31 May How Do You Avoid Teacher Burnout?
Education Week’s Blog highlighted the advice of Tish Jennings and other leading practitioners, teachers, and scholars about navigating the pitfalls of teacher stress and burnout.
“Research shows that the burnout process begins with emotional exhaustion—feeling depleted, out of emotional energy. We now know that teaching is an incredibly emotionally demanding profession and teachers receive little training on how to manage these demands. The first step in the process is to recognize the need for self-care. Like the procedure on an airplane, we must put on our own oxygen mask before helping another or we may not be able to help. Self-care involves providing a balance of for our physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs. Getting enough exercise and eating right is a good start, but we also need to tend to emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs.” — Tish Jennings, Ph.D.
More here.
Other tips:
“Have a life outside of school. When you are organized at school and go home at a reasonable hour, you have time to cultivate friendships outside of school (Edwards, 2014).” — Jenny Edwards, Ph.D.
More here.
“Being able to detach requires figuring out what you feel like when you’re starting to get stressed. Cliche, perhaps, but know the signs. Stress manifests itself with me via shortened patience, and chaotic thinking, with a severe decrease in my focus and attention. I know when these happen, I need to reframe and rethink these 10 fundamentals of my life….” — Wendi Pillars, NBCT
More here.
Full articles: “Ways to Avoid Teacher Burnout” “Response to Teacher Burnout is ‘Contagious‘”
Tish Jennings visited the Dalai Lama at his home in India for the Mind & Life Conference – Reimagining Human Flourishing. On the fifth day of the conference, Jennings presented her research to the Dalia Lama including the Compassionate Schools Project (CSP). He watched the CSP 
She noted that most teachers start their work with a strong sense of compassion. In CARE they are taught to monitor their attention, to notice when stress starts to rise and to take steps such as watching their breath to calm down and respond more effectively. Observed results include teachers’ improved emotional regulation, improved classroom atmosphere and improved student outcomes. Jennings made the important point that in this approach teachers not only teach skills, they embody them. They are encouraged to tell their class, “I’m feeling stressed and I’m going take steps to calm down’, so they also provide a model for students to follow.
