Introduction

Teaching is a dynamic profession where each day of the school year poses a different challenge as to how students synthesize and analyze content, why they should undertake such mental and physical endeavors, and not to mention, how the instructors are supposed to teach the content in a meaningful yet exciting fashion. Ultimately, the persons who are responsible for creating conducive learning environments for all students are the teachers. Historically, the teachers are viewed as the gatekeeper of information and the students are empty vassals waiting to absorb and store the information whether it has linkages to prior learning or not. Within this paradigm, the teachers are strong disciplinarians and high possessors of information (Freire, 1988). However, this causality may be too simplistic for learning and understanding to be considered unilaterally. Current practice and thinking indicate teaching causality is bi-directional or even multi-directional (Vanheule, 2001). It is true that the teachers play important roles to laying the ground work for cognition in the lesson, but there are other elements to consider, such as, the level of engagement between students, the experience and knowledge the students bring to the lesson, and teachers’ expectations. Therefore, it is imperative for teachers to reflect upon the day’s teaching as it pertains to learning and understanding all the parts that make their lessons effective.

Unfortunately, some teachers do not have the luxury of doing this because their days are focused on instinctive teaching that yields to immediate needs of the students rather than reflective teaching. From this mode, it is hard to get out of the reactionary cycle and get a strong grasp of what ought to be done spiritually and intellectually. The important relationship between the spirit and intellect is a selfless endeavor where the product leads to teaching and giving on daily occurrences regardless of the situation (Dyer, 2004).  Because of the constant giving and nurturing of students, beginning teachers can become indeterminate in their views and the betterment of the group becomes polarized.

The Purpose

The purpose of this article is to discern burnout within the teaching profession, especially those who are newly credentialed. There is no doubt that there are many stressors placed upon teachers. Some will use these as motivators to do better or to incur change in which they will thrive during these times. Others will be overwhelmed by it and literally get burnout from teaching. Burnout is a serious issue because it causes a disruption to the education of our greatest resource, students, and distorts the path that leads to purposeful teaching. Furthermore, it creates financial strains on local districts. Research is not definitive as to what causes teachers to burnout directly. But what is clear is that a myriad of stressors that are intertwined lead to burnout. It is easy to only equate to instructors teaching poorly. However, this is a fallacious argument because burnout does not discriminate poor teaching from good teaching.

What is Burnout?

Burnout is generally defined as the mental and emotional conditions of teachers managing too many things at once for extended periods and sensing that there is no relief in sight to rejuvenate. From this internalization, the teachers feel helpless and uncertain about their ability to communicate properly and think clearly thus losing the sense of self along the way (Reglin & Reitzammer, 1998). By all accounts, teachers wouldn’t even know they are experiencing burnout because the parameters are masked with the illusion of improvement through self motivation and knowledge affirmation, but their behaviors do not reflect actual changes. It is common to hear some teachers say the following;
 “I don’t know what I am doing anymore because nothing I do seems to work with these students.” “I’m pressured by the principal and over zealous parents to raise achievement, but the students are not responding to what I doing in class.” Tye and O’Brien (2002), published an article that supports the claim of credentialed teachers leaving the profession within the first five years from the time they have earned their credential. The attrition rate is not due to the fact that some retired from the profession, but rather some are unprepared to take on the numerous tasks in a somewhat isolated environment
(Shen, 1997, Wiley, 2000).

Good teaching is a craft

Good teaching is a craft that needs to be revised constantly. On a simplistic level, one can naturally argue by duplicating good teaching attributes found in research or high performing schools, good teaching will sure to follow. Thus, anytime during the school day, these teachers can easily demonstrate effective forms of classroom management, convey a strong lesson that covers all aspects of a five point lesson plan, challenge the students in engaging and critical work, show flexibility to the teaching process via multiple intelligences, and nurture the students’ linguistic and social needs (Haberman, 1995). But some teachers have to understand how these elements fit harmoniously within their psyche as well, because what happens when those best teaching practices do not work in the present classroom setting?

Identified Stressors that Lead to Burnout

1) The Right Attitude

Teaching and learning are an evolving development that must be continued through reflection and practice. Because it is a symbiotic relationship, the process has to start with having the right attitude. By not acknowledging the need, or the results of the reflective process, ignorance and denial from fear will prevail. However, when one can penetrate this barrier, where learning becomes a virtuous practice, the proper attitude will enable the person to think less of himself and more towards the group, vis-à-vis, students. Since teaching is one method that enables the recipient to become at peace, the path of finding this peace is quite individualistic. It requires to keep an open mind and to avoid fixedness and biases so that gradual change can occur (Duncker, cited in Woolfolk, 2001). The change in attitude will no doubt reflect on better classroom performance. Realistically, how can teachers be expected to teach well within one or two years of post graduate work? Naturally, relevant pedagogy can be taught to help a tyro on this path, but a support system is much needed to ensure the person is on the right path. For example, a teacher who has been teaching for three years, but has often entertained the thought of leaving teaching to enter law school, has a detailed lesson plan for the week, organizes and presents the materials in a sequential fashion, implements a highly regimented classroom management system, and has taken a rather strict approach towards teaching. He prides himself of being well schooled in behavioral learning. He expects all of his students to achieve and do well, but without showing really how learning is to be accomplished. Assignments have to be completed a certain way, otherwise, it is incorrect and often to the point of being punitive.

Whenever a student misbehaves, he will not hesitant to use sarcasm to humiliate her in front of her peers. Subsequently, students are scared to do anything that strays beyond his strict lesson and classroom management boundaries. Some students respond greatly to this approach, yet, others are not so fortunate. Those who are not achieving are resistant and disrupt the class in some fashion. It is common for him to call home to complain to the parents about their child’s maladaptative behavior in class. It is his words and thoughts that count in the classroom for the students are there to absorb his wisdom and experience in life. Because this was the way he was taught, this is the way for him to teach in spite of what he had learned in his method courses. Since he did not acknowledge a more effective way to engage students with their learning, or a positive way of dealing management indiscretions because he was not told, bad teaching habits are perpetuated. Unconsciously, he is his own roadblock.

2) Lack of Reflection

When teachers are engaged in their classroom experiences, most of them seem to develop an arcane understanding of what works and what doesn’t in the class. Yet, the judgment may not actually reflect why it works or doesn’t work. They develop a quasi relationship thereby making their views somewhat myopic or skewed. When teachers continue using poor teaching habits, time can only solidify these as the standard for daily practice. The reflective process is an essential component that bridges educational theories to practicum. With this as a guide, teachers can then compose better lesson plans and foster a better learning environment at the micro level. They will begin to incorporate language modification and use explicit strategies to learn content. At the macro level, the teacher can better visualize their craft by understanding how these various components to teaching intertwine. Equally important, the teachers have committed the time to allow these elements to gel. In this example, a highly learned teacher, who has been teaching for twenty years in an affluent school, holds an advanced degree in Special Education, and a B.S. degree in Mathematics. He plays the violin and does carpentry on the side. His other hobbies include identifying local fauna and birds in the region. His coworkers consider him to be a Renaissance man. His lesson plans are written in an outlined format because he already knows what to teach for the day. In spite of his stellar background, he fails to reach those who really need his help.

When struggling students claim they do not know the content, his repeated strategy is to repeat the directions or definitions in a louder voice so they can hear it, or find another student in class to help explain what was taught. Occasionally he incorporates models or examples, but they are taken directly from the text and offer little explanation to clarify their question. It is very common to see him lecturing to the class for a long time, and rarely do you see him walk around the classroom to see how the students are doing. If students do not understand, it is not his fault but the students. On his desk, there is a bumper sticker that says, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can not make it drink it.” As a result, it is common to see students unengaged in the learning process. Some are doodling and others are reading as he is delivering content.

There is no question about this person’s credentials, but his shortcoming is his ability to connect with the students as to why they are not achieving. If he is not willing to invest in the time to determine why, who will? It appears learning is easy to this teacher, but he hasn’t figured a way that will inspire the students how to learn in a meaningful way.

3) Lack of Coherent Philosophy

Whenever I ask my pre-service teachers to discern their educational philosophy, it is common to hear the following statements:

“My educational philosophy is to make learning fun for the students.”  
“I want students to learn that learning is its own reward.”  
“I want to be a compassionate teacher unlike the mean disciplinarian I had in middle school.”
 
These comments are results of certain goals or criterion, but they do not represent any coherent educational philosophy. The primary purpose of educational philosophy is to solidify the discipline of thinking as to how certain factors in the classroom work and how they work together. This thinking will allow the individual to conceptually visualize how the classroom should be set up and how it be used effectively by the students. The secondary purpose is to allow teachers to establish a foundation where classroom practices and theories are naturally fused. Thus, if teachers have difficulties deciding whether to arrange the seats in traditional rows or in groups, their thinking have to be based on how to get the students engaged to learning while limiting off task behaviors. If teachers are encountering students who enter the classroom in a disruptive manner and even unprepared to learn, they have to think of a way that will ease the transition into the classroom smoother by establishing contingencies or agreed upon procedures.

When there is no clear philosophy, practices or theories, and what seems rational may still lead to confusion. By having a clear understanding as to how education is conceived through a realist, idealist, constructivist, behaviorist, pragmatist, or even an existentialist’s perspective teaching will be easier and more rewarding (Ozman & Carver, 1995). In this particular example, a teacher who has been teaching at a low performing school is struggling. He claims he spends little time teaching content because most of his time is spent on classroom management. Worksheets are used exhaustively with little connection to curriculum but it seems to mirror the upcoming standardized test. He attends grade level meetings to gain ideas as to how to teach his class, but he stops attending because those ideas to not apply to his students, nor does he want to continue to hear them rant about the ineffective administrator and defiant students. He tries to be creative with his approach by making tasks interactive so that the students will be engaged with their learning. As a result, he formulates learning through centers. This approach backfires because the students have not had the opportunity to learn and cooperate with each other. In addition, the students were unprepared to learn this way because they do not have enough background information that will give them a workable foundation. At the centers, the teacher discovers that the information and directions at the centers are incomplete for them to conduct discovery learning. Sensing the frustration on the students’ faces, he decides to drop center work and embraces direct instruction once more because of the convenience and locus of control. 

This teacher probably needs help in many teaching facets. However, by having a clear philosophy from the onset, it would allow him to understand which direction to go. After he knows where he wants to go, he can plan accordingly to the students’ needs

4) Isolation

Beginning teachers do feel isolated for the most part during their teaching experience. This may be self imposed or externally driven by the school culture. Some teachers prefer to work under self-imposed conditions where they can use the time to reflect and decompress. On the other hand, the rate of teacher isolation is proportional to how other teachers in the school understand what they are experiencing. Common advice given to these teachers is that they must put in their time and things will become easier later on. Time is not a predictive indicator for good teaching. The contrary may occur where bad teaching habits are perpetuated. When beginning teachers are hired, they are given the hard classes to teach, for example, classes with a disproportionate number of students misbehaving, or number of special needs students that require differentiated teaching as stipulated in the Individual Education Plan. Yet, seldom do they complain because they are grateful for the job and hopeful that they will do well.

In this particular example, a teacher who just graduated from a renowned teaching program is having difficulty collaborating with the teachers at the school. The teachers are civil and nice to him, but when he asks for help on specific matters, the veteran teachers gently tell him information that he would find useless in the end. After repeated practices, he stops asking because he knows he will get nowhere with them. He finds it ironic that teachers instruct students to learn collaboratively when they do not practice this act themselves. At the end of the day, he tries to find solace in his room and reminds himself that he is here only for the students. He ultimately decides to break the status-quo and teaches the way he wants to. By using this tact, he might be perpetuating bad teaching habits, or reinventing something that had already had been done. Meanwhile, he finds solace with other teachers outside of his school so he could receive reinforcement and feedback.

5) Stress

According to www.dictionary.com, stress is defined as “A mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability, and depression.” The teaching profession is not immune to this concept. When it occurs among teachers whether they have been teaching a long time or not, anger, self doubt, and exhaustion are often manifested (Bertock et al. cited in Czubaj, 1996).  What greatly contributes to teachers’ stress is school violence, teaching overload, increased amount of paperwork, high stake testing, student indifferent attitude toward education, no parent support, unapproachable or unsupporting administrator, and low status of the teaching profession (Tye & O’Brien, 2002, Marlow & Inman, 1993).

Teaching in a stressful environment will ultimately lead to overall poor teaching performance and burnout. Writing incoherent lesson plans, lamenting with classroom management, trudging through the daily procedure, agonizing about making the lesson accessible and meaningful to English Learners, distressing over students who might require special services, or arguing with administration to what is right and wrong will transpire. Is this what we want this teacher to undergo? Furthermore, is this what we want our students, our most prized resource of the future, to endure in the classroom? Efforts to improve on teaching cease because they have internalized hopelessness to the working situation. They will no doubt attribute the failure in the classroom on others in spite of their best efforts to cope (Weiner, cited in Morin, 2001).

Summary

 Hammonds and Sykes (2003) cited in Professor Pultorak’s paper presentation on teacher retention and mentoring, have reported that when teachers are better prepared, the longer they stay in the teaching profession. There is truth to this statement, and it perpetuates the human capital theory to the education realm. Since the stressors have been identified, there is much work to be done to support beginning teachers. There is no easy solution or formula for teachers to avoid experiencing burnout, unfortunately. What will be interesting to research is the gradation of burnout as to how teachers are affected. To alleviate burnout without leaving the profession, the quickest way to ward off heightened stress level is thru coaching/mentoring. This person will provide valuable insights to all facets of teaching, stemming from office politics, classroom management, to lesson delivery. Mentoring occurs in the business sector. Corporate executives hire personal coaches to enable them to maintain the proper focus to better develop innovations over current industry standards, www.exercoach.net, 2005. People at all levels are required to collaborate to accomplish a shared vision. Along the way, skills and knowledge are shared and refined. Like the business profession, teaching can definitely reap the benefits of having a strong mentoring system. Without mentoring, teachers proceed in the profession in isolation and fear. The potential of becoming an excellent teacher goes unceremoniously unfulfilled (Gutloff, 2000, Giebelhaus & Bowman, 2002).  Another way to decrease burnout is to acknowledge and internalize it that it exist. When this is done, you can actually change specific behaviors. By changing behaviors, it may entail modifying the existing diet, it may also entail exercising more frequently, or it may entail writing about it. Regardless of the tact used, it’s time to provide the help necessary for teachers to succeed in the classroom.

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About the Author

Irving Leung, Ed.D.
Assistant Professor
Alliant International University, San Francisco, California

Irving Leung is the Director for the Mild to Moderate Special Education program at Alliant International University. He is responsible for establishing and managing the pedagogy for Special Education Interns throughout their training. Prior to his present appointment, he worked at Project Pipeline as a coordinator, San Francisco State University as an adjunct instructor, and San Francisco Unified School District as a classroom teacher.

He holds a doctorate from the University of San Francisco with an emphasis on International and Multicultural Education. His area of interests includes Special, General, and Bilingual Education, and Philosophy of Education.