Essay Sample on Teacher Burnout

In the task at hand, there is the presentation of the report on the survey conducted regarding teacher burnout. It can be established that teacher burnout refers to the prolonged state of stress that leads to physical as well as emotional exhaustion, detachment, and cynicism, alongside some feelings of ineffectiveness with the lack of accomplishments. It arises from the long working hours by the teachers, where they are also overworked. Due to such stressful working environments, teachers can easily have insufficient time to take care of their physical and mental health. Thus, in the survey, there was the conduction of research on teacher burnout. There are five questions on the topic, which were distributed to 20 teachers to answer. 33% of the teachers had taught for a period of of0-10 years, 33 % also between 11-22 years, and the remaining 34 % had taught for over 21 years. The teachers were of Asian, White, and Black races. The males were 45% while the females were 55%.

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How often is the work stressful?

In such a case, a region of a quarter of the respondents, the teachers, said that their teaching work is stressful. They noted that their work is often stressful for 61% of their time. Thus, they could also state that the high levels of stressful time were more likely to be higher than those of the general population. It is because of other professions and the general population report an average of 31% of stress in their work time. Also, the teachers stated that their high levels of stress root from the many hours of paperwork that they undertake, alongside their planning and teaching activities. Hence, time for various other activities aside from teaching is not taken into consideration. Also, they stated that aside from their jobs being stressful, hard, and overwhelming, they are also unappreciated, underpaid, blamed and questioned for some things that are out of their control. Finally, more than 50% of the respondents reported having less enthusiasm in their teaching careers.

Also, they claimed that such resulted from the extremely programmed environments that they usually work in. In such a scenario, as they could state, their working schedule is tight, with the lessons and various activities planned for the teachers to execute for nearly the whole day time, with some even waking up and staring their teaching tasks very early in the morning, and also extending their teaching work to beyond evenings. They do so to align and be responsive to the guidelines and the directives of the various schools they attend in pursuit of specified results in the end.

How are you respected for your work?

The respondents stated that the elected officials could lack some level of respect for them, which, coupled with their large workloads, raises their levels of stress. Also, they stated that teachers are, in general terms, not treated with due respect that they deserve. Also, they could state that young people do not want to join teaching professions due to how they get perceived and treated. Thus, they felt respected by their students, student's parents, and coworkers and least respected by media, their leaders, and elected officials. 67% of the respondents agree that they are less respected by the secretary of education, 49% stating that they are less respected by both local and national media, 32% agreeing to be less respected by school board, 12% agreeing to be less respected by student's parents, 13% agreeing to be less respected by their students, 5% agreeing to be less respected by their coworkers, and finally 16% agreeing to be less appreciated by their supervisors, the moves that added to their workplace stresses and burnout.

How are your control and influence at work?

It came out that teachers reported being having some control over some day to day classroom decision making while also reporting to be having fewer influences on policy decisions. In such a case, they stated that they could select the techniques for teaching, evaluating and grading the students, alongside determining the amounts of homework for students to get assigned. Also, they had some control over student discipline in their classrooms. 40% of the respondents stated that they had no or minor influences in the determination of school curricula. A region of 50% of the respondents also reported having no or less influence in the determination of contents for professional development at their respective schools. Besides, 80% of the respondents reported having no or minor influence over the decisions for budgets in their schools. 10% of the respondents had no control in setting the contents, topics, as well as skills being taught, while 40% had a great deal of control. 90% of the respondents had moderate or a great deal of control on the amount of homework to be assigned to students, while 10% had no or minor control. In disciplining the students, 77% of respondents had moderate or a great deal of control while 23% had no or minor control. There is also 92% of the respondents having moderate and full control of disciplining the students, while 8% reported no or minor control. Thus, the stresses and burnout of the teachers root from the lack of significant influences in school policymaking.

How are bullying and harassment on the job?

It can be established that teachers can get harassed, bullied, and threatened at work in comparison to other workers. In such a case, 26.4% of the respondent teachers reported having been bullied, threatened, and harassed during their working in the last 20 months. Also, they indicated that their rates of getting bullied could surpass those of other professions, since 43% of the respondents reported to have been bullied, threatened, and harassed in the year before. On a closer look at the teachers being bullied, 35% of them identified the supervisor, administrator, or principal as the bully. 23% identified the coworkers as the bullies. 50% of the respondents identified the students as bullies and 31% of them identified their student's parents are bullies. They also stated that the training on harassment and bullying lacked in most of the schools. Such happened irrespective of the fact that, as reported by the respondents, their districts or the schools had the harassment policies for their workplace including the prohibitions against bullying as well as the possible penalties following the reported cases of bullying if they arise.

What are other stressors that face teachers?

In such a case, the respondents not long working hours as being part of their stressors and burnout, where they recorded an average of 50 hours of working per week. They also reported that they could work more than their regular scheduled hours in 13-14 days per week. Also, most of the respondents cited the insufficiency of teaching resources in their working, which made it hard to execute their tasks and responsibilities effectively. Thus, they reported the need for additional resources for the proficient execution of their jobs. A third of the respondents could not agree that the teachers felt safe in raising their problems to address the issues facing them, hence piling them up and thus stressing them continuously. 62% of the respondents reported disagreeing that their respective schools had reliable systems for peer evaluation as parts of teacher evaluation systems. Also, the teachers stated more additional sources of workplace stresses that contributed to their burnout, including sick buildings, inadequate time to collaborate with the colleagues, shortages of teachers that also affect the staffing of the school, alongside stagnating wages and healthcare costs.