Confessions of a Total Burnout
Thoughts on job burnout, midlife career change, and finally getting out of school
At the end of the 2021–22 school year, I left my job as Director of Education at a school for students with learning disabilities. After more than 20 years as a K–12 teacher and school leader (most of that time spent in special education), I left with no intention of ever working in a school again. Like so many of my colleagues around the country, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was burned out. A June 2022 Gallup poll showed that more than 4 in 10 (44%) of K–12 workers—the largest percentage of any U.S. profession—reported feeling burned out at work. And while the pandemic undeniably intensified the problem, it wasn’t the root cause. By March 2020, the same report showed that K–12 employees were already reporting 8% higher burnout rates than any other American industry, far outpacing social work, a similarly low-paying public service profession notorious for worker turnover.
For a sense of why educator burnout is so widespread, here are some highlights from a day in the life of a public school teacher:
8:00 – Navigate rush hour traffic to your low-paying public service job teaching other people’s children how to read, write, and manage their emotions
9:00 – Receive email from principal asking you to supervise student lunch (again) during your lesson planning period in place of absent colleague
10:00 – Glance at phone between classes and notice headlines about the latest school shooting
11:00 – Receive email from parent complaining that the state-approved lesson you taught yesterday conflicts with her family’s Christian values
12:00 – 30-minute lunch break spent hunched over phone anxiously reading about school shooting
1:00 – Learn that one of your students has been suspended for having sex/taking drugs/brandishing a weapon/assaulting someone in the bathroom
2:00 – In passing, notice police officers in main office investigating 1:00 bathroom incident
3:00 – Attend mandatory after school meeting announcing installation of new X-ray detection equipment at building entrances and upcoming active shooter lockdown training
4:00 – Spend an hour carefully crafting diplomatic email responses to parent complaints before leaving for the day
5:00 – Turn on car radio and hear latest opportunistic politician spewing divisive anti-vaccine/anti-mask/anti-critical race theory/book banning rhetoric and/or blaming teachers for low standardized test scores
6:00 – Start lesson planning for the week over quick dinner at the apartment you share with two roommates (because that’s what you can afford)
7:00 – Attend college course required for renewal of teaching license that may or may not be partially paid for by your employer
Am I exaggerating? Only slightly. When I was a teacher, was there a single day when all these things occurred? Maybe not. But were there weeks like this? Absolutely. And often. Notice that there is no mention on this timeline of time spent actually teaching students, which is presumably what teachers are hired to do.
Recall that criticism of schools’ handling of the COVID pandemic had become a full-blown 24-hour-news-cycle-fueled partisan political issue by the start of the 2021–22 school year, and under these conditions, imagine trying to recruit new teachers to work at your under-resourced school for special needs students. This was my task—in addition to managing all aspects of the academic program. Initially, the major challenge was finding qualified substitutes to fill in for the revolving door of infected and/or COVID-compromised teachers. But it was when I lost a full-time biology teacher to a chronic and debilitating gastrointestinal illness (hmm… I wonder what made him so sick?) that things really went off the rails. Instead of conducting performance reviews and mentoring young teachers, I found myself—a former English teacher—writing lesson plans for anatomy classes while frantically seeking a qualified replacement. All of which brings us back to burnout.
What is burnout, exactly? For one, like a lot of popular psychology terms, it is overused and often inaccurately applied. The 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) classifies burnout as a syndrome related specifically to workplace stress characterized by the following three dimensions:
1. Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
2. Increased mental distance from or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job
3. Reduced professional efficacy
Check, check, and check! To a greater extent than I was then willing to acknowledge, I had struggled to cope with the first two challenges for years, but it was number three that finally caught up with me. I no longer recognized the work I was doing as anything like what I had signed up to do. I wanted to be building community and improving kids’ lives. I got into education to offer students a better school experience than the one I had. Instead, I spent every moment fighting just to keep the doors open. I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to make more compromises (i.e., hiring marginally-qualified teachers, cutting back on professional development, less time mentoring at-risk students, etc.) than I was willing to continue making, and I knew the only sane choice was to move on. When asked to renew my contract at the end of the year, I declined. Quitting was the only choice I felt I could reasonably make for the sake of my health. But what next?
As it turns out, total career transformation is tough to pull off after two decades in one business. People like for things to proceed in an orderly and predictable fashion. As such, potential employers look for gradual steps up the professional ladder. My resume shows just such a progression, from teacher to coordinator to director, but the ascent ends abruptly in 2022, and I suppose that raises a red flag. So, what do you do for work when the one thing you’re highly qualified to do is no longer on the table?
Eventually—after a series of interviews for edtech positions I mostly decided I didn’t want mid-interview—I took a job editing documents for an educational testing company. The pay is underwhelming, but when the day ends at 5:00, I don’t give it more than a fleeting thought until the moment I clock in the next morning. I will admit that it’s humbling at times, having shifted from being in charge to starting over at entry level. Most of my new colleagues are roughly the age of the last group of high school seniors I taught about eight years ago. But it’s a minor imposition in exchange for the stress relief and creative headspace the shift has afforded. Compromise will always be part of the deal, and all pros and cons considered, there is little doubt that I made the right decision. Ultimately, it came down this question: Should I continue to suffer, or—at some risk of even greater suffering (i.e., failure, unemployment, debt, etc.)—take a shot at alleviating my suffering? It’s a challenging existential question that I suppose hinges on how much pain you’re actually in when you ask it. For me, the answer came easily once I framed the question properly. Besides, what was I still doing in school after all these years anyway? I didn’t like being there all that much when I was a student.
All that said, I understand that for some people, leaving any kind of job simply isn’t an option. But for many, I think it’s more a matter of overcoming paralysis and fear—fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of losing whatever sense of identity a job may provide. If any of that describes you, I would start to consider making a change. There is no one-size-fits-all manual to making it happen, no “5 Easy Steps to a Seamless Career Change,” despite what the internet may try to sell you, but leaving career burnout behind for a better quality of life is possible—at any age.