1. Two weeks ago I renewed my gym membership, which I had let lapse about six months ago.
Work in pairs, please
Sometime last Autumn, I had figured that the five flights of stairs I had to climb 8 or so times a day between classroom and office were enough to keep me going through winter, combined with the 5km or so I walked whilst monitoring in the classroom, and the 40 or so minutes I walked to and from work during my commute . I carried a pedometer in the classroom as a clock. I averaged 12,000 steps during a six-hour teaching day, not including my commute. In spite of this inadvertent regular workout, I still felt drained, exhausted, and my trapezoidal muscles hadn’t been unclenched in years. My spinal column clicked.
Just after I found out that my job was probably going to disappear at the end of June, I decided that I needed to address my clicky back, my chronic insomnia, my taut trapezoidals, my general feeling of physical malaise. If my life was going to go up in flames, at least I’d try to salvage my health along the way. So, I rejoined my gym.
This post is not about the gym though. If I wanted to talk to you about running, I wouldn’t have dragged teaching into it. This is a post about teacher burnout. About what it feels to be somewhere in the middle of your own burn out.
2. At the gym, I try to do about an hour on the treadmill, just to get the kinks out and to exhaust me enough so I can hopefully get some sleep at night.
I haven’t slept more than 4-5 hours a night since we moved to Shanghai over two years ago. An hour on the treadmill is a tedious endeavour which I mask with podcasts I’ve downloaded. I’m currently midway through a lecture series from Stanford University’s history department (20th Century US Civil Rights Movement). It’s a video podcast, filmed in an actual classroom, in an actual course. And this is where the teaching part comes in.
3. For an hour, several times a week, I watch a teacher walk into a classroom, calmly, methodically.
He greets his class. The classroom is quiet, except for the few students who reply to his greeting. He starts immediately. He elicits ideas and concepts from the previous lecture. A few students put their hands up and give well thought out answers. Most of the time he lectures, telling stories and reinforcing the sense of place and context. The students take notes. Using pens that they had brought. In notebooks that they had brought. Pins drop with a thud. For an hour, the lecturer speaks, occasionally elicits and gets at least one or two replies. At the end of the hour he thanks them and bids them goodbye.
If you are a teacher, this is possibly a wonderful moment of pure fantasy.
4. I’ve been teaching since the beginning of 2002, so I am currently somewhere in my 9th year.
Kids go Vegas
I had already had a massive burn out in 2006 in Turkey, after my year teaching at a university in Istanbul. That burn out led me to not renew that job (although it was an excellent job in many respects), to sell all my stuff, to give up my flat, to book a flight home, to research warehouse positions at the Vancouver Ikea. I wanted to stop having to use my brain.
I was so fried from trying to manage huge classes of barely motivated and painfully wild 18 year olds that I spent a lot of my weekends dreading Monday. I was drained- emotionally, mentally, physically. Just walking down the hallway at school, passing by the loud, rowdy clusters of kids made tired. Entering the classroom and trying to get (much less maintain) control exhausted me.
I was responsible for the behaviour and performance of 26 kids in each class. Things were thrown. Things were lit on fire. Threats were made (not by me). Kids would get up and walk around and talk. Mobile phones were out and used. The noise level could be painful if not carefully controlled. Those 26 kids usually didn’t give a shit. I had to give a shit. It was my job. You couldn’t turn your back on them or else you’d lose them. That made writing on the board a challenge- how to face them and monitor them whilst still writing legibly without watching what you’re writing.
I quit that job, didn’t go back to Canada as I had planned, but went on to teach adults in companies and then spent a year getting fat sitting at a desk as academic director of an Istanbul language school. Adults were much easier.
5. In China, the situation has been quite different.
Bribery has no effect on your grades
For the past two and a half years, I have been teaching in 2 Australian joint venture university programs. These kids are doing part of their degree here and, if they get good enough grades, will continue in, say, Melbourne or wherever. You’d think that this would be a relatively painless teaching position: university level classes not teaching EFL but rather EAP- basically, academic English skills like essay writing and presentation giving and note taking and critical reading– to students who will need these skills in the immediate future. You’d think.
6. My students here are quite polite and quite quiet compared to the chaos of Turkish classrooms.
They won stuff for being brilliant.
I like my students here. I don’t automatically gird my loins when I enter the classroom as I had to when I was, say, teaching 35 Turkish ten year olds. I do, however, often wonder why I even try.
I am fairly certain that it’s a coping mechanism on the kids’ part. They are able to shut down so thoroughly in class that it feels at times like I could be teaching the walls, or a room full of the undead, or a sack of root vegetables. Questions are left hanging in midair, unanswered. Even when called on by name, there is often dead silence. The passivity is so thorough that it is palpable.
About 30% of the kids are actively engaged in learning at any given time (more in my better class, fewer in my weaker class) and the other 70% are deep inside their own heads. I want to know how to get them out. I’ve struggled for two years to find ways to spark their interest, to get ideas flowing, to actively turn on their curiosity switches. Some kids have responded brilliantly. Most have retreated even more deeply into their quiet absence. Their passivity is so thorough and full-bodied that it actually seems tiring to maintain. Surely they’re struggling to contain at least a glimmer of interest! Surely!
7. No pens, no books, no note paper, no dictionary.
Staring at the desk, staring at their hands, staring at the glow of their phone, which they’ve hidden quite visibly between their knees, playing Angry Birds. If there was a clock in the room, it would be stared at. My voice is tuned out. Questions are studiously unheard. Instructions are disregarded, ignored, unfollowed.
8. The ways my kids have avoided work whilst trying to look as though they hadn’t:
brought the wrong book (say, Chinese Law or last year’s IELTS reader) but carefully opened it to the page or unit I specified fr a totally different book; kept an electronic dictionary open to the search page as if about to search for a word…for 90 minutes; holding a pen with no actual ink cartridge poised above a notebook as if about to write but with no actual intention to do so (because there is no ink)
9. In my weaker class, I sometimes wonder if anyone would notice if I stepped out and never came back.
In my stronger class, I let out a sigh of relief because I know that I will at least be able to talk to about half of them and be certain of a reaction and a reply.
10. My kids can be hilarious.
Jay, Jerry, Hu and DL rewrite Cinderella
There are days when we barely stop laughing. The class monitor in one group was re-named the Class Monster and a million monster jokes arose from this.
One of the boys has marvellously poofy hair and was nicknamed chrysanthemum because he resembled one from behind.
Another boy’s surname is Hu and we have had an endless stream of Hu’s On First jokes all year.
We did a lesson on injuries at one point (thank you, Cutting Edge Pre Int) and the kids wanted to know how to describe every possible variation on fractures, sprains, mutilations and amputations.
They have quizzed me at length on how to say the word bathroom at every level of politeness and spent a month alternating their requests to go: Teacher, may I go take a leak? Teacher, I would like to powder my nose. Teacher, gotta piss. Teacher, may I be excused to use the facilities?
11. I really like my kids.
Even Santa’s good for a laugh
I can honestly say that I like all of my students on an individual basis. Some of them I will miss terribly when I leave. They are kind people. They are, generally, intelligent people. They have good hearts. Some of them try so hard my heart aches for them. Some don’t, but I like them anyway, even when they sit like lobotomised bricks at the back of the room.
I see each group for 9 hours a week, for 34 weeks a year. In this program, I am the only teacher. We’re tight, we’re focused. There is no dilution.
12. One of my students last year named himself Blue and I spent 8 months restraining myself from referencing Joni Mitchell whenever I spoke to him.
One boy illustrates his name on essays with seasonal and topical themes
Hey Blue, here is a song for you. Another boy came out to me in a very moving, deeply personal end of term essay and never mentioned it again. One very bright and sweet boy started crying during a speaking exam because he was so stressed out and worried about his abilities and confessed that he had done terribly in high school because he was terrible at rote memorization and was tired of being a disappointment to his family. Another boy is mostly deaf but still tries to read my lips in class.
After a particularly rough day, I once complained to the classroom teacher that the kids were painfully apathetic and that I was at wit’s end and would cry if they did it again (a sarcastic threat that didn’t translate well into Mandarin). An hour later, three of my best, kindest boys came to my office and apologized on behalf of the class, pleading, ‘Don’t cry teacher! We love you! We do!”
13. My kids spend about twenty hours a week sitting on hard wooden benches (very Little House on the Prairie), in unheated, un-air-conditioned classrooms.
They’re smart and won full scholarships
Even though they are averaging twenty years of age, they’re still treated like junior high school children by the strict and all-knowing classroom teachers. If they don’t come to class, she goes to their dorm and drags them out of bed. She calls their parents if they are lazy or naughty or academically slack.
14. Every year that I teach, I think about quitting.
Every time that it comes time to quit, I back out and continue teaching. I really don’t know what’s going to happen after June this year. I’m thinking of taking an intentional sabbatical to get my head together. I need to spend more time with words and language that isn’t mangled and filled with mass-dispensed cliches.
30 Responses
I was a teacher or involved in education for a long time, but it was the three years as a public middle school teacher back home that did me in. It’s a year later, and I’m still debating if I even want to go back into teaching ever again. If you do it right, it’s a really hard job. Actually, if you do it wrong, it’s a really hard job, too.
I feel ya. This year I’ve had not working much has been amazing. I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but at least I feel a little better about not knowing. And I really, really needed the break from teaching. I think if I do decide to go back, I’ll be actually renewed.
There are times (rare) when I wish I didn’t have all these choices; like, you get a job and stay in it for 30 years and that’s that. It eliminates all the stress and all these decisions. Do you ever feel like that?
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Oh, I do wish sometimes that I had a passion for something that could translate into work I’d want to do on a permanent basis. It would take away the annual guess work (and second-guesswork). Teaching is FREAKING EXHAUSTING. And now that I might be unemployed WITH a work permit, suddenly my brain is shouting at me to stop, wait, don’t rush out to fill the job vacancy. I don’t feel healthy or balanced a lot of the time. Sometimes in class I can’t figure out where the next reserve of energy will come from. It’s not good.
I’m thinking of writing my first Harlequin romance novel instead.
I hope you post the juicy parts of your romance novel here 🙂
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Oh, that’s a good idea. Must brainstorm a plot line before I veer into the smut though. I wonder if Harlequin has a Water Monster Erotica series.
I was a teacher in a pre-school for about three months and it was a revelation. I vowed never to return to the profession.
I tried my had at home tutoring – I dozed off with a confused wide eyed kid by my side.
Teaching IS exhausting! The fact that you actually did it for 9 years is pretty amazing!
Cheers
Sometimes I wonder how I’ve lasted so long. I’ve heard the majority quit after 2 years or something. I don’t think I could handle teaching pre-school- even ten year olds (my youngest students) were pushing it for me.
I totally empathize with you on a lot of these points – I work in a private academy in Korea, teaching kids from 2nd grade elementary through to 3rd grade middle school.
Sometimes they’re so out of control, I just think, what’s the point? Other times they can be so quiet that it’s painful, they just sit and nod, and then when I ask a question…nothing.
I’d say I like most of my students individually (certainly not all…) I wonder what’ll happen when I quit in December (I’ll have been there for 2.5 years at that point). Surely I’m gonna miss some of the students terribly (I have a few I wanna adopt and take with me!), trying not to think about that though!
You’re right about the burn-out thing though, sometimes I just feel so exhausted, and know that a significant amount of students simply aren’t learning anything as they view my lesson as “play time” after they’ve already done a full day at their regular school (sigh).
Good luck with wherever your international sabbatical takes you – sounds like you need to retreat to a white sand beach with a few pina coladas in hand (that would be my remedy, at least!)
I totally second what you’ve said. It’s hard to explain that twin feeling of deep affection for the kids and the sense of total futility and burnout. Sometimes I just CAN’T find the energy to manage the behaviour and motivation levels of two dozen other human beings who aren’t even meeting me halfway. Cocktails on a white sand beach are definitely on the itinerary.
Woah. I feel you, sister. I felt the same exact way when I left Japan. I took the year off to try to refresh & renew myself & came back excited… unfortunately, this didn’t last so long. My students can be lovely but also frustratingly apathetic and ridiculously unprepared (“Pen? Why would I need a pen? This is speaking class! I do have the book….okay, so it’s the writing book.”) Some days I love it. And some days I just want to leave it.
I think we need more gin.
I think this whole conversation
Says a lot about education
Forced memorization from books
Forced conformity to standards
Forced molding of the soul
No wonder our children rebel
No wonder they dream of zombies
No wonder so many kill themselves
Give the kids something real to do
Let those who want to learn stay in school
Let those who don’t work in farms
Let those who don’t work in factories
Let those who don’t work as apprentices
Never happen of course
C’est la vie
yamabuki
yamabuki Zhou recently posted..Infinite Love
I agree. A lot of my students would rather be singers or dancers or actors or farmers. One girl wanted to be a Buddhist nun. They’re all in a program to get a degree in Business Administration, in English. I try hard to make it painless for them- to not make it about memorization, but rather about thought and exploration. It works for a few of them. It doesn’t work for many.
I’m in my 17th year of teaching public middle school, and every couple of years or so I go through a mini- burn out. It’s impossible to stay positive and optimistic in the face of blatant rudeness and apathy, no matter how much I enjoy my subject area and how much I like some of my students. I have found that change helps though. I change grade levels or schools or subjects and then at least I have something new to learn to keep me from being bored.
I’ve done the change thing too- I’ve gone from middle school to adults to high school to uni and back to adults then uni again… But it’s been 2.5 years of very, very similar university situations and I definitely need a break. I think part of it was the total isolation I’ve had with my current job for two years. No colleagues, no supervision, no support. Exhausting.
Thanks for your story.
I had the opportunity of teaching Spanish in Beijing during a period of time, and reading your post made me remember a great experience above all. Anyway, I think teaching is a difficult job, but quite interesting and richful, as I can conclude also from your post.
Try some herbal tea for sleeping. It works for me.
Sometimes reading something nice.
Being too exhausted makes it harder too.
Thank you very much,
Adriana
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Thank you for your kind words. I’m trying out different herbal teas for calm and rest- we have a kitchen drawer full of them. Hopefully I’ll find one that helps. I think maybe I’m too tired to be tired, if that makes sense. Over-tired. It’s been a hard year. I’m working on making the second half better. I will definitely read more.
Thanks as usual maryanne for your insightful look into teaching. I actually don’t know how you do it with the level of passion, interest and motivation that you do…I would have burnt out years ago.
As for the insomnia… can I recommend two hours at your local Chinese bathhouse? Very relaxing, although admittedly hard to fit in every night before bed.
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I think I’m ready to be a temporary taitai!
I remember the days of teaching to the walls in China. It was actually more interactive in the language training center. The reactions you have to some of the students now reminds me of days of teaching at the community college–I have some wonderful students that make the days worthwhile (there are others as well).
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I miss language schools actually- I did 3 years (non consecutively) in one in Istanbul and although the hours were longer, the holidays suck and the pay was relatively low, it was SO much easier than teaching in a uni or k-12 (which made up my other 3 years there and now 2.5 years here in a uni). A lot of my kids here are awesome… but there is a painful counterbalance of those who are a waste of oxygen. This week has been brutal, as it’s nearly the end of term and the passive-aggressive ones are even more brick-like.
This week has been brutal, as it’s nearly the end of term and the passive-aggressive ones are even more brick-like. Oh, that’s a good idea. Must brainstorm a plot line before I veer into the smut though. I feel you, sister.
wow! you have had an easy life!
I have been teaching in china for over five years – private school and seconded to public schools term-time weekdays.
how would you cope with 60+ to a class. an average of five interested students and no comment about the rest. apart from the bad students (bad behaviour) making me angry.
I have tried reasoning with them, bribery of sorts and agression. I have tried everything.
what I found worked best was humour. it fits with my philosophy of being happy and wanting others to be happy.
my technique revolves around having fun – playing to some extent.
if I am the entertainer, they are looking at me, listening to me, learning.
it works wonders.
I can safely say that almost all my students (I teach about 1,300 a week, yes, 1,300) like or love me. ditto for their parents and other teachers (the teachers would are supportive of english being taught).
this means I have 1,300 grandchildren which is how I view them. it is a very personal thing for me. as needed, I give them tissues, sticking plasters, balloons at christmas. sometimes a candy or whatever I have in my bag when a student says they are hungry.
students tell me they love me, they hug me, I walk into a classroom to genuine applause, be it clapping or ‘teacher!’ with lots of laughter and shouting.
I am not just their teacher but friend, grandfather (I am 61 by the way).
I won the liaoning friendship award because of who I am and how I teach. I won it because outside of class and school I am friendly and open to everyone. I do voluntary work.
students tell me personal problems and ask my advice, which I readily give.
my students are aged 5 to adult, preschool to retired.
I love my job. I make it as much fun as possible.
I am a person, a friend – and a teacher.
throw away the rule-book on how to teach. be yourself.
Um, good for you for being a good teacher. That’s great. The kids in China need that. Why do you assume I’ve had it easy? Why do you assume that I need to be told how to be a teacher? I appreciate your comment but it seems a bit condescending.
I know the comment I’m replying to is ancient, but it sounds to me like andrew has taken the edutainment route.
Yes, the edutainment route will pay off in terms of smiles and happiness and rewards from admin who don’t know any better. I took that route earlier in my career and while everyone was happy including myself, the kids weren’t learning as much as I wanted to believe… they were happy to see me because they had come to associate my presence with super happy fun playtime, NOT with learning a language.
Most studies say that extrinsic rewards actually detract from the content of your lessons– ie: they don’t care about learning, they care about the reward.
Letting yourself get a big head about how great of a teacher and person you are just because you buy your students presents isn’t doing anyone any favors.
Yeah, agreed since Ive seen it all too. The poster above is on an ego trip and it has probably all fallen apart since. Arrogant teacher requiring a stroked ego + belief that all students LOVE him + belief that administration loves him + not realizing that education has become edutainment = a giant crash when said teacher realizes how superficial the situation is (if ever) and is easily replaced or kicked out due to policy changes or whatnot. If its genuine then theres never a need to go off on how great you are – if it needs to be explicitely stated and used to prop oneself up in a good light in comparison with others….its just a mental character and wont last. But Im sure the memories and reaching back for that time when “I was a superstar teacher and everyone loved me and I deserve that type of position and “recognition” again” (but cant seem to find it) will offer good company for years. Getting personally and emotionally invested is fine, and it helps to make things in the classroom easier – but that has to be combined with something sustainable, practical and academic in the classroom – and in the end the best teachers who can keep on going and offer value or not the ones who try too hard to be everyones buddy, pal and entertainer – it just doesnt work that way when theres a real curriculum to get through and if you care about developing your students academics and discipline. Edutainment fails students and teachers in the end.
[…] 14 Notes on teaching English in a Chinese university, in the middle of a quiet burnout and impending… On her own blog this time Mary Anne provides an honest portrait of the stresses of life in the classroom. […]
Hi Maryanne,
I love this post. It took me right back to teaching in Chinese universities around two years ago and many of the emotions I felt then.
I hear your frustration and longing that it be different in every sentence! It’s easy to build rapport with Chinese tertiary students, I found. They are, on the whole, courteous, good-natured and affectionate. I used to wonder whether their apathy was due to some dislike of me, but that’s not it at all. But when only 20% of the class seems to have any interest in being there, it does play on one’s mind.
One particularly bad day, we had our 15 minute break as usual, only I took about 30 minutes. I tossed up whether to go back in or not. Eventually the monitor came to find me and apologised for the class’s unruly behaviour.
Hard not to start wondering why we bother, but it’s that hard-working minority that make it all worthwhile.
Cheers,
Victoria
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Thank you! Sorry for late reply, but… well, chaos here lately. I totally get where you’re coming from in your comment. I haven’t taught yet here in Hanoi and don’t know how Vietnamese students will be. Could be interesting!
Vietnamese kids are rowdy. Very active. They’re known to be a bit spoiled. I taught fir four months in Hanoi and the disruptive kids and the crazy city had me reeling. I had to leave! ?
I’ve been teaching 1st year university students here since 2015 and the opposite is true– they are so quiet, passive, tired… Does education kill that energy?