Sitting here at the end of my 10th full year of teaching, I’m exhausted. Those of us who get into this career know what we’re in for; non-teachers will often make sympathetic comments about how hard it must be to be a teacher; even lots of our students are perceptive enough to see the many ways that teaching drains us.
This past school year has felt closer to the pre-covid era. We’ve had our sports programs back, pretty much all the events and extra-curriculars, and a lot of additional opportunities for students and staff. And we weren’t ready for it; like an injured football player, we’d only just gotten out of physio and been thrown right back into a full 90min match. The students had never had to juggle so many responsibilities and activities—they hadn’t learned that in the previous years. I watched last December as so many teachers and students got to the half-way mark of the year a bit dazed and shell-shocked by all we’d managed to do. And now, June feels even more so.
Over the course of this year, I’ve occasionally reflected on the weight of teaching, the load it requires its teachers to carry. I’ve considered the large and small things that make this career so exhausting:
- It’s following up about a student who hasn’t been in class for two weeks and won’t respond to any communication.
- It’s the late parent-meeting when no other time would work.
- It’s recognizing the plagiarism in a good student’s work, trying not to take it personally.
- It’s the inopportune fire drill that throws off the carefully planned lesson—it took 2 days to get back on track.
- It’s the extra amount of patience when the third student in a row asks the exact same question.
- It’s the mental fatigue that hits when there are only two essays left to score.
- It’s the late afternoon faculty meeting.
It’s all of it.
Some days, I can’t sit with the other teachers during lunch because I just need a few moments by myself in my classroom. Other days, I need to put aside the massive to-do list and just sit outside and read during my prep period. Occasionally, I have to kindly tell a student that now is not a great time for that brilliant question they just asked me in the hall. Sometimes, I have to say no to a thing I really want to say yes to.
But then, when the final school bell rings, or sometimes in a Friday evening, or sitting here at the end of the school year, I remember a few things:
- The breakthrough moment a student had after really working hard on a project.
- The killer presentation from a shy and nervous student.
- The amazing in-class discussion that had all the students engaged.
- The teary-eyed, joyful mother at a parent teacher conference.
- The kind, heart-felt note from a graduating senior comparing me to Mr. Keating.
- The struggling student finally initiating and asking for help in March.
- The student who said that my class was the first class ever where he knew he’d get a chance to smile every single day.
- The one practically flawless research paper.
- The brilliant, capable student that I’d been thinking would make a great teacher, telling me she’s now hoping to study and teach literature.
- The tears and joy on the faces of the graduating class as they watch each other receive their diplomas.
- The students who are already excited for and asking questions about next year.
And that’s not even all of it.
And it reminds me that the exhaustion is totally worth it, every single day. I often tell my wife that I can’t imagine it any differently; sometimes as the sun is going down and we sit on our balcony, I think about all the poor people who are also exhausted by their jobs but it doesn’t come with a sense of satisfaction, meaning, or purpose. I get to the end of each day, week, school year, and no matter all the heavy things in them, I know I carried them for a good reason.
I think humans were meant to do things that tire us out, that drain us, that leave us exhausted. It just needs to have a good purpose and occasionally allow for rest and regeneration. Just in writing this, I can feel the exhaustion beginning to lift and the renewed excitement for next year starting to grow.
Part-time Human 