Managing Stressors to Avoid Burnout: It Always Centers on the Kids

Stressors: Students Behavior & Pressure from the Job and the Administration

STRESSOR: STUDENT BEHAVIOR

“I know my students like me” 

“I don't think they want to be disrespectful, at least not a lot of times (.….) I'm not a because-I-said-so kind of person. I'm not authoritarian, so there's this real, I think, interest in trying to make me happy so that I can make them happy.”

“Self-regulation Is hard for all of us” 

“How can we blame them for being on their phones in class when we are on our our phones a lot ourselves? And if we were sitting in a class about something we weren't interested in, it would be very tempting. Now, as adults, we are able to monitor ourselves to say now is not the time, but they are kids and I think, yes, it's probably a good idea to take away the phones and whatnot. To demean them because of that, I think, does more harm than good.”

“So I see that deficit as more of an opportunity to teach them better, to show them better, and to connect to them on a human level. To say I also would love to be on my phone right now. But you know what? I have a job to do you. Your job right now is to learn. So that's what we're going to do. The biggest thing right now for me is Chatgpt and the AI and I try to explain to kids. Again, I don't yell at them. I don't say they're being lazy because of it. Well, I might insinuate that. I will say writing is a skill you'll always need and if you take the easy way out, (…) you're going to be writing at such a low level for the rest of your life (…) It takes more than that statement in itself to get the idea across, but I think it's our job as adults to put in the effort to meet them where they are and guide them to a better place.”

“I put this app on our smart board, where you have a stoplight and I will put it on green, yellow, or red. Green means I'm having fun. We're all having fun. We're having a good balance of work and, you know, silliness, laughing. But we also can bring it back when we need to. If that's a problem, I put it on yellow, which I did today. Yellow means I'm going to lay (…) off from the jokes and we're going to get into the lesson with full attention. Red means we are way out of line. You got to put your desk in rows. There's no talking, that kind of thing. When I switch it to yellow the kids bring it together. So that tells me that they don't-- They're not looking at me and saying, ‘I'm going to disrespect him right now’.”

STRESSOR: PRESSURE FROM THE JOB AND THE ADMINISTRATION

“At the end of the day, it comes back to the kids” 

“Kids are so receptive, I think, to situations where you're like, (…) I'm doing my best, and you show them that. And they will be like, Huh, okay, he's trying his best.”

“Sometimes the cards are against you, but you you push forward anyway. And that's what I try to do. If if I have thirteen sticky notes on my desk, and a kid turns in something, and he asks, “When are you going to grade it?” I say, “I hear you. But look how many things I have to do.” I try not to to talk bad about the admin, but our workload is pretty heavy. We are given a lot of things to do and these are on my sticky notes. (…) It almost becomes again this opportunity to be realistic, to connect, to connect with the kids, to say, “Hey, guys, I’m having a rough day today.”

The Kids Care 

“There was one time where (…) they were doing standardized testing. I was playing some noise, some sound in the background. Just white noise, basically. The admin came in. She sort of snapped at me, saying, “Turn that off!” and she left, and I was fine. But the kids turned around. ‘You okay, Mister?’ (…) That fills my heart with joy to see the students support the teachers in that way.”

Kids Taught Me to Laugh at Stressful Situations 

“They taught me how to do that, to laugh at what goes wrong and just pick myself up, brush myself off and say, This is my reality. And at the end of the day it can be as frustrating as heck. But if the kids have made me smile, at least I got to smile at work that day and that's critical, and that's huge for me.”