Stress is crushing teachers, but there are things you can do to alleviate it. In fact, with a comprehensive approach, you can all but eliminate it.
It’s a topic I’m hard at work developing here at SCM. (More details to follow.)
But one of the quickest and easiest things you can do to put a substantial dent in the amount of stress you’re feeling is to say “no” more often.
What follows are 11 things you can start saying no to today.
1. Gossip
It can feel like an escape, but gossiping about students or colleagues is distracting, time-consuming, and risks exposing yourself to excessive drama.
2. Academic Favors
It’s good to share, but it’s not okay for colleagues to take advantage of your kindness by leeching off your hard work and planning.
3. Students
Your students are expected to listen and actively participate in your lessons. Push for more of this and less of you helping each one individually.
4. Your Administrator
If you really want to host astronomy night or organize the reading fair, then do it. Otherwise, it’s a hard pass.
5. Committees
You may be obligated to serve on a committee. Fine. But to volunteer for more can spread you too thin, causing anxiety and affecting your teaching.
6. Parents
Draw the line at your professionalism. In other words, avoid any hint of friendship or special favors. Subsequently, they’ll largely leave you alone to do your job.
7. Interruptions in Planning
You need to get your work done. So close your door. Anyone who knocks, don’t answer. Anyone who enters, be brief and escort them out. They’ll get the message.
8. Conversations
People like to stop and talk. Be choosy. Otherwise, smile, say hello (“How about those Chiefs!”), and keep moving.
9. Extensive Planning
Teach to your objective. Cut the fat. Stay on message. Lean on your subject knowledge. Better, sharper lessons take less time to plan.
10. Happy Hour
Yes, it can be fun. But if you’re stressed, you need quiet time. You need alone time or calm family time. Plus, in the end, alcohol will make you feel worse.
11. Inconsistency
Misbehavior is the biggest cause of stress. Have rules. Teach rules. Enforce rules. Don’t apologize for it.
Make a List
Choose what you can say no to, or what you feel comfortable saying no to, and do it. Starting today.
It’s not selfish.
It’s selfless because only when you’re at your best can you be a benefit to others.
It may take some discipline. It may take an awkward moment or two. But it’s a small price to pay for a peaceful state of mind.
Furthermore, you’ll discover that when you put boundaries on your time and attention, and focus more on what matters most, people will respect you for it.
They’ll honor your time and hold you in a higher regard. So make your own ‘no’ list right now, this moment, and start crossing it off.
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I taught in a rural school district as a high school social studies teacher from 1990 to 2020. It was the best of times and the worst of times. The best? Having more students score 3 or above on AP Exams than every other teacher in the district combined! The worst? Working for corrupt and cruel administrators that were would eventually be terminated and even imprisoned. Great advice but….. I would only add be VERY careful using social media. Not a concern in 1990 but often career ending by 2020.
Thanks for this – emboldens me to start off this next semester in a positive mind set!!
Happy New Year!
Saying ‘no’ to administration when you are a supply/LTO teacher and looking to be hired as a contract teacher does not put you in a positive light. Teachers in Ontario have to do so many hours of extra-curricular activities; it’s part of the contract.
25 year teacher in Ontario. This is not true.
Hey, could you elaborate? Thinking of moving to teach there.
Hi Lesley. Ontario teacher/ETFO steward here. Are you a high school teacher? Just wondering, because our elementary contract specifically states that ECs are voluntary (although most teachers do volunteer their time for this).
I disagree somewhat on the academic favors. Having someone to trade with can save you a ton of time. We had a “share drive”, and the only rule was “if you use it, improve it”. It had been going for so many years that the quality of the material was excellent and was always getting better.
Much like a good marriage, my various colleagues over the years and I would invariably find a sweet spot where we would complement each others’ talents and skills. Or simply like the time I took a new teacher’s students into my class for an hour so she could finish a good cry after one of her girls physically attacked her (recalling the swallow of my own first year’s red pill). And whenever someone really stuck her neck out for me (like printing and delivering the lesson plans I emailed for a sub), I’d be sure to bring her something — a gift from the state where I rushed to for a funeral, a generous coffee card, a home-baked Friday treat to share with her students, etc. Our job is overwhelming and teacher burnout & shortages are worrisome, so I love helping teachers and never felt taken advantage of because they were always there for me too.
Many times Ringo’s voice lilted in my mind: “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
I agree. I think we are all in this together, so love that concept use it and make it better.
I come from science where it is normal to replicate, share and cite. It seems to me that every teacher is expected to reinvent the wheel, and I don’t quite understand why. I even tell my students if I’m using an idea from a fellow teacher.
Totally agree! Teachers need to work smarter not harder and one way to do this is to plan together and share the responsibility of creating lessons and resources. Why reinvent the wheel every year? In my 38 year career most teachers I’ve worked with are more than willing to share ideas etc and it’s always been a two way process.
I constantly gave #2 – Academic Favors – to only find my original lesson plans and the same materials were used by teachers as their own ideas and creations with absolutely no changes.
The worst offender was a 3rd grade teacher who observed weeks of my 5th grade writing and mathematics classes … at the request of the two principals to help her out as a new teacher who was overwhelmed. She then used all my writing lesson plans and materials in her 3rd grade classes, so when her students entered my classes, they never read the books with new eyes, wrote scripted answers they remembered from her coaching, couldn’t participate in predicting activities, and basically needed more original materials to be created by me. With mathematics, she used my materials for her more advanced students.
Then … she was identified as a published author using my materials in her pieces … and later was “crowned” teacher of the year in the district doing the same. I was convinced all her other lessons in other subjects were gleaned the same way from other teachers in the building.
Should have learned, but it happened over and over. It is hard to be reluctant or even say no when principals request that other teachers observe your classes, and then often know the teachers will steal your ideas as their own.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. It speaks to your great ideas, though. I hope that the other teacher was eventually found out, and you got the credit you deserved. It’s hard enough teaching content without worrying somebody is going to abscond with it.
Thank you for your kind words. Technically, she was found out by those of us whose ideas and lessons she touted as her own. But it didn’t really matter district wise. She continues to be one of the favored ones.
This has happened often in my career. However, I also don’t like “fame” as an individual teacher because I believe that there are many, many great teachers out there for all kinds of reasons and to choose a few as Teachers of the Year is really so subjective and uniformed.
One “solace” is that I have known some great Superintendents who complimented me after unannounced visits to my classrooms or gave me credit at School Committee meetings for student presentations. There were wonderful principals, too, but they’ve long retired. The newer principals tend to be, shall I write, different? One Superintendent explained that there just aren’t enough candidates for these positions, so he has to simply put the “best of the worst” from the applicants, if he’s lucky to get more than two resumes.
I flipped m y classroom last year and made 9-wk spirals with all content for my students. A new teacher who apparently Had “taught chemistry before” joined my team that year. I teach at a small school and she had 2 sections of chemistry. As “team lead” she expected me to make all her spirals (too small for a print shop), send her my flipped videos, make all the assessments, and be available any day she decided to come in during my precious planning time to teach her the content because she “never learned it that way” (it was ALWAYS pretty much the standard way it was taught). Sometimes, she barged into my room even when I had a “recording” sign taped to all my doors….I had a minor breakdown that spring, spend a summer in therapy, and am now on 2 antidepressants. She is no longer on my team, thankfully, as her elective science courses gained the reputation of a free A, complete with movie watching for the last 2 months of school. Sharing equally with a good team is valid and necessary, but sometimes there are entitled teachers who completely take advantage of you, and before you know it, you are working 8-10 hours every Saturday and going back to work a week early after winter break. I am so thankful I am now on a team of me. If that ever changes in the future, I will only share my framework and pacing calendar…never again my created content.
I think this is mostly good advice (especially the avoiding gossip part), but the post misses the point that a school community can also be a wonderful place to make friends and feel supported. If a person has a full-fledged support network of friends and families OUTSIDE of work, then yes — close your door, don’t have conversations, don’t volunteer, don’t go to happy hour, etc. But few of us have the time and energy to maintain and build community completely independently of our workplaces. So, choose wisely based on what will really feed you. Are you an extrovert who loves having lots of work friends? Or a person who doesn’t yet have a community of friends (or a family) in the place where you work? You might choose differently than Michael.
This is such a great post! Give me more like this. Direct and straight to the point. NO!
Excellent
“Your students are expected to listen and actively participate in your lessons. Push for more of this and less of you helping each one individually.”
Ha!
In American classrooms this is literally considered child abuse, and it starts in Early Childhood Care standards which we are bullied and gaslighted into accepting “recent research” as infallible and accepting that somehow unfathomable amounts of millennia of child rearing and pre-pupil guidance/ training is unworthy and abusive. Needless to say, most of this “research” is heavily biased, usually completed by young graduate students with no children of their own, and completed in timelines and use sample sizes that are nowhere near long enough or large enough, respectively, to prove much more than a hasty opinion drawn up for some random thesis defense.
We’re in a twilight zone over here!!! There’s no room for centrism ANYWHERE.
I had to leave all of it to regain my own clarity and sanity. I decided I can no longer willing participate in institutions (daycare to grad school) which prefers to set their own future up for failure by shoving less-than-mediocrity down educators throats. Now I focus all my energy and teaching capacity towards making sure that my own children are expected to prove their level of autonomy in skills of good learner and student standards using logic (not rhetoric), followership (alongside piety), and strong mental perseverance (instead of unquestionable access to “safe spaces” to indulge in negative emotions and an infinite amount of “self soothing” fidget spinners).
This is actually a huge task as a parent, with the mounting adverse social factors creeping their way into every aspect of familial life… And my own kids don’t even have access to a single piece of personal or “smart” technology outside of school – NOT ONE! They do chores, school work, sports, and play outside in our hometown of 193 people and it’s still more than a chore to keep undue influence at bay.
No one talks about us educators who have seen and practiced what has been working FOR GENERATIONS and have tried our best to stand up for what has been our duty (as clearly described in this article) only to be faced with relentless witch hunts, threats, and slander by a new supposedly more “empathetic” generation.
The grief and guilt experienced by educators who leave it all in an attempt to regain a semblance of person to person normalcy certainly varies, but it is not missed by me, I see you friend, dare I say brother or sister. Like you, I miss helping to ignite the spark that twinkles in their tender eyes as they calm their mind and focus on school instead of everything else; I long that feeling of eternal connectedness when their little heads POP UP in an epiphany; or watching them break through something internally that only you and them can feel after some tough teacher love that was uncomfortable for both of you (but after those types of breakthroughs you two can have a language without a word from ages Pre-K through college or beyond); I miss passing along all of these little moments to grateful and trusting parents or guardians who appreciate your position in their child’s life because they know that you as a teacher will push their babies to be better but not break their will or spirit and will always honor the parental role as sacred. These are fundamental interactions that help build and sustain resilient communities for all of us to call home in our own ways and to trust the individual members and their specific roles will have our back while we grow up and make our inevitable mistakes as fellow citizens and peers of all ages.
If you had to leave all this and more like me… I feel you, but don’t worry because WE know we have put forth more than a valiant effort for the children’s future (aka OUR future – but of course don’t forget it’s a gamble to acknowledge our own part of the naturally reciprocal dynamic of teaching lest you be labeled as a recalcitrant selfish boomer bigot); God bless you and your future endeavors with your families.
Well said. Thankyou 🙌☺️
You are completely ridiculous. This post was such a waste of your time, as well as mine for reading it. The truth of the matter is EVERY student/child has different needs, strengths, areas in need of improvement, and levels of emotional maturity and emotional intelligence. I am not sure how long you spent as an educator, but the fact that you believe that education should not evolve along with social structures tell me either too long or not long enough. Also, a teacher needs to be able to separate their parenting career from their educational career. We are educators in the classroom, not parents. Having clear expectations as an educator is the foundation of our profession. If you feel that this is “literally seen as child abuse” in US schools, then (1) you never belonged in the classroom in the first place, (2) you teach in a state with a trashy education reputation, or (3) all of your mentors throughout your career have ben delusional old teachers who see any kind of change as evil and think that souring new teachers on the merits of public education in the US is the only way they can make themselves feel relevant or impactful. Item #3 on the list isn’t even about any of the crap you were allowed to spew out on this post. It is about structuring your class so that your students are empowered to try, fail, and succeed without hanging on to the teacher’s hand every time they see something new. Balking at a statement like #3 proves you have never understood how our brains truly learn. Your shallow, narrow-sighted interpretation of how education has involved is the very reason certain politicians are taking active steps to completely do away with public education. Teachers like you are dangerous. I am so relieved you have left education, and you should refrain from commenting on blogs that are in place to prevent more educators becoming you. Your input is not needed. We must move forward, not be pulled to a stop by people like you.
As a veteran teacher, spending one-on-one time and/or small group time reinforcing a lesson or concept is crucial to student’s needs both academically and behaviorally, that extra 2 to 3 mins can go a really long way. I won’t be giving up that 2-3 mins with one kid when it can go a long in the success of the student for the rest of the year.
“Happy hour” LOL
Tell me you’re not in public education without telling me you’re not in public education.
This is my 37th year teaching and just lost my father. If it wasn’t for my work family I would be even more lost. They put lesson plans together, made sure my kiddos (I teach Kindergarten)had a fun last week of school before Christmas break, and supported me emotionally. I agree with a lot of these points made , but having a work family is priceless.
Simple but effective. There are two times in a classroom. My time [teacher] and your time [student] if students are disengaging, ask them whose turn it is? Thank them when they reengage.
Second suggestion to the disruptive student: “While I am disappointed that you are not engaging with this work, I cannot allow you to be a thief by stealing time from other students who want to learn.”
Thanks for this useful info. God bless you