Passion leads to Burnout

This article is part of a series on teacher's burnout and beyond. It looks at some of the additional work that teachers are asked to do, and the effect it has on their enthusiasm for teaching. It also looks at the social mechanics behind the additional work.

This is a work of fiction, to describe what happens when more straws are added to the camel's back.

From the start, I loved teaching. I loved being the teacher.

I loved planning lessons on Sunday afternoons. It felt good to know what I would be teaching in the coming week - it gave me a sense of control. I loved giving extra lessons after school to students who had fallen behind - it gave me a sense of purpose. I even loved Parent Evenings. I liked telling parents how well their children were doing in class, how they had improved their grades. I felt successful as a teacher. I was not so fond of telling parents that their child had fallen behind or was behaving oddly. Luckily, those parents usually did not come to such meetings.

The resentment began with a tiny addition to my workload.

“Everyone takes a lunch duty every two weeks”, Admin told me. So I did too. Until then, I had spent my lunch breaks eating lunch and reading student’s work, and doing a bit of planning. But that would have to wait whilst I stood under an umbrella and watched students playing nicely in front of me.

When Admin asked me to submit my lesson plans, it didn’t bother me much. I had already written them some weeks in advance. But nobody came to see my lessons, to see if I was keeping to my plans. I never got any feedback. writing lesson plans seemed like another waste of time. I reasoned that Admin needed to know what was being taught so they too could feel a sense of control. School can be a chaotic work environment.

Later Admin added, “We want you to write a report on what you have been teaching. Three times a term should be enough.” I resisted, saying that they had already got my plans. They told me, “If it’s not written down in a report, you didn’t do it.”

What a cheek! Don’t they trust me?

I felt strongly that the time I spent on collating a month's worth of lesson plans and notes was a waste of my time. I wanted to be planning the next lessons, marking books. Not that I wanted to mark books, but at least giving feedback to the students is closer to teaching than writing a report for someone who didn't have the time to observe my lessons. Reporting my lessons? That was unnecessary administration work. What made it worse was the standard form they gave me for the report. It was different form how I kept my notes. To match the questions on the form, I had to rewrite my lesson plans and notes. It took an hour a week. A waste of my time!

But I was passionate about teaching. I pushed through my objections and resentment week after week.

Unknown to me, the stress of being monitored in this way was building up in my body. A series of headaches and feverish colds sent me to the Doctor. He prescribed antidepressants. For a cold? No. The doctor had looked past the symptoms and asked, “What’s different in your life these past months?” I babbled on for twenty minutes. I might have cried too. But I’m a man and I don’t admit to such things. But, yes, I felt better after talking to the Doctor.

I took anti-depressants. I felt better taking them. At least, I did not feel stressed as much. I didn’t worry as much. I didn’t care as much. After three months of taking pills, I didn’t care at all.

I wrote lesson plans using the forms provided. I taught lessons according to the plan. I wrote lesson reports using the forms provided. I stopped giving extra lessons to students who fell behind. I stopped caring whether I had good or bad news for the parents who bothered to turn up for parents meetings.

One weekend, I was about to write up the lesson plans for the coming week, I sat for an hour and wrote nothing. I had stopped caring about teaching. That took me to a whole new depth of depression. My whole identity and purpose was tied to being a good teacher. As my identity began to crumble, I lost my sense of purpose.

I went to the Doctor. He suggested stronger tablets.

In the next article, I will tell you about the options that emerged and how I rediscovered my passion for teaching.