By Gerandia Marbaniang
If you’re walking into your own classroom for the first time, you’ll feel a wide range of emotions. Your Bachelors, Masters, D.El.Ed, B.Ed. training courses would have helped you be prepared for the job and taught you the basics on best practices for curriculum and classroom management, but the emotional element of teaching is a beast that can only be tamed with time. I should know—I finished a total of 15 years of teaching and my experience is a fairly typical example of the emotional roller-coaster.
In the beginning of the year, there is excitement and anxiety in the first few weeks that can be overwhelming and many teachers find themselves working late and staying up into the wee hours of morning to ensure that they’re prepared. But it’s important to learn to cope with the labour and the emotional labour of being a teacher.
Now, stepping into the classroom and presenting lessons to my own students was more draining than I anticipated. Learning to manage all the responsibilities of the role was taxing on the mind and also on the heart. Developing systems and patterns that work for you can help lighten the weight of all the responsibilities.
In time, you can expect to have adjusted to the work and most likely you will have settled into a routine of preparation, presentation, and assessment. But you need to remember to take care of yourself through this time of year, because in the blink of an eye, the next few months turn into winter, which can lead to seasonal struggles associated with the cold and darkness.
The weeks until Christmas break may seem like some of the hardest to work through. The anticipation of freedom, the cold, and the exhaustion can lead to difficult, emotional days. Students work slower, focus less, and seem to misbehave more. This takes a toll on my emotional well-being, and I have come to understand that it’s important to develop daily rituals for self-care to prevent complete burnout.
In the days leading up to the holidays I found myself struggling to manage teaching and grading, as well as the pressures of holiday, weddings to attend and travel planning. For the majority of teachers, this stress is temporary and is overcome with the release of winter break.
After the break, you may again experience the anxiety felt earlier in the year, but this time you should have more confidence. Students are rested as they’ll be for the half of the year. They’ll pick up the pace in work and focus. This period is the most enjoyable for me in year one.
Well, we teachers need to be prepared, as not all students have gone to a happy home for the winter break. Some return from dysfunctional homes, and we need to watch out for indications of stress and trauma and we also need to talk to our counsellor about any warning signs from students.
In these cases, we also need to remember to take care of ourselves as we take care of others. It’s important to focus on our own mental health because student trauma can bring up emotional triggers for us teachers as well.
We all love spring; it is fun and therapeutic. This is when the phrase “teacher tired” can become all too real. Fatigue can lead to depression, but I found that having a fulfilling life at home helped with the pressures of teaching. We need to have a solid routine of rest, relaxation, spiritual practice and exercise. For me, reading scriptures and taking a walk helped through this time of anticipation and stress.
Grades, high absentees and spring fever can make these weeks stressful and long. And when the end of the year arrives, we may be shocked because we’ve lived and breathed teaching for so long that it can be hard to adjust to a life that isn’t driven by our teaching schedules. It may feel surreal that the year has ended, but we should certainly enjoy the well-earned break.
In my 15 years of teaching, I was motivated by both the successes and failures and the determination to do better each year. It was important for me to take time to reflect and plan for the year. Reflection is a powerful learning tool if channeled into improvements.
We can expect to experience eagerness and anxiety again at the beginning of the new school year, but also relief at being able to rely on our experiences from the previous year.
During the early years, I questioned myself a lot—just because something had worked the previous year, it didn’t mean that it was the best practice. I needed to improve yearly.
This time of year, is a period of increased reflection, and it was such that I looked around to see who notices our roller-coaster ride as teachers. Many students are ready to be back in school and eager to have the stability of a routine again. Parents are happily handing over their kids to us for shaping their futures. The Education Department is ready to flood us with the “Urgent” activities while our government remains silent on the request for increased salaries and recognition. These are emotionally satisfying and draining for me as the routines and reflections of this year began to come together.
But as the dark months of winter will begin, we might once again find ourselves struggling, as I do. However, it’s important to be patient with ourselves and your students. Performance reviews and submitting final grades on top of the never-ending emails can send even a more experienced teacher into a spiral.
Around this time, I’m setting boundaries for myself. The pressures of the school year, the holidays, and mental health challenges can make winter feel impossible to get through, and I found that little treats and moments of self-care, time with family, friends and loved ones will help us persevere through this time. Winter break brings with it a sense of relief. My colleagues and I often feel the most positive in spring and before winter breaks. It is normal to have some anxiety about the academic year, but a lot of us can take time to enjoy the camaraderie, changes in attitude and contentment as teachers for what the rest of the year will bring.
Teaching can indeed be an emotional roller-coaster! Educators often experience a wide range of emotions, from the joy of seeing students succeed to the frustration of dealing with challenges like classroom management and administrative tasks. I only hope the world sees us and cheers for us so we can balance ourselves as we ride through these emotions.