Job Discussion Forums

[struelle]

To clarify a bit more, I'm doing my PGCE right now in my home country after having taught for 3 years in Shanghai. The workload can get intense, especially during the practicum, but I seldom find myself getting burnt out. This is mainly due to how I pace myself to anticipate 'spikes' in the workload, i.e. beginning of year, before exams, as well I draw from my past experience overseas to cut down the planning times.

I'm by no means a slacker, but compared to my peers in this program (about 30 of us), I don't see myself working as hard as they do. For example, some peers spend 4 hours planning for a 1 hour lesson, this seems a bit excessive.

At this point, I'm at about a 1:1 planning - teaching ratio. When marking enters the picture, that can jump to 3:1 max. I average about 30 hours a week total, but this does spike quite high if I don't plan ahead and spread the work over a term, for example. With my colleagues, I've seen them approach 100 hours a week at times, and this is just a little scary!

While overseas, with a familiar teaching environment, and sound knowledge of the school's teaching methodology I could rehash lesson plans, adapt them in class, and virtually eliminate the planning portion.

Now I doubt that is possible, but if I can get it down to 0.5 : 1 I'll be happy. One strategy I find is to invest more initial time in course and unit plans, so the lesson plans can flow easily from that.

While hard work is good, ditto with pushing students, I find too much of it is counter-productive to their learning process. If the students model our behavior, which research shows they do, then how is a burnt out teacher supposed to inspire them to be curious, think critically, and enjoy the learning process? Workaholic teachers are a negative model that students pick up on and emulate. Conversely, students can pick up on good vibes from teachers who 'take it easy when they work hard'

In general, I find a useful distinction between purposeful hard work and workaholism which leads to burnout

Steve

[Glenski]

[VanIslander]

I have been teaching 30 classes (an hour each) a week for two and a half years (with a month break at the end of each year) and could continue at this pace no problem for the next decade.

I actually have found that the more time I spend planning and preparing for classes, the less stress and tiredness I feel. The only time I was feeling the load getting heavy was when I was staying up late (not enough sleep), drinking too much the night before (hangovers!), and not going into work early.

Getting plenty of sleep and exercise is much more important than the number of hours worked. In fact, work more hours to prevent burnout, as long as you don't sacrifice in other areas of your life.

As I see it, I'm working a full time job. So, while I have 30 hours of classes, I simply put in 10 hours of prep time, which is plenty, two hours a day of planning and prep. And thus I work a 40-hour workweek.

So, I advise:

If you are working less than 40 hours a week and feel burnout, then work more doing prep and planning.

If you are working 50 hours or more, then work less.

If you work no more than 40 hours a week, and no more than 30 class hours, but spend copious amounts of time inbetween classes due to a non-compact teaching schedule... then come up with new hobbies/interests to fill the free gaps in your schedule: Going for walks, reading a book, bringing a mat and laying down in a back room for a while (with an alarm clock beside you - even a 20-minute nap can rejuvenate).

[merlin]

Oftentimes burnout has more to do with non-work issues inherently connected with the living abroad.

There's the usual culture issues - a few of which you never really accept used to no matter how long you stay. Then the longer you stay the deeper you get into the culture until one day you're trying to paint the roof of your house on a rickety 90 year-old home made ladder and when a rung inevitably breaks you get a paint shower and spend the next three hours with paint thinner and a scrub brush and all the time your wife is giving you hell about the terrible smell.

Stuff like that increases the burnout potential.

[Zahara]

[The_Hanged_Man]

Right now I have recently finished my first year as a teacher in the US, and there is no way to perform an adequate job with only 40 hours per week. The first semester my first year I was logging in around 60+ hours per week, and the 2nd semester it is was down to 50+ after I had learned the ropes. However, these numbers are lower than most other teachers in my alternative certification program, and I think this is due to the fact that I had 4 years of prior teaching experience from doing Peace Corps and ESL. Now when I was teaching ESL I could easily stick to a 40 hour work week, but that just isn't possible in public school teaching.

I know some people that probably put in around 100 hrs per week too. They are mainly inexperienced teachers who are trying to reinvent the wheel or martyrs. After a year of that most people either change their tune or begin to suffer severe burnout. Most of the people in my program are in their early 20s and some of them are working so hard that they have started to develop illnesses, like ulcers, migranes, sinus infections, pnuemonia, alcoholism, etc. You don't want to do that.

So how much planning do you need to do? Well, whatever it takes to get the job done. Are your students mastering the content? If so, no need to work harder. Otherwise, you need to put more effort into it. I am assuming that in the UK that standardized testing is the yardstick for academic success like in the US, so try giving your students a benchmark occaisonally that draws from past tests to see how they are progressing. If there is another teacher teaching the same class as you? If so, try giving the same assesment in both of your classes and compare the results. Honestly, constant diagnosis and adaptations based on those diagnoses are the key to success in public school teaching. You don't want to be the one who gets the lowest test results at the end of the school year. After a few years of poor results most teachers here are pushed out of the system. For all of the negative points of standardized testing, they are making teachers much more accountable. Gone are the days when you could close the door and teach whatever you want.

[Chasgul]

I would hazard a guess that your teaching experience is the major factor - you know what is, and conversely is not, possible so you are not attempting to prove anything./start rant/ Many people around me here in BG suffer burnout despite the fact that they are effectively teaching less hours a week, and often only teaching one group as opposed to several groups with different textbooks etc. To be honest I feel that they suffer from a distinct lack of pragmatism and that often goes hand-in-hand with some nebulous 'idealism'. They seem to wind themselves up for the most part: their lesson plans are masterpieces of design and colour but somehow don't always translate into reality that well. /end rant./

If you're getting the grades and your course tutors are happy with your work/effort-level then relax. In fact I'd suggest buttonholing one af your tutors on the subject to get their side of the story.

[merlin]

My actual work hours might get up pretty high in september when all the new classes start - then it's about a month of high class loads combined with getting to know the classes and schedule and maybe "method" combined with planning for the whole term. Then things usually get back to normal and then by the end of the year I'm just coasting. We don't have grades or anything, so no gradebook to fill out in 2 days thank god. The last month is usually cram time for the students but its easy for me because I've already planned for it, students have droped out, or all kinds of things.

I've been at this gig for about three years and the classes repeat regularly so nowadays my director can walk in and say "Ms. xyz called in sick can you teach 4 of her classes starting in 5 minutes?"

Sure, no problem. Always glad to help out.

Panic stress and anger eat up so much energy and time I've found. easier to just go teach the class with a smile than to worry about not having anything planned. Of course in an ideal world you should spend one hour planning for every lesson and another hour marking papers and homework and such things but for many of us the reality is just "Go with what you got."

Whether you get burned ot or not has everything to do with your personality and how you handle ... stuff.