Teaching During the Year 2020

By Stacy Novak, WATG Board Member
This school year sure has been stressful for all teachers. Everyone is experiencing different circumstances, but they all provide stress and burnout the same way. Teachers are dealing with virtual learning, hybrid learning, changes within the classroom if in person, students and teachers having to quarantine at various times throughout the school year, and possibly even going back and forth from in-person to virtual and back again.
I also have been experiencing stress and burnout throughout the school year. For my gifted and talented program, I teach three grade levels (third, fourth, and fifth). This means I have three grade levels to plan activities for in social studies, math, and spelling. I do whole class activities for reading, writing, and science. This was normal the last two years as well; however, now since the students have to stay in my room the whole day, I have to teach all grade levels religion as well (they used to go to their grade level for religion class). I have one students who is virtual and many students who have had to quarantine throughout the year due to exposures or not feeling well (thankfully, no positive cases, though!), so I make my lessons into Google Slides so the students get the whole lesson if they are not present at school. This takes up a lot of time to put the lesson into a Google Slide and make it look nice. I also record all math lessons, so that means recording three grade levels of math.
One Day at a Time
As the 2020-2021 school year has unfolded, I have learned that you have to take the school year one day at a time and not focus too far into the future. The year 2020 has definitely taught us that anything can happen at the snap of a finger, so we have to be flexible and understanding.
 
In order to help myself avoid burnout this school year, I have done a few things:

• Make Lists and Prioritize Them ~ Every Friday night/Saturday morning, I create a list of things I want to accomplish over the weekend (both school and personal). I prioritize the list so I am able to get what really needs to be done completed, but do not feel bad if not everything on the list gets crossed off.
• Set Boundaries ~ This is something I have always had trouble with, but I am starting to make sure that I am not always responding to/sending out emails to families and staff on weeknights and weekends unless it is necessary. This allows me to have my own time to myself and not feel like I need to be responding to emails at all times of the day.
• Don’t Stay Late at School ~ Thinking about the past ten years of teaching, I used to get to school at least half an hour before I needed to and then stayed until somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00pm. This year I am making a conscious decision to leave right at our contract time (3:30pm). There have only been a handful of times that I have stayed past 4:00 this year. This has allowed me to go home and have some time for myself and my family before going to bed.
• Make a Routine at Home ~ On week nights and weekends, I make a routine for myself. There are some nights when I come home and work on some things for school, but I also make sure I set aside time to read, watch TV, relax, etc. Around the same time every night, I try to crawl into bed and read my book (a book for fun, not a professional development book) before going to sleep. This helps me to relax my brain and think about other things than school.
• Family First! ~ I believe myself and my family should always come before my school work!! We cannot do a good job at school if we do not take care of ourselves first. I make sure I make time for myself and my family at all times. Some things I have been doing during this time (either independently or with family) include: painting, different traditions (ex: going to see Christmas lights, making Christmas cookies, etc.), crafts, reading, relaxing with a good TV show or movie, listening to Podcasts, etc.

A New Year, A New You
​As we come to a new year, set goals for yourself and stick to them! Make a plan for how you want to proceed in the year 2021 in order to help you avoid teacher burnout. Then come back to that plan once a week to see how well you have stuck to it and reflect on what you can do to improve.

The Not So Wimpy Teacher said it best on her Podcast when she said, “News flash: your value is not tied to the number of hours you work. Your value is what you do with those hours”
​(5 Ways to Spend Less Time at School).
I hope this post has given you some insight on how to prevent burnout this school year.
Please share what you do to prevent burnout!!