Is Teacher Burnout Actually A Bad Thing?

I’m so glad you have found my little corner of the internet. I want to share my teacher burnout happy ending story today to give you some hope. I want you to feel like you are sitting down with a friend who understands and can listen to what you are going through. Whether you know you are going through teacher burnout or you are still wondering what the symptoms are, I will be talking about all of that in this blog while giving you action steps and strategies for a brighter tomorrow.

I see you. I hear you. I’m listening.

Don’t worry. Teacher burnout can have a happy ending.

My Story

My name is Janice. I worked in a traditional classroom for 12 years. I taught as a K-5 music teacher for 2 years and a 6-8 music teacher for 10 years. On paper, teaching was a great job. I was making a great salary in my area of the country, I owned a home 4 minutes from my school, and I was well respected in my building.

No matter how many efficiency hacks I learned and how many hours I worked, I was always drowning.

The more time and energy I put in, the quicker I snapped when things didn’t go smoothly.

My patience was spent before the students even arrived because I had been worked past my breaking point.

By the time I got home to see my own children, I was beat. I didn’t have a drop of patience or energy or presence to enjoy them.

I was counting down until bedtime and wishing that precious time away. My tank was empty.

We had a family schedule and if everything went according to plan, we would all survive the day in one piece. But if one roadblock came our way, everything fell apart because there was no wiggle room. A sick kid – a broken car – a family travel invite that didn’t neatly fall during a school vacation – a home repair appointment – a package delivery – a medical appointment. . . Game Over.

Green with Envy

My friends from college – my Facebook friends – my parents. . .I kept hearing about working from home. It sounded magical and I was bitter that I wouldn’t ever be able to work from home. There weren’t a lot of work from home middle school band positions.

So I started dreaming about early retirement. Maybe if I side hustled I could stash money away and one year our financial professional might inform me that we could retire early and I could finally escape. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was something and it gave me hope.

Teaching Online

I had seen ads for VIPKID but never looked closely at it until my neighbor shared on Facebook that she was doing it. I needed to know a real person had tried it to believe it was real. I needed to verify that it was safe to send my financial information to China and that people did indeed get paid real money for teaching from home.

If you aren’t familiar with VIPKID it is the largest company in the up-and-coming online ESL industry. There is a huge demand in China for students to have the opportunity to practice conversation with Native English speakers. They study English in school and this is a supplementary practice opportunity for them.

So I started with four 25 minute classes on Friday nights, 4 classes on Saturday nights, 6 classes on Saturday mornings, and 6 classes on Sunday mornings. It was 10 hours a weekend and it flew by.

Please understand, as a middle school band director, I often had 60-80 students in a class and a caseload of nearly 600 students in a school year.

As an online ESL teacher
I am responsible for 1 student at a time.

They get my undivided attention for 25 minutes. I am not responsible for their full year progress, their social interactions, if they eat lunch, their home life, or their standardized test scores. I am only concerned with 1 25 minute session and 1 student. In today’s multitasking world, that was a hidden blessing that I didn’t expect, but desperately needed. Online teaching was the beginning of the path towards my teacher burnout happy ending.

Life as an Online Teacher

I do not have to write lesson plans. Powerpoint slides are provided to me. I click on a student’s name on my schedule and I am taken into a classroom that looks like Skype with a powerpoint and a chat box. The student and I can see and hear each other. We can write to each other in a chat box. We can also draw on the powerpoint slides. 25 slides. 25 minutes. I keep my eye on the clock and take them from where they are, just one step further ahead in their language learning journey.

“I might see that student again. I might not.

My job is to give them the best 25 minute class I can. Then I close my laptop and go live my life.

After class I write a few sentences to the parent to let them know how class went and that’s it. By the 30 minute mark, I’m either in my next class or out living my life.

I don’t have papers to grade. I don’t have any meetings to attend. This is a job where I just get to teach.

Diversifying

I eventually added a second company called GoGoKid to my resume. This company is setup the same way as VIPKID. I went to GoGoKid because I found a higher pay rate and the opportunity to grow with the company. I have the honor to work with teachers and hear their stories each day.

I work with classroom teachers who are burning out and help them transition into online teaching.

I also work with current online teachers to make sure they feel supported and have plenty of resources so their classes to go smoothly.

Teacher Burnout

I knew I was burning out. I didn’t have to read an article to know that was what I was experiencing. People talk all the time about how to avoid teacher burnout, but I guess looking back 2 years after leaving the traditional classroom setting, I think that teacher burnout was one of the best things that could have happened to me. Teacher burnout led me to a new career path where I can just teach every day.

My day is so much less stressful and I have the flexibility to put my family and my dreams first when I schedule my day.

You aren’t alone. It’s OK to burn out. It’s OK to try something new. It’s OK to take a leap.

If you think online teaching might be something you want to hear more about, I encourage you to email me at teacherjanice06066@gmail.com and share your story. I would love to connect you with a company that is a good fit for what you want your day to look like.

It’s also OK to stay where you are if you aren’t ready to make a change.

Please share this article with a friend who may need to hear that there is hope and that teacher burnout can have a happy ending.

Tell me in the comments below: Do you think teacher burnout is always a bad thing? Do you want to share your story?