Through collaboration with other first year teachers I have identified some stages that we all tended to go through for the first 2 terms of our first year. I found these rather humorous so I would like to share what goes on in the mind of a first year teacher.
Its often hard to describe to others the long hours and difficulty in becoming a teacher. Unlike jobs that create a tangible object or sell products who's job stops the moment they leave the door. A teachers job is intangible, making it difficult to measure success and to know when you have completed. In simple terms, there is an infinite amount of work 'can' go into teaching/ preparing to teach. Also there are many duties/ responsibilities that teachers hold that are are unpaid/ become after hours duties like marking etc. However, I diverge, below I have made a quick sketch of an average day in my life as a first year languages teacher in Primary school Australia. This should give some readers a better understanding of why many teachers quit before finishing their first year and many last less than 5 years total.
Burning out like the flame of a candle is a real risk that teachers run. I had heard about it from all my teacher superiors but until recently I didn't understand what this felt like or what it meant. For future teachers in this post I will try to explain what I believe teacher burn out is, why it happened, what it feels like and what I plan to do about it.
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