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- The Happy Elementary School Teacher: Self-Care Habits to Avoid Burnout, De-Stress and Take Care of Yourself by Matilda Walsh (she has books for middle and high school educators as well)
- The Burnout Cure: Learning to Love Teaching Again by Chase Mielke
- The Teacher's Guide to Self-Care: Build Resilience, Avoid Burnout, and Bring a Happier and Healthier You to the Classroom by Sarah Forst
- Surviving Teacher Burnout: A Weekly Guide to Build Resilience, Deal with Emotional Exhaustion, and Stay Inspired in the Classroom by Amy L. Eva, PhD
- Don't Just Survive, Thrive: A Teacher's Guide to Fostering Resilience, Preventing Burnout, and Nurturing Your Love for Teaching by SaraJane Herrboldt

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High-stakes assessments.
Unruly students.
Difficult parents.
Last-minute principal walkthroughs.
A lack of resources or time.
A global pandemic.

These alone are enough to make anyone leave any profession without batting an eye.

Many teachers prepare their entire life for the role, often "playing school" as youngsters and dreaming of becoming a teacher. It takes approximately four to six years of formal education or training to become a teacher. Teachers are also supposed to have weekends, holidays, and summers off. So why would so many teachers choose to leave their profession?
Is teacher burnout to blame?
Read on to learn more about spotting, identifying the root cause, and finding solutions for teacher burnout, as well as how to reignite a passion for the classroom and students.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free. These science-based exercises will equip you and your clients with tools to manage stress better and find a healthier balance in your life.

What Is Teacher Burnout? 4 Symptoms

For many educators, teacher burnout can feel like the Sunday blues, the Sunday night anxiety and dread preceding the upcoming work week, day after day.

Teaching is one of the most stressful professions (Kyriacou, 2001; Madigan & Kim, 2021; Saloviita & Pakarinen, 2021). Here are some commonly experienced symptoms that indicate when stress has turned to burnout.

1. Exhaustion

Teachers experiencing burnout may feel exhausted even after hours of sleep because they are doing so much during the day. Alternatively, they may have trouble sleeping, as burnout may manifest in sleep disturbances (Saleh & Shapiro, 2008; Shin, Noh, Jang, Park & Lee, 2013; Pyhältö, Pietarinen, Haverinen, Tikkanen, & Soini, 2021).

2. Depression

Teachers experiencing burnout may also experience symptoms of depression and despair (Saleh & Shapiro, 2008; Shin et al., 2013; Pyhältö et al., 2021).

A loss of interest, feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, irritability, and other symptoms of ill mental health may also be present (Capone, Joshanloo, & Park, 2019; Madigan & Kim, 2021). When teachers are experiencing burnout, they may feel like they are in survival mode each day or react with a short temper.

3. Withdrawal

Teachers experiencing burnout may refrain from attending social or family functions (Schnaider-Levi et al., 2020). They may also avoid collaborating or sharing with other teachers. With withdrawal comes depersonalization, which is a feeling of alienation or a negative attitude toward your surroundings.

4. Physical symptoms

Symptoms of stress may include a racing heart, being unable to catch your breath, and frequent headaches or stomachaches. These indicators are worth keeping a close eye on, as adulthood stress can be a trigger of disease (Kivimäki & Steptoe, 2018).

Teacher burnout rate

In the United States, 44% of new teachers leave the profession within five years of entry (Ingersoll, Merrill, Stuckey, & Collins, 2018).

The United States experiences an 8% teacher attrition rate, while Finland, Singapore, and Ontario, Canada, experience a 3%-4% attrition rate (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016).

Of the teachers who voluntarily leave the profession, most credit some type of dissatisfaction, particularly with administrator support (Sutcher et al., 2016). Many refer to this dilemma as a leaky bucket.

7 Possible Causes of Teacher Burnout

Why would burnout occur in a profession where you get semi-frequent breaks and holidays?

Also, working with children should be fun.

Although there are many possible causes of teacher burnout, here are a few of the most common culprits.

1. Lack of time

Teachers often don't have enough time to complete school obligations, struggle with work-life balance, or have difficulty with time management. In teaching, time is precious and often hard to find. Effective time management can decrease teacher stress and improve job satisfaction (Zafarullah & Pertti, 2017).

2. Lack of resources

Teachers may lack adequate resources (Kyriacou & Chien, 2004) or be inundated with too many resources and curriculum, leading to overwhelm.

3. High demands

Many teachers often take on too much. Whether they want to look good for administration, pad a resume, or genuinely want to make a positive change by getting involved, teachers may sometimes bite off more than they can chew. However, high job demands result in reduced teacher self-efficacy and wellbeing (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2018).

Depending on the school, there may be volunteer opportunities to get involved with, including grade-level chairs, committee leads, teacher mentors, and activity heads. Additionally, parents often have instant access to teachers via electronic channels, placing additional stress on teachers.

4. District and state mandates

Testing, an overabundance of assessments, and an obligation to use the curriculum purchased with fidelity could contribute to burnout, as well as students' performances on these assessments.

Vande Corput (2012) found that these government mandates have had a negative impact on teachers, their preferred styles of teaching, what curricula are emphasized, and how the curricula are taught.

5. Being overworked

Plain and simple, teachers are overworked. Educators wear many hats and perform countless duties, including counselor, psychologist, mediator, social worker, instructor, parent, and nurse. Often, "other duties" are not listed in the job description for teachers (Scriven, 1994).

Teachers may not feel that they are qualified to perform these duties. Nonetheless, they try their best because some of these services are not available to students.

6. Compassion fatigue

Compassion fatigue, also known as secondary trauma, is when teachers feel exhausted, dreadful, sad, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, or helpless when providing emotional support to their students (Cordaro, 2020). Frequently, teachers are the sounding board for students' traumatic experiences, and this can take a toll on educators.

7. COVID-19

With the pandemic came mask mandates, social distancing, and hybrid and virtual instruction (Pressley, 2021). These were not the norm prior to the COVID-19 outbreak; teachers had to adapt quickly, sometimes overnight, leading to even more stress.

6 Interesting Research Findings

Burnout was originally formulated to describe the gradual exhaustion and loss of commitment experienced by caregivers in the 1970s in response to chronic work stress (Madigan & Kim, 2021).

With 40%-50% of new teachers leaving the profession within the first five years, it comes as no surprise that teacher burnout plays a major part in the teacher shortage in the United States (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003).

Teacher shortages incur monetary costs for schools and produce negative effects for students, other teachers, and the public education system at large (Garcia & Weiss, 2020).

Increased absenteeism, lower job commitment, and increased turnover directly result from burnout. Burnout is indicative of how likely a teacher is to stay at their job (Billingsley & Bettini, 2019; Brouwers & Tomic, 2000).

Teachers who are burned out also provide a lower quality of instruction than their counterparts (Klusmann, Kunter, Trautwein, Ludtke, & Baumert, 2008; Pyhältö et al., 2021).

As teacher burnout has the potential to inhibit student achievement and motivation, it is critical to prevent and reduce teacher burnout in order to provide students with "quality educational instruction and support" (Madigan & Kim, 2021, p. 11).

How to Prevent Teacher Burnout: 7 Tips

1. Set boundaries and create a schedule. Plan to only stay late once per week or only work one day on the weekend if you absolutely have to. Do not have your email linked to your phone. Set a time to unplug completely.

2. Learn to turn down extra responsibilities if you already have a full plate.

3. Practice self-care. While regular spa treatments, massages, bubble baths, and glasses of wine alone may not prevent burnout, the right combination of eating right, getting enough sleep, exercising, and making time for yourself are good steps to reduce stress levels. Learn and regularly practice stress management techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, and yoga (Madigan & Kim, 2021).

4. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy may be a consideration if you want to change negative thought patterns (Madigan & Kim, 2021).

5. From the school's perspective, the administration can increase teachers' salaries and provide more administrative support of adequate classroom supplies and mentoring programs for new teachers (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003). New teachers can inquire about the district's mentoring program. Administrators should also direct positive feedback and praise to their teachers.

6. Take a few minutes each day to journal and reflect, listing positive events and things you are grateful for. Recall why you became a teacher in the first place (Hoffman, 2018). Do not compare yourself to other teachers.

7. Return to your sense of purpose by reviewing your mission statement and teaching philosophy. If you do not have one, consider writing one. Creating a teacher mission statement or philosophy may help you recall why you chose the profession or, at the very least, serve as an artifact to include in your teaching portfolio when you choose to pursue a different position or school district.

Assessing Burnout: Scales & Questionnaires

The Maslach Burnout Inventory is specifically designed for educators, administrators, other staff members, and volunteers working in an educational setting. The educators' survey examines emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment.

What's Your Teacher Burnout Type? is a free quiz available at Burned-In Teacher. The creator, Amber Harper, also has an excellent podcast called the Burned-In Teacher Podcast.

MindTools has a short Burnout Self-Test that can help teachers understand the way they feel about their current teaching job and determine if they are at risk of burnout.

OneLegacy offers a Burnout Questionnaire that was part of one of their symposiums. A high score suggests the teacher should recognize their own needs and give themselves some grace.

Teachers should also evaluate their professional and personal support system, know and honor their limits, and learn how to ask for help.

7 Solutions to Overcome Teacher Burnout

Each of the solutions below is tied to the possible causes of burnout mentioned previously.

The absolute first step is to acknowledge burnout. Determining its possible causes can help start the journey to recovery.

1. Time

Teachers can increase their classroom efficiency by assigning classroom jobs, employing peer grading, giving shorter assessments (determining if a student understands a concept with only a few questions), and using pre-made lessons such as those on TeachersPayTeachers.com, which also includes a plethora of free material.

Understand that not everything needs to be graded or corrected. Sometimes it is beneficial for students to merely practice the skill.

2. Resources

Teachers can also consider soliciting the help of DonorsChoose.org to gain more resources and connect with other professionals to see which resources they consider high priority.

Networking with other teachers through social media groups and hashtags can be a great way to connect with likeminded professionals while avoiding toxic positivity.

3. Demands

Getting immersed in too many activities can leave little time for self-care. Teachers can think twice before volunteering for one more responsibility or even give up a responsibility or two to prevent burnout.

4. District and state mandates

As the saying goes, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. To navigate district and state mandates, teachers can check in with peers to see how they are managing the directives.

5. Overworked

When possible, it can be helpful for teachers to learn to say no. The Burned-In Teacher course can help teachers connect with other educators who are feeling the same way.

The course also offers resources to support teachers on their journey, additional lesson plans, and the opportunity to participate in live online group coaching calls.

6. Compassion fatigue

To help fight off compassion fatigue, teachers can be sure to take time for themselves, finding hobbies and other enjoyable activities.

For example, if you enjoy reading, try choosing a novel rather than professional literature. Self-care is important. Don't hesitate to reach out to a professional. Secondary trauma can be hazardous to your health.

7. COVID-19

While teachers cannot control district mandates, they can acknowledge that it was an extraordinarily difficult time period to be teaching in, giving themselves and others the grace they deserve.

5 Helpful Books on the Topic

Taking the time to read a good book can also be a welcoming breather from the demands of teaching. Consider any one of these books to take some well-deserved me-time.

Hacking Teacher Burnout - Amber Harper

Harper, who also produced the Burned-In Teacher course and podcast, guides the reader in identifying what type of burnout they are experiencing while recognizing the incredible challenges teachers face.

Through the strategies, which are driven by the type of burnout, Harper nonjudgmentally leads the reader through burnout so they may not only survive, but also thrive.

Find the book on Amazon.

180 Days of Self-Care for Busy Educators - Tina Boogren

While self-care alone may not pull teachers out of a rut, it can certainly help.

This book offers 36 weeks of themed self-care strategies teachers can use to enhance their lives in and out of the classroom.

Readers will also learn how to assess what the body and mind need and which low-cost solutions are right for them.

Find the book on Amazon.

See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers - Roxanna Elden

In this book, Elden empathetically shares many real-life stories of teachers, with some that are comical and others that are downright shocking.

The tips and strategies for facing challenges head-on are practical, funny, and honest.

Find the book on Amazon.

The Happy Teacher Habits: 11 Habits of the Happiest, Most Effective Teachers on Earth - Michael Linsin

Gathering experiences of people in the business, marketing, sports, entertainment, music, and medicine worlds and pairing them with current research, Linsin presents 11 simple and actionable strategies to a happy and fulfilling career in education.

Reviewers described this book as a quick read that will help teachers flourish.

Find the book on Amazon.

The Burnout Cure: Learning to Love Teaching Again - Chase Mielke

This book provides readers with tools concerning mindfulness, empathy, gratitude, and altruism to use on your own or in classroom lessons and activities.

Equipped with a combination of positive psychology and social-emotional learning, Mielke light-heartedly shares ways we can shift our awareness, attitudes, and actions to get in the best frame of mind for students and help regain the passion for the profession.

Find the book on Amazon.

Resources From PositivePsychology.com

To learn more about burnout in general, What Is Burnout? 16 Signs and Symptoms of Excessive Stress would be a great place to begin. The Self-Talk Exercise and Coping - Stressors and Resources may help pinpoint the root of stress and identify resources to address it.

Warning Signs of Burnout: 13 Reliable Tests & Questionnaires is an excellent resource where readers can learn more about the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, as well as other helpful tests, quizzes, assessment tools, inventories, and checklists concerning burnout.

How to Prevent Burnout in the Workplace: 20 Strategies present a plethora of ideas to incorporate into a burnout-free plan. You may also want to make use of the Self-Care Checkup, Self-Love Sentence Stems, and the Self-Love Journal worksheets to help encourage progress.

Additionally, the 17 Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises can help prevent stress from building up and combat existing stress. The Eye of the Hurricane Meditation, Solution-Focused Guided Imagery, Windows of Tolerance, and the Coping Strategy Wheels are just a few of the science-backed and research-based strategies you will learn about in this resource, which is also available in the Positive Psychology Toolkit.

A Take-Home Message

It's okay if you're not the teacher with the best-looking classroom or cutest activities.

Relationships are more important than the charming decorations teachers spend so much time making. As Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, so strongly attested in a TED Talk: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like" (Pierson, 2013, 1:48). Why then would students enjoy and learn from a burned-out teacher?

Therefore, it is essential that teachers take care of themselves first, whether that involves self-care or a shift in balance. It is critical to understand that burnout may require a combination of the solutions mentioned here. Additionally, what may work for one educator may not necessarily work for all.

Our emotions can serve as a gauge. Listen to what each emotion is telling you, find out why you are feeling each emotion, and determine a way to address each emotion.

If you're a teacher experiencing burnout, please know that you are not alone. Many teachers experience burnout, from beginners to veterans.

Teaching should be collaborative. Creating units and lesson plans is collaborative, so why wouldn't addressing stress also be collaborative? If you feel you can't reach out to a trusted colleague, perhaps seek the help of a professional, such as a counselor or therapist.

No matter your level of expertise, experience, or seniority, we can all be susceptible to burnout. While you cannot control district officials or your administration, you can take control of your own wellbeing.

We hope this article has provided you with the knowledge to identify potential burnout and address this nasty condition. We also hope these strategies help you or your client get out of a rut, fall in love with teaching again, and be there for students.

If you enjoyed reading this article, don't forget to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free.

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Teacher Burnout: 4 Warning Signs & How to Prevent It

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High-stakes assessments. Unruly students. Difficult parents. Last-minute principal walkthroughs. A lack of resources or time. A global pandemic. These alone are enough to make anyone leave any profession without batting an eye. Many teachers prepare their entire life for the role, often "playing school" as youngsters and dreaming of becoming a teacher.

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- Constant fatigue
- Depression: self-doubt, hopelessness, feeling like you are constantly in survival mode, loss of inspiration/passion
- Withdrawal: taking more days off, avoiding attending events
- Physical Signs: headaches, stomachaches, head cold, hard to breathe

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American teachers have markedly less time to prepare lessons, collaborate with colleagues, and assess student work than educators in other countries. Instead of a balance between time spent with students and preparatory activities, American educators have relatively limited time to engage in work key to successful teaching. Teaching loads can require educators to spend 39 percent more time with students than teachers spend outside of the United States, according to the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). This lopsided distribution of time places extraordinary pressure on American teachers. Insufficient time to complete tasks integral to successful teaching and a host of other stressful conditions often lead to exhaustion. Today, 50 percent of teachers consider quitting, naming stress as one of the primary reasons. To address this crisis, leaders in education must find strategies to combat teacher burnout and build supportive teaching environments.

What Is Teacher Burnout?

Teachers confront significant challenges. They must adapt curricula to a wide range of learning styles, manage shifting education policies, attend to students with special needs, and juggle administrative work. In addition, many of our greatest social ills show up in their classrooms. So, what happens when teachers who already contend with so much also experience unsupportive work environments?

Many experience teacher burnout, hitting their limit in dealing with their work's daily challenges. It occurs after prolonged exposure to poorly managed emotional and interpersonal job stress.

Consequences of Teacher Burnout

Over time, teacher burnout can lead to a variety of responses. The World Health Organization describes burnout as an occupational phenomenon characterized by three main attributes:

Exhaustion. When teachers experience burnout, they can feel depleted of energy and too exhausted to continue with their work.

Cynicism. Teachers who have reached a state of burnout can begin to feel mentally detached from their jobs. Their feelings about the profession can turn negative and cynical.

Inefficacy. Teacher burnout also leads to feelings of incompetence or ineffectiveness.

Causes of Teacher Burnout

Teachers confront disheartening experiences that can lead to fatigue, anxiety, and depression. Left unmanaged, these symptoms can result in teacher burnout. Some of the causes of teacher burnout include:

Poor Funding

Many districts and schools lack sufficient funding for updated materials, technology, and staff. This places a huge burden on teachers, who must make do with insufficient books and supplies while managing high teacher-to-student ratios. Over time, this burden can leave teachers feeling hopeless and ill-equipped to address achievement gaps and meet students' needs.

Education leaders must advocate for better school funding and, in the meantime, find ways to cut waste and manage their budgets so schools are as well-stocked and staffed as possible.

High Emotional Demands

In addition to educating students, teachers must care for students' emotional needs, which can be emotionally demanding. Teachers often feel the very future of a generation rests on their shoulders. If a work environment lacks the support needed to fulfill this responsibility, teachers can understandably feel overwhelmed.

Additionally, teachers frequently find themselves supporting students who have experienced trauma. For example, teachers are likely to be among the first to notice signs of child abuse in a student. As mandated reporters, the law requires teachers to inform authorities.

Such experiences and others in which teachers have no control over the tragic events in their students' home lives can prove harrowing. Ultimately, teachers can experience secondary trauma when they help students going through difficult times.

Education leaders need to provide teachers with the tools to endure the weight of the emotional demands of their role. For example, they can offer training sessions that give formal instruction on developing emotional skills such as:

Accurate emotional recognition

Understanding of the causes and consequences of one's emotions

Comfortable expression of emotions

Effective regulation of emotions

Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence research has shown that teachers with developed emotional skills experience less burnout.

Inadequate Preparation

All too often, schools put teachers in situations they are adequately prepared to handle. For example, administrators may require educators to teach outside of their subject area, or they may assign students with learning and behavioral challenges to teachers who lack the necessary training to meet their needs. Such scenarios not only prevent students from learning but also prevent teachers from feeling accomplished, which can cause burnout.

Education leaders must ensure teachers get meaningful professional development that prepares them to deal with behavior issues, new education policies, educational technology, and other obstacles. Additionally, administrators must mindfully assign responsibilities that align with a teacher's preparation and experience.

Challenging Teaching Situations

Educators face increasingly difficult teaching situations that can lead to burnout. These challenges range from policies that tie teacher evaluations to standardized exams that don't accurately reflect student learning to transitions to distance learning during the pandemic.

For example, with virtual learning, many teachers are bombarded with parent emails while also trying to direct students who can't navigate online learning platforms. As a result, teachers often feel obligated to work all hours of the day and night, struggling to find a healthy work-life balance. Additionally, challenging student behavior has become more severe and frequent, leaving teachers to manage difficult situations.

Education leaders need to consider how policies regarding teacher evaluations and standardized exams affect teachers and also mindfully advocate for programs that boost teacher morale. They can support teachers by setting boundaries on their behalf, such as by communicating clearly to parents what teacher work hours are and putting limits on teachers' obligations.

Finally, leaders can continue to deliver specific training that prepares teachers to respond to individual challenges as they arise.

Teacher Burnout Statistics

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that more than 270,000 teachers have left the profession each year since 2016 and projects this rate of departure to continue through 2026.

While the BLS attributes some of the departures to retirement, it classifies more than half of them-in every category of teacher, from kindergarten to special education-as "occupational transfers." That percentage equates to hundreds of thousands of teachers leaving their careers in education for work in another field each year. One must wonder why, considering all the preparation required to become a teacher in the first place.

With 90 percent of the demand for teachers coming from teachers exiting the profession for reasons unrelated to retirement, leaders must look more closely at teacher burnout and how to keep teachers in the classroom.

Teacher Burnout's Disproportionate Impact on High-Poverty Schools

The National Center for Education Statistics projects school enrollment will grow 2 percent by 2028. The combination of growing student populations and significant numbers of departing teachers has set off alarm bells for education leaders, who are now searching for ways to curb the attrition. Even more distressing, this attrition disproportionately affects disadvantaged or marginalized students.

Research has consistently shown that the highest teacher attrition rates occur in high-poverty schools and schools made up largely of students of color. For example, as of 2016, Title I schools (schools where at least 35 percent of students are low-income) had turnover rates 50 percent higher than non-Title I schools. The churn and instability that teacher burnout causes intensifies the challenges marginalized students experience and can contribute to a widening achievement gap.

Signs of Teacher Burnout

Teachers often don't recognize they're on the road to burning out before they hit a threshold of no return. However, early identification of the following symptoms, which teachers may experience to varying degrees, can help education leaders implement intervention strategies at a point when they will be most effective.

Constant Fatigue

Excessive workloads and emotional strain can lead to fatigue. However, in a manageable situation, this fatigue should ebb and flow. Three-day weekends and seasonal vacations can go a long way in renewing energy. Unfortunately, for overburdened teachers, fatigue can remain a constant. It can interrupt sleep, cause irritability, and even affect eating habits.

Self-Doubt

Teachers may wonder about the effectiveness of a lesson or self-critique their work. This is part of the growing process and key to development. However, teachers heading for burnout may begin to question whether they are cut out for teaching altogether. They may not only doubt the strength of an individual lesson or unit but also wonder if anything they do has value.

Withdrawal

When teachers feel overwhelmed by their work, they may withdraw in several ways. For example, they may pass on social gatherings with colleagues or stop joining other teachers for lunch. They may also take mental health days more often. They may participate less in faculty and department meetings and cut back on attending optional school events after hours, such as athletic competitions and school plays.

Burnout can lead teachers to stop collaborating with their peers. Burned-out teachers often feel little inspiration to share lessons, visit their peers' classrooms, or engage in email correspondence. When they do communicate with their peers, the purpose is usually to complain about students, parents, school policies, and administration. They often struggle to see anything positive about their surroundings.

A Loss of Inspiration

Most teachers start their careers full of inspiration. Driven to make a difference, they believe in their ability to effect change and feel motivated to dive in. Teacher burnout quashes this inspiration and drive. Rather than feeling excited to meet new students at the beginning of the year, burned-out teachers feel dread about the things that might go wrong. Instead of feeling confident in their ability to make a difference in students' lives, they may feel like they are fighting a hopeless battle.

How to Prevent Teacher Burnout

Solving teacher burnout cannot be reduced to calls for teacher resilience or encouraging self-care. Such responses seem to suggest teachers experiencing burnout lack the grit to persevere. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth for the vast majority of teachers.

Stripping teachers of their autonomy, as well as imposing standardization and high-stakes exams, can eat away at the rewards and gratification of teaching. Education leaders must examine such trends and find ways to fortify the rewards of teaching if they hope to prevent teacher burnout.

Instead of looking at teacher burnout as an individual problem, leaders in education must shift their focus to assess the problem as a systemic, institutional, or policy-based issue.

Though teachers from high-poverty schools disproportionately make up burned-out teachers, educators from high-performing schools can also feel demoralized. They report serious frustration and confusion dealing with administrative work that often gobbles up unreasonable amounts of time that could be better spent.

For example, many teachers find themselves forced to use proprietary software bought by a district when creating lesson plans or keeping records. While sometimes helpful, such district decisions often prove burdensome, creating excessive data entry tasks and diverting teachers' attention away from more meaningful and pressing work. Such a frustration, piled on top of others, can contribute to teachers' sense of defeat.

Increase Teacher Autonomy

Giving teachers more autonomy can improve job satisfaction and retention. The United Kingdom's National Foundation for Educational Research recently identified strong links between teacher autonomy and retention. Its findings suggest that involving teachers in activities that honor their independence and bolster their sense of feeling respected can significantly affect their morale and motivate them to stay.

For example, rather than imposing goals on teachers, school leaders can involve teachers in goal setting. Additionally, education leaders can consider how to give teachers more control over the curricula they select and the content they teach.

Engage Teachers in the Right Conversations

While policy shifts can improve the climate teachers work in, schools can make important moves to address and prevent teacher burnout. Author of Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay, Doris Santoro explains the value of certain types of conversations between school leaders and teachers. Santoro recommends school leaders initiate conversations about good work, including:

What good work looks like

Obstacles to achieving good work

What's needed for good work

Immediate shifts to removing obstacles to good work

Santoro recommends school leaders get past simply following policy. Rather, she encourages district and school administrators to respond with flexibility and commit to deep engagement with teachers about the issues preventing them from achieving their teaching goals and feeling rewarded.

Build Teachers' Coping Skills

Education leaders can help teachers manage their stress. With the right support and guidance, teachers can avoid the hopelessness and emotional drain that often leads to teacher burnout.

School leaders can guide teachers to modify their responses to the challenges they confront. Often, teachers enter the field full of anticipation and hope. When confronted by some of the harsh realities of teaching, they can easily fall into despair. However, with the right coping mechanisms, teachers can adjust the responses that fuel negative feelings.

Workshops, counseling, and training sessions can direct teachers to adopt strategies that allow them to reframe issues and compartmentalize difficulties. This approach can make a big difference in avoiding teacher burnout.

Address Symptoms of Teacher Burnout

Teacher burnout does not appear overnight. This means education leaders can institute programs that address the symptoms that lead to it and hopefully prevent teachers from reaching a breaking point.

First, teachers need to trust that school administration will take steps to address their symptoms. However, if teachers see no evidence that they can expect help-or even worse, if they suspect reporting their symptoms will result in less autonomy or diminished faith in their abilities-they will have no reason to share their struggles.

Ways to successfully address symptoms that lead to burnout include:

Implementing Responsive Policies to Teacher Burnout

Schools can offer clear policies and procedures about reporting teacher burnout. They should also provide information about the care available to teachers who are struggling with it.

Keeping Open Lines of Communication

Teachers experiencing symptoms that lead to burnout should receive attention from administrators or people in a position to take direct action in response.

Giving Teachers Choices About Teacher Burnout Care

Teachers know their circumstances best. School leaders should give them choices with regard to the care they receive.

Staying Vigilant

School leaders should be on the lookout for symptoms that lead to burnout among their faculty. This awareness can allow them to intervene while there is still time to make a difference.

The Effect of teacher Burnout on Students

When teachers lose their sense of purpose, feel burdened by fatigue, and withdraw from their work, students will likely feel the effect. Not surprisingly, research indicates teacher burnout negatively impacts students.

First, teacher burnout and attrition go hand in hand. According to the National Education Association, the loss of a teacher during the school year is like losing up to 72 instructional days-almost half the school year. This experience causes students to fall behind and significantly disrupts learning.

Several studies have found that teacher turnover does not solely impact the individual students who lose their teachers. Research has repeatedly shown that high turnover affects the achievement of all students in a school.

Even when teachers experiencing burnout stay on, students pay a price. Teachers overwhelmed by stress use less effective teacher strategies. This affects the clarity of their instruction and classroom management. It also results in less stimulating classroom environments.

A study in the Journal of Educational Psychology found that teachers experiencing burnout at the beginning of the school year had notably worse classroom management by the spring than other teachers. Their classrooms also suffered from significant student disruptions.

A study from the University of British Columbia also found that the students of teachers reporting burnout had elevated levels of stress hormones, suggesting that teachers inadvertently pass their stress on to students.

Learn How to Become an Education Leader and Tackle Teacher Burnout

Addressing teacher burnout means more than responding to it after the fact. Education leaders must prioritize eliminating the causes of teacher burnout and implement solutions that help teachers cope with stress and build supportive work environments that boost morale.

Explore how American University's Online Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership and Online Doctor of Education in Education Policy and Leadership programs equip educators with the skills needed to tackle teacher burnout.

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Addressing Teacher Burnout: Causes, Symptoms, and Strategies | American University

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American teachers have markedly less time to prepare lessons, collaborate with colleagues, and assess student work than educators in other countries. Instead of a balance between time spent with students and preparatory activities, American educators have relatively limited time to engage in work key to successful teaching.

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As future educators, it is important to address what is possible to occur during our first year: burnout. Unfortunately, this can happen to those that are in an environment that does not put the well-being of educators first, and instead focuses on pushing for more and more from teachers that are just starting off on their teaching journey.

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How Does First-Year Teacher Burnout Affect K-12?

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How Does First-Year Teacher Burnout Affect K-12?

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As a first-year teacher, students that are entering a new grade are already filled with anxiety and adapting to change. As an educator in K-12, it is our responsibility to ensure there is a smooth transition, yet we also need to transition to the new environment ourselves. If we are frazzled or stressed, students will begin to feel the same way. Students may pursue certain behaviors around you as a teacher, or not want to be in the classroom at all. The clarity of classroom management and expectations can be fogged by less effort due to burnout being overwhelming.
It is also overwhelming to create new relationships with our collogues and the parents of our students. As first-year teachers, we are often wanting to be liked by everyone and that can be tricky when it comes to parents especially when parents are older than us.

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Who Else is Affected or Contributes to Burnout?

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Who Else is Affected or Contributes to Burnout?

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Others that are affected from the burnout of a teacher could include: friends, family, students and even coworkers.
Those that can be contributing to burnout would be administration and higher ups that focus on creating a set of standards that are overbearing and unachievable in a school year (or certain amount of school day).

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As an Educator, How Can We Combat Burnout?

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As an Educator, How Can We Combat Burnout?

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In order to combat burnout as a first-year educator, it is important to increase teacher autonomy. This could be providing teachers with a say in what should be included in curriculum and what should be focused on content wise. Educators should also speak to administration about any hardship and have a clear line of communication regarding their thoughts, comments, and concerns.
It is also vital to be aware of yourself and put yourself first as an educator. It is okay to set boundaries and say "no" when you need too. Taking care of yourself is going to help maintain your mental health avoiding burnout. This could include journaling, revisiting your sense of purpose as a teacher, cooking a healthy meal, working out, or having a glass of your favorite adult beverage.

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Who Should We Address First-Year Teacher Burnout To?

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Who Should We Address First-Year Teacher Burnout To?

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We should be addressing first-year teacher burnout with school administration as well as future educators. It is important that school administration works with their faculty making sure they are doing okay or if they are feeling overwhelmed and in need of some help. It is also important to be addressing this with future educators so that they can go into the field being proactive instead of reactive when they start to feel burntout.

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Some resolutions to avoid first-year teacher burnout, would be following some of the ideas previously mentioned with combating burnout. Other resolutions would be advocating for higher salaries, shorter school weeks, built in time during the day exclusively for teachers to prep and lesson plan. Talking to colleagues, administration, and being clear with friends and family can also help resolve this burnout feeling.

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Getting Serious About Teacher Burnout | NEA

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To avoid a “Great Resignation,” districts need to make substantive changes to reduce stress and improve morale in schools. Educators don’t need any more chair massages or Casual Fridays, says one expert. “This is about support and autonomy.”