Melissa's Secondary Education Blog, Teacher burnout.
The entry that most interested me was on the 'Melissa's Secondary Education Blog', the entry was talking about the causes of teacher burnout. The article speaks to the trend that teachers burnout very easily and that the state of teachers across the nation is in trouble. "The study, based on information provided by a sample of the nation's 2.5 million schoolteachers, says that almost 67 percent of the country's public schoolteachers are over the age of 40, 54 percent have their master's degree or at least six years of college, and 38 percent have been teaching more than 20 years, with the mean a hefty 16 years." This is scary because, although, it shows that there are experienced teachers in the field it shows that young teachers are not staying in the profession and are burning out at young ages and stages of teaching. When these current teachers begin to retirement age, what is going to be left to teach the youth? This burnout issue holds weight to the future of our education system.
The public school systems are in need of young, dedicated teachers who can find proper ways of dealing with this issue of burnout. If we, as educators, can find productive ways to keep from leaving this profession early it will benefit the students and the education system tremendously. It is figuring out how all the stress that comes with being an educator and balancing the time and workload properly. Teaching is one of the most short tenured professions in this country. This is a major problem and we as educators need to acknowledge the fact that it may happen to us in order to prevent it.
Nothing can prepare a future teacher for the rigors and the workload that awaits us once we are hired. It is our duty to prepare ourselves to the best of our ability for the responsibility we have to these kids. It is important that we find the proper balance between work and free time so that we do not overstress and cause damages to our health. I believe as more attention is paid to this problem the better the solutions will be. I just know that it is our responsibility to take the correct steps to ensure that we are prepared to the best of our ability in order to survive the early stressful years that teaching brings.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow! How true this is. Your thoughts are like a reality check for me. Even as a student and part-time Sunday school teacher, I am often times worn out! What will become of me when I enter into full-time teaching (Lord willing)? In a sense, I feel like it is a good sign when I come home exhausted because it means that I have given my students my all. On the other hand, if this exhaustion continues on a regular basis and in the long-term, it could be quite detrimental to my own well-being.
ReplyDeleteIt is encouraging however, that 38% of teachers have been in Education for over 20 years. There must be good reason why they've stayed with the profession!
I feel the same way about this topic. It is very easy to get worn out and is something we have to make sure an pay attention too. We as future teachers don't want to sell our students short, so we have to find ways to keep things interesting and keep us motivated. I thought this was a well written post.
ReplyDelete