I love teaching but I'm not living. WTAF do I do?

[AcutelyEdgarish]

Next year I turn 30 and I've been teaching 8 years.

I love my job. I love watching the progress children make. I work in a great school and my colleagues and SMT are so supportive.

But I don't have a life. I work 7-7, eat dinner, and usually work afterwards. Sometimes it's 10pm before I have time to text my mam. On Saturdays I'm pretty much flat out with exhaustion and then on Sunday I start working again. I've tried OLD on and off but I've got no hobbies and no interests apart from teaching I just

I didn't mind at the start because I wanted a perfect classroom and I like using nice resources. I don't know how to teach without spending my nights cutting out flashcards and marking. I say yes to everything because what else would I be doing? Apparently I should treat OLD like a full time job but my full time job gives me so much satisfaction.

I love teaching but I desperately want to be a mum one day. I always thought it would just happen and I'd meet someone but it hasn't.

Sorry to hear that. I sadly feel the same. I've hit a bit of a wall in the term. Can you afford to go part-time?

I think you need to start being less of a perfectionist.

You sound very dedicated, and that's great, but eventually you'll burn out.

Remember the saying, "the perfect is the enemy of the good. "
As an NQT it's incredibly hard to cut corners and you do have to work ridiculous hours. After 8 years though, you need to accept that you know your stuff and you can start to cut a few corners.

May be you could find a few more hobbies, start to go out a bit more? Unfortunately you're unlikely to meet Me Right whilst home alone making flashcards.b

You're still young. Don't give up hope.

You sound like one of those obsessed with the job teachers on Twitter. I mean that kindly.

You must realise that the most important person in your classroom is you and if you're burnt out and tired then the childrens' education will suffer.

Stop taking work home. Just don't do it. You don't get paid to work at home, you're not smt. There are plenty of perfectly good worksheets and flash cards on Twinkl. Get some reliable children and train them up to do prep. Kids mark their own work sometimes and plan at leat two lessons a week where no work needs to be in books. Often a photo will do.

Good luck and take care.

You've cut out the flash cards. They now exist forever because you blatantly laminated them didn't you?

Reuse. Rework. Rejig.

The "perfect classroom" is achieved by the children. You or your TA cover the display boards and the children produce the content. Ask parents for XYZ for displays. Ask them to do something with their child for homework.

You've had 8 years of this. You're clearly excellent and dedicated. You are absolutely going to be seeing your repeating patterns.

There is no harm in "copy paste"
There is no harm in reusing lesson plans and term plans from 3 years ago.
You can change a topic, yes, but the underlying objectives remain constant.

Deep breaths. It's not cutting corners, it's relying on your experience.

Burnout happened to me. By year 8 or 9 I found that I was struggling to plan lessons. The ideas were no longer at my fingertips and it was taking me longer and longer to plan sessions. It took me a year out of teaching on maternity leave to get my creativity back again.

You need to become much more pragmatic, re-cycle planning and organise yourself in such a way that you can re-use some of these flash cards!

You are going to make yourself ill. It's not sustainable, even without the lack of social life.

What KS do you teach and is it a new one to you? Any others teaching the same KS? They can plan English, you can plan maths etc (I'm assuming primary).

8 years you know the score. You also know that teaching is one of those jobs that takes up as much time as you let it. If there were 48 hours in a dadmy it would fill that too.m if you let it. You have to draw a line. Set time limits and stick to it. The work will still be there tomorrow, and your pupils won't suffer if they have a lesson that's not singing and dancing. They are there to learn, that doesn't always include entertainment.

You must have lessons you can roll it from last year? Differentiate it slightly differently, job done.

You know all this though. So why not do it? Asking genuinely, not as a dig. Teaching can be a tough game and I'm genuinely curious, not having ago. You are posting on here about it, so you know it's out of whack. Are you worried what colleagues will think (they are all rejigging and not reinventing the wheel too, honestly). Xx

Lots of sound sensible advice on here. You're in a hamster wheel of work. You need to do something proactive to make it change. I suspect you stay late and arrive early, work through your lunch etc. Break this cycle. Start by joining an exercise class/bootcamp. Leave EARLY (by five to start with) to attend. Plan a treat on a Fri night. Do you have friends you can catch up with on the weekend or reconnect with? Join a walking group, anything to do something other than work at the weekend. You can fill every gap with teaching if you let it but that's no life. If you work long hours in the week, you shouldn't be working at the weekend (much anyway). Accept that 'good enough' is good enough. You deserve a life.

Some great advice on here. You sound like an amazing, dedicated teacher which is great but you are also a human being and owe it to yourself to create some boundaries now between work and life. As you say, work has become your life and vice versa.

I love teaching too but am not as dedicated as you (which I have slight guilt about so you can't win, really). As a teacher of 17 years now, this is what I started doing about 10 years ago:

1. One evening per week = no work at all. Do something else. See friends, a hobby, a course, go to the pub. Whatever.
2. One day a weekend = no work. This is hard at crunch times of the year but so good for mental health.

You are a teacher and that is a vocation but you are also human and that is more important! You can use your life experiences to help your students too.

Good luck. Strive to be happy.

I know it's YouTube but this lady has been helping me recently to sustain my approach and might help you

She talks about how to make teaching sustainable. She is an Anerican high school teacher but some elements are universal.

You know all this though. So why not do it?

I know. I do. I just can’t seem to get out of the hamster wheel. I have a ridiculous case of Imposter Syndrome and a good guilt complex built in too.

People have also started talking about my 30th and it’s making me feel so ashamed because I’ve done so little with my twenties. I so thought I would be married with a baby by the time I was 30.

Today I am going to text some friends and make arrangements to see them. I’m also going to start looking for a class I can join during the week.

Thanks everyone

Before I turned 30 I asked my friends to help me write a list of '30 things to do when I'm 30', a lot where little things but one was to find a man! I was much like you and couldn't see how the other parts of my life were going to happen. Mid-way through the year I gave in and joined OLD and figured I'd give it a try because I needed to do something new. I only met one guy, we are now married with a toddler and I'm about to turn 36. I still teach, and still love it but it's definitely not the only (or most important) thing in my life anymore.

Hi OP. I'm not a teacher but I'm mum to DD whose started Y7 this year. She's finding the transition so hard. Even when you take your foot slightly off the gear you sound like you'll still be an incredible teacher who is making a difference to so many kids. I wish you were her teacher.

Take care of yourself

My DD is in Y1 at the school where my DS was and they have the same topics for each half term of the year this time round. Is this not standard? They do have a TA per classroom though and they do the laminating (and DD has some flashcards sent home so unless I remember those won't be reused).

My daughter is exactly like you. She thinks that she HAS to work all evening every evening and half the weekend.

I asked her to think about her colleagues who have young children. They don't, they CAN'T, go home and instantly start working all evening. They have children to connect with, feed, bathe, take to Cubs or brownies, help with homework, read to etc. Yet they still get the job done.
That time that they have to spend on their families, my daughter could be using to play a sport, join a club, just generally connect with people and do an activity that she'd enjoy and keep her sane. But she doesn't. Perfectionism is a curse.

it’s making me feel so ashamed because I’ve done so little with my twenties.

Reframe this. You’ve done loads: got your degree, built a career, made solid friendships. Do not put yourself down.

Then make a plan: one night a week a hobby that has nothing to do with school, preferably something you have to really concentrate on (I did CrossFit for a while as it was so hard I couldn’t think of anything else). One ‘date night’ a week (this could be with a friend, or a night out alone, but use it to do something fun - cinema, theatre, etc)

Step 2: try going to school with less planning. Choose one subject each week, or one day each week, that you’re going to ‘wing’. You might be surprised. Some of my best lessons are the ones I’ve planned least.

Good luck

Good luck with it all. Most of us are on a similar journey, I think. You are not alone. But reclaim your life and you can still be a good teacher too.

Ahh. Imposter syndrome has a lot to answer for and kind of makes sense. Though you can be sure you wouldn't be there 8 years later if you really were an imposter.

Go baby steps I think. First stop feeling guilty about not doing anything in your 20s, you've done plenty, that's a social media fake.

Secondly choose one thing to change maybe every half term? This term no working on weekends. Jan, refuse to take on any extra. After feb half term start anew activity. After Easter, new resources only once a week etc etc

You can do it with baby steps, and start getting a bit of a life back.

Loads of good suggestions on here, just choose once thing to fix. That's a such a good mental place to be, that you're in control, it will kick start everything.

Good luck, and do it, you deserve it xx

Thank you all for being so kind. I like the idea of changing one thing per half term. That would be easier than trying to do it all at once. I actually feel like a bit of a burden has lifted off me already.

I've bounced between KS1 and KS2 and often ended up taking classes for two years, so I've actually not got that much to reuse- either I've been in a different stage completely or I've had the same class already. I also gave a lot of stuff away and never got it back, which admittedly was a lesson learned.

As PP have quite rightly said, it pays to schedule stuff that can’t be moved. So for example, a set exercise class/group that you commit to on a Tuesday eve at 7pm or whatever. If it’s just a general intention to go to the gym/a swim etc then it’s easy to get embroiled with work instead. The people I exercise with are a real community and there is a very low pressure expectation that you’ll be there. We all apologise on social media if we can’t make it.
Secondly - and I learned this from some v smart secondary teachers - you have to consider teaching through the same lens as other jobs and the working week. 7.30am til 6.30pm five days a week is 55 hours pw. Any more than that and you’re going to find that your hourly rate is below minimum wage!!! I have to work in a different way now because of being a parent, so I leave at 4ish and make up a couple of hours later in the eve. I can’t get in early but I do plenty at weekends instead. Crucially, I’m doing these anti social hours INSTEAD of getting in early and leaving late. I am not doing them AS WELL as the ‘office hours’.

I mean this in a nice way (honestly!), stop being a martyr. The pupils move on quickly. It's a job, no more, no less. It exists so you can get paid. Do it to the best of your ability but try to think of your hourly pay instead of the pupils, once you are getting to minimum wage levels with overworking it isn't worth it. I've been teaching 25 years. You HAVE to start looking after your own interests or you won't be long for this job. You've got many years of working ahead, it's a marathon not a sprint...