Many of us dreamed of being a teacher as children yet experience feelings of burnout at times. Lets talk about teacher burnout. We played school, set up a pretend classroom with our dolls or stuffed animals, created lesson plans, and wrote our “teacher name” on our mini chalkboards. But there was one thing that we didn’t include in our childhood play – feelings of overwhelming fatigue and burnout.
When you start feeling burned out, you might be confused. You love kids and you love learning, so teaching was a natural choice. And, since you love kids and love learning, you should be loving your teaching career. But it turns out teaching is hard. And maybe it’s a lot harder than you thought it would be and teacher burnout. And now you’re struggling with fatigue and maybe even burnout.
What if I told you you could move from feeling burned out to thriving as a teacher?
Keep reading!
Today I’m going to tell you about my conversation with Braelan Martin, a special education teacher in a K-2 self-contained classroom. Braelan shared with me how she found herself in that place of fatigue and teacher burnout less than two years into her teaching career. But she also told me how she was able to move from that place of feeling burned out to thriving. And you can, too.
We also had an incredibly valuable discussion about ways to foster anti-racism in the special education classroom.
You don’t want to miss Braelan’s insight and suggestions.
Why SPED Teachers get Burn Out
All teachers can experience burn out, including special education teachers. Maybe even especially SPED teachers. It can be easy to get overwhelmed with all there is to learn and know and keep track of. It can be difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance. And some may be surprised to learn that the world of education can be competitive. An environment that feels more competitive than collaborative can certainly lead to feelings of fatigue and even teacher burnout. It was this combination of overwhelm and competition that led to Braelan struggling so early in her career.
How to Combat and Recover from Burnout
One thing that is essential is to have other things in your life you are passionate about. Things that have nothing to do with being a teacher. Braelan turned to her love for art and creating to help her. She journaled a lot as she worked through her feelings and searched for answers.
For Braelan, being creative is extremely important. So is teaching. She was able to bring some of the joy back into teaching by expressing herself through her YouTube channel.
How to Stop Burnout Before It Starts
The goal is obviously to prevent burnout. One way to accomplish this is to set boundaries. It can be so easy to let your teacher life spill into your regular life. Braelan told me she found it helpful to consciously choose to keep work during work time and leave it there. Another key is developing the important – but difficult – skill of saying no.
One contributor to burnout is overwhelm. New teachers are especially vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed. Braelan has advice for teachers who find themselves in this situation – get humble! Realize you can’t possibly know everything and ask for help. Seek out those educators who are more experienced and who do their jobs well and ask for help when you need it.
Where to Find Free Resources
As a SPED teacher, data collection is incredibly important. It can be challenging, especially for new teachers, to find a system that works for them and to make sure they are capturing and tracking data on their students.
Braelan has developed data collection resources that you can find in her TPT store. The great thing about many of Braelan’s resources is that they are free. She knows that teachers, especially brand-new teachers, have limited resources. So she is committed to providing as many free resources as possible.
Braelan especially loves working with Google Forms for data collection. They enable her to set up forms with drop-down menus to allow for quick and easy tracking of a number of skills and behaviors. See them here.
How to Foster Anti-Racism in SPED Classrooms
Braelan and I finished up our conversation by talking about how important it is to foster an environment of inclusivity and anti-racism in special education classrooms. She had some practical suggestions that are easy for any teacher to put into place.
- Be aware that the student population in SPED tends to be disproportionately made up of minority students
- Make sure your materials and symbols reflect your students – Smarty Symbols is a great source of low-cost picture and symbol options featuring diversity
- Introduce pictures of police officers and firefighters and talk about how they are helpers, but also practice how to interact with them
- Incorporate it into existed social and emotional learning as part of what makes a good person
Links and Resources
Braelan’s Resources
Data Collection using Google forms
Dawn’s Blog Posts and Resources
Smarty Symbols -A low-cost picture symbol option for teachers with diversity options
Connect with Braelan Martin
Connect with Dawn
