Sustainable Teachers Learn How to ‘Switch Off’

Switching off is a habit you need to foster to be a sustainable teacher. Teachers carry a mental or emotional load that is invisible to everyone who isn’t a teacher. It’s the work involved in the planning, caring, teaching and following up for a group of diverse young people who are learning to navigate the complexities of life.

In addition, they work in close proximity with a team of adults, also juggling the needs of their own classes, under the tight deadlines of a school day. In an average high school, an English, Maths or Science teacher may have four Junior classes (Years 7-10) of up to 30 students and one Senior class (11-12) of up to 24 students and work in a teaching team of up to 10 adults. That translates to building relationships with a minimum of 154 individuals. That’s before you add the Principal, Deputies, the office staff, maintenance team, the teachers and students you go to Sport with, the library staff and the teachers you’re on playground duty with three to four times a fortnight.

But those are small numbers compared to those of a PDHPE, Art, Music or TAS teacher, who usually have more classes because they are timetabled for fewer periods a cycle. So, on average, a teacher will need to build relationships with 160 people and be acquainted with, at the very least, 20-25 more people.

In the case of your students, it takes mental and emotional capacity to remember names, personal contexts, health histories, skills/talents, likes/dislikes and their interactions with other students and teachers. This all happens under pressure - both time pressure and the weight of student and parent expectations.

As a teacher, you are constantly making decisions under pressure. You need to be prepared, alert and effective in triaging any issues that may arise so that students can receive the help and care that they need. This takes preparation, concentration and energy - a mental and emotional load.

Student teachers, during their professional experience placements, and teachers in their first year of teaching are often surprised by how exhausted they feel at the end of a day. You learn that toggling between all the expectations you need to meet in a single day and still remembering to eat and use the bathroom can leave you feeling zapped.

Often, I find myself advising them to leave some room in their day and week for the unexpected, some space for them to breathe and process. Over commitment is an easy trap to stumble into. I’ve been there so many times myself. One new teacher who just finished her first week of face-to-face teaching after 70% of her student-teacher placements were online was hit with the reality of my advice when she acknowledged: “I didn’t realise how exhausting it is to be ‘on’ 24/7.”

And so, I suggested re-energising during a weekend. When you’re a teacher, you’ll need some time on a weekend to do school stuff. Sometimes that will be minimal, such as checking your emails on a Sunday night; at other times that will be more extensive, such as writing your Year 12 reports or lesson preparation. What is vital is that you set a time limit in which to achieve those specific tasks and devote the rest of the weekend to rest, relaxation, recreation and socialising. You need to devote just the right amount of time to the task that you have available and that will give the best result for the students. Don’t over-think it! I believe it was Sheryl Sandberg in her book Lean In who said: “Done is better than perfect.”

It feels like there is never enough time to help your students and colleagues, and so unless you train yourself to do otherwise, you will find that more of your weekend can be taken up by thinking of and/or doing ‘schoolwork’ than you realise. Prioritise re-energising yourself on a regular basis to become a more sustainable teacher.

Image by Dario Fernandez Luz