I’m a teacher and I’ll admit it. There were times when I would have liked to have given some children in my class more individual attention and support this year.
As the end of the school year draws to a close, teachers are delivering final curriculum, organising end-of-year school activities and concerts, marking assignments, attending interviews with parents, and giving students the one-on-one tuition they need to do well in exams.
This is in addition to the planning and preparation for classes, meetings with colleagues, and maintaining an engaging and stimulating learning environment for students that we maintain all year round.
My family has come to accept that I come home late, tired, overwhelmed and that class planning must be done on the weekend and student assessment in the evenings.
I’m not unique. All of my colleagues are taking more and more work home, with many expected to be available to parents and students 24 hours a day, and facing ever-growing mounds of paperwork. I don’t always have time to consider the individual learning and developmental needs of all the children in my classes, and plan to meet their needs.
Many times, when the demands have become too overwhelming, I have considered leaving the profession. I weigh up the passion I have for seeing my students succeed against the impact of that stress on my health and my family.
Teachers work an average 15 hours of unpaid overtime each week. Despite the complexity of the work, the unpaid hours and the stress, I often hear the fabled refrain that teachers ‘have a charmed life’ with a holiday break over Christmas.
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I'm a teacher who chose, for a range of reasons, to switch schools partway through the year.
What I have learnt is this: a school who has a leadership team who value staff wellbeing will have lower burnout rates.
At my new school, I am working slightly more overtime, but because there is a focus on our wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of the students, I actually feel less stressed and that I am doing a better job. Anyone who knows me well enough has noted that I am much happier.
Why am I writing this? I think it shows that if teacher burnout is not taken seriously it can become a big issue.
I'm one of the 'best and brightest' grads the politicians desperately want to attract, but I'm 18 months into the job, and I'm already feeling burnout.
I didn't go straight from school to school, which in hindsight was a very good thing. I was interested in high school teaching, but achieved a 98.8 ATAR and was promptly funnelled into law school, as is often the pathway for high achieving students with an interest in the humanities.
After five years in the legal profession (corporate law and then legal aid), I found my way back to my original ambition. I had lofty ideas about social justice, but quickly realised that the justice system isn't the answer to entrenched disadvantage and growing inequality - it's education.
I loved my placements and achieved top marks through uni. I was determined to be an inspiring, passionate and effective teacher from the start, but this year nearly killed me.
As a teacher in a very disadvantaged comprehensive public high school in regional Australia, I teach extremely challenging classes. Classes are not streamed. I have about 120 students to worry about. In any given class, I have at least 5 students who are performing at least 5 years below their grade level. The curriculum is packed, so we have very little time to teach the basic literacy skills these students need to master, and when I do etch out some time, it is very difficult to do this whilst still catering for the needs of students performing at, or above, grade level. There is intense pressure to improve the pass rate, which means that we're not allowed to take risks. We teach to assessments. Data, data, data, data. Behavioural issues are, not surprisingly, a constant challenge, and I will be told, at least once a day that something or someone is f**ed. I understand the students' frustration with the system that has left them behind, so I try not to take the constant abuse personally. Most parents are supportive, but feel helpless. They are often apologetic about their inability to help their son or daughter because of their own low level of education. We have random "walkthroughs" by bosses with clipboards. If my class isn't meeting the unrealistic and seemingly arbitrary pass rate or behaving appropriately, it's my fault. For the first time in my professional career, I've felt lost and overwhelmed.
I thought I knew long hours. I thought I knew pressure and stress. I thought I had a tough skin. Law school isn't easy. Corporate law isn't easy. Legal aid isn't easy. Yet I have never experienced such a huge workload and such exhaustion and frustration. I've never felt like I'm failing all the time.
I'm in the office at 7.30am and leave at 5.30pm, when the gates are locked and alarmed. I need to do at least 2 hours of work each night, and often more when assessment time comes around. I work one full-day a weekend. I've enforced a no work on Saturday rule to stay somewhat sane. I complete 7 solid days of school work during the 2 week breaks, and I'm gearing up for 2 weeks of work during the summer break. I've worked hours like this before, but it's hard to describe how exhausting trying to engage disengaged teenagers is everyday. Add the long hours into the mix and a system that isn't responsive to reality of students' needs, and I'm almost broken.
It's true that some teachers don't work this hard. The lazy ones frustrate me immensely. This is not a unique problem. In every profession, there are those who shirk work and those who are incompetent. But my god, there are a lot of us working ourselves to the bone.
I was naive going into teaching. I knew it would be hard, but I had no idea it would be this hard.
We need the community to support us, not denigrate us. We're teaching the next generation. If we fail them, we all suffer.