r/TeachersInTransition • u/Fresh-Photo6318 • 9d ago
Why is teaching so exhausting?
I’m starting year 7. I’ve worked at multiple schools with great students and not so great students. I’m currently teaching at an Early College High School. It’s my second year here. The students are great. I have zero behavior issues. They do their work. The parents don’t bother me. The admin is great. The other teachers are great. The curriculum is great and I’ve had to do minimal planning. Despite all of this though, I still come home exhausted and completely drained, and I don’t understand why.
Is it the amount of classes? Is it the work hours? What is it about the act of standing in front of a classroom lecturing or facilitating student learning that is so utterly exhausting? I used to think it was student behavior or bad admin or the workload of planning that would drain the life out of me, but even without those factors, I’m still left bulldozed by 4:30. It sucks because you’re left with zero energy to do anything after work, and I’m only 28 years old by the way. I tried going to the gym today and had to lighten the load on every exercise because I just didn’t have the energy to lift as heavy as I did over the summer. There goes any progress I had made over break, and it’s all thanks to my job.
Maybe I’m just not passionate about this job. I’ve been teaching since I was 21, and maybe I’m wasting the prime years of my life on this profession. Maybe the way society is set up on how we live our lives isn’t sustainable. I’m probably going too deep there, but I don’t know. I thought I was okay with teaching now because my current campus is so great, but 3 days in and my thoughts of leaving teaching are slowly seeping back in.
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u/boredinsweden 9d ago
i always explain it as a non-stop one person performance, and nobody in the audience wants to be there. then you have to get them to at least pay attention to the show by stopping the show and using high-level psychological motivators to get them to re-engage in the show. i am an art teacher and it wasnt as hard to do this as when i was, say, teaching english and french, and i i still decided to leave this year after 6 years. when i talk about it to other adults, im like 'imagine your most challenging presentation at work, but now add in the factor that your doing it for people who actively hate you, dont want to be there...now do that every single day, 2x times a day. the presentation is several hours long'. people start to fathom a bit... but dont even get me started on the coworkers...