Teacher tired and testy

Finding balance between lessons plans and life, with Caroline Keep.

A few days ago, I posted a tweet about the idea that my 100% isn’t your 100%. It was aimed at those who are neurodivergent being told we should give 100% and taking it quite literally, so every waking hour is spent working into the wee hours, eventually leading to burnout and, in a teacher’s case, leaving the profession.

I often feel neurodivergent teachers are like a canary in the coal mine for awful working practices. Life is tricky enough to manage, so when we come up against unrealistic work expectations (either from ourselves or others), we tend to struggle, and, as the research shows, the education field is poorly placed to support us. In the case of autistic teachers, this study found that autistic teachers are more prevalent than previously thought, with many teachers deciding to hide their autism due to negative stereotypes and discriminatory behaviour. 1

It has never been tougher to be a teacher

Although this problem spans all of us, Education Support reports 81% of all staff experienced mental health symptoms due to their work 2, and the wonderful Kat Cauchi of RISE, in fact, wrote a report only last year on the impact of teaching on personal relationships and found 80.6% of 2,937 teachers agreed teaching has had negatively impacted on their relationships. 3 It is worth another read going into term!

It has never been tougher to be a teacher and, as a part-time one while completing my PhD, I still see overworked and exhausted departments with too few staff struggling to get by. So how can we improve this? Not with the usual tokenistic mental health wellbeing support day or information sheet that we don’t have time to read.

Last year, I did a lot of personal work on this. Being an outright working madwoman, I decided to devise a plan to slow down and stop burning out. I worked with a great therapist, and after some inspiration from an article I had seen a few years before on Summit Syndrome, I came up with my own version. Thinking and working out my own patterns of behaviour in the lead-up to burnout and developing a new way of doing things. You can see my plan here, in all its unvarnished and painful glory – what happens when I do this well and what happens when it all goes to pot!

A few things to consider…

I am far from an expert in this at all… in fact, I don’t know if anyone is! But here are a few things that can make a difference that maybe we should all consider.

Do we need that meeting?

It is a valid question. Education is full of meetings, and I am not sure they are really going anywhere. Often, the hard work is being done by leaders and teachers in the background, building lessons and policies and tackling the administrative burden. So, do you need to discuss that as a whole school or would an email bulletin once a week be more helpful? If you do need that meeting to get input from everyone, my favourite method is using Tom Wujec, the leading design thinker’s, ‘Introduction to Systems Thinking and Wicked Problem Solving’ (along with the short TED talk).

It works because we all get to input (not just the loudest voices), and everyone builds a vision of something fast, inclusive, and with the whole group’s vision. If we did this at every meeting, they would be better! I use it all the time.

Do you need that pub social or could you also add something else?

Often, there is a staff room social element to school with a term-end pub drink. Still, I would suggest you also add a social event focussing on doing something together without the ‘social’ bit! My favourites have been book clubs, movie clubs, cooking nights, sewing, and running – just for teachers. We often, I think, forget we are things other than teachers and maybe want to talk about something other than education for a bit and get to know each other. How many of us have worked in schools and never really known the department next door? What do you talk about when your knowledge of their subject is slim to none? Too often, we revert to our own children, but that leaves a big hole for anyone without children, and we could use a break from talking about curriculum reform occasionally! We need access to enrichment clubs as much as the kids!

Do you need a full-on inset day?

Yes, I know we all need to do the training each year, but the expectation of a full inset day kills most of us. It is death by PowerPoint. The best ones build in time for department teams to meet and work out what they are doing for the year; bring in a detailed CPD workshop for one thing and theme it, along with asking your staff what inset they need first!

Is your school really inclusive or just inclusivity-lite?

I could (and often do) talk about this all day. But we all need to reflect on this. Have you got a disability, LGBTQ+, race, or neurodivergent staff group? No? Set one up. Many schools are within trusts now, so you can have them across schools to support each other. They will tell you everything you need to know to make the place more inclusive! The civil service has them, including the DfE. Why not you? You want to keep your staff. This one is basic! Otherwise, you’re not inclusive at all.

Can we divide and conquer lessons?

Working together makes it far easier to manage. We all know this. Take it a bit at a time. Gone are the days of planning everything on your own – thankfully! New teachers especially need this support, so plan basic lessons together. You can make them bespoke them as you go, but we all need a bare-bone set. Could you do this as a department? If you have no-one to help you, please reach out to others online and ask for it! Many teachers and leaders are on Twitter and will offer help. We are all in it together!

References

1. The lived experience of autistic teachers: a review of the literature: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358916869_The_lived_experience_of_autistic_teachers_a_review_of_the_literature
2. Getting the right work-life balance: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/resources/for-individuals/guides/getting-the-right-work-life-balance/
3. The impact of teaching on personal relationships: https://www.netsupportsoftware.com/webresources/Resources/Reports/Teaching%20and%20relationships%20report.pdf