed as completely unacceptable). Previously, it had never been above 5%. I was; however, teaching the only open elective on our campus that was only one semester. I had volunteered to teach an extra section of that elective (instead of my favorite advanced level class) so admin had more slots to place kids who needed remedial assistance. I was teaching almost every student on campus who had previously failed the second semester of one of their core classes. Never were any of those factors considered when I was being reprimanded.

When I chose to leave the classroom in December, I was most often met with this response from my coworkers, "Oh my gosh! I'm so jealous!!" The public school system will soon face a reckoning, so parents, private schools, independent tutors....get ready.