Overview:
A teacher reflects on teacher exhaustion while rediscovering purpose through creating engaging and meaningful literature lessons for students.
I suddenly know why teachers say they’re “exhausted” or “teacher tired” after all the events, expectations, and errands to the copyroom where I’m sure a handful of us contemplate “what am I doing here?” While we may know that we are there to make copies, and on a bigger note, to encourage the young minds of the future in a subject area we love (call it a love/loathe relationship if you will), that doesn’t change the fact that the pile of events, expectations, and errands make us question it all. All of it. Truly.
Add “I’m all talked out” to that list of “teacher tired” and “exhausted.” I refuse to add the words “teacher burnout” to that list. We will not go there… we’ll focus on what we need revival for for the next day whereas burnout is a whole season of fanning away the fumes of a burnt out candle. We don’t want any smoke here.
So being “all talked out”… it’s when you just want to go home and snuggle with your husband. It’s when you want to drown the world out for the night with worship music caressing your ears instead. It’s in cooking a meal of comfort for you and your husband and deciding to put the phone calls and texts on hold for the night because you can for your sanity. When you do text, it’s in two word messages, sometimes more but never past the capacity of let’s-carry-out-a-full-conversation.
I just don’t like that it makes me feel limited some days. On a brighter note, I think about how my words are brining my students minds and bringing them laughter. I know they see my care in my new lessons that you can tell is more my cup of tea. It’s a sunny day and rainbow at the end of the tunnel when it aligns with the standard. Thank You Jesus it’s been aligning with the standard.
I had a nice long talk with my mother-in-law at her kitchen table one night as my husband played his sweet tunes on the piano while his father/my father-in-law heard the melody from the couch.
She was encouraging in talking about literature, the types that I formed a great love for in college, short stories that I loved to analyze and talk about dearly to the point where it was greatly broken down and taught in a way that made it fun and enjoyable. I knew that’s what my students needed, that fun and enjoyable approach to literature the way I was taught. They aren’t all reading the chapter books, and what do you do when you try to teach a room of blank stares a chapter from the book they didn’t go home and read? They have days to read in class, but it becomes a hot mess express when they don’t finish and don’t continue to read it at home and instead tell you they don’t get it just for you to fill in all the gaps and spoon feed. Then the other part of that hot mess express is the fact that class doesn’t feel like a class led by a teacher because every day they come in to read that book, there’s no interaction being made. It feels like babysitting. Yes, don’t get me wrong, students are supposed to be let loose to do their individual, partner, or group work (WHICH I LOVE!), but that comes after leading a lesson and great modeling — which teaching the short stories in a special method allows.
Thinking back to that night at the dinner table with my mother-in-law, it made me want to be the elementary language arts teacher that I’ve always dreamed…. Minus the elementary since I’m in a middle school setting with my Grade 5-9 certification. It’s a room where there is great conversation about the literature and problem solving. I see an array of sticky notes, students writing their ideas with their pencil in great eagerness. All the goodness. I wasn’t all talked out then.
Just like I’m not all talked out when I’m talking to my husband about a clever book idea or the movie we just watched. Just like I’m not all talked out when I’m typing away at my next teacher article, poem, or book. Some sort of correlation is forming. Hmm.
But I’ll stop now while I’m ahead. “Correlation” sounds like I’m dipping into my teacher brain outside of teaching hours… no wonder I’m all talked out for today…
