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The Burnout Cure: Learning to Love Teaching Again
How can you energize yourself to maintain or regain a positive outlook and love of teaching? What specific, immediate actions can you take to enhance your well-being and thrive both on and off the job?
Award-winning teacher Chase Mielke draws from his own research, lesson plans, and experiences with burnout to help you change your outlook, strengthen your determination to be a terrific teacher, and reignite your core passion for teaching.
Often lighthearted, yet thoroughly grounded in research on social-emotional learning and positive psychology, The Burnout Cure explains how shifts in awareness, attitudes, and actions can be transformational for you and for your students. The book describes specific steps related to mindfulness, empathy, gratitude, and altruism that you can use on your own and with students via classroom lessons and activities. Equipped with these tools, teachers can be their best, so they can give their best to the learners in their care.
Award-winning teacher Chase Mielke draws from his own research, lesson plans, and experiences with burnout to help you change your outlook, strengthen your determination to be a terrific teacher, and reignite your core passion for teaching.
Often lighthearted, yet thoroughly grounded in research on social-emotional learning and positive psychology, The Burnout Cure explains how shifts in awareness, attitudes, and actions can be transformational for you and for your students. The book describes specific steps related to mindfulness, empathy, gratitude, and altruism that you can use on your own and with students via classroom lessons and activities. Equipped with these tools, teachers can be their best, so they can give their best to the learners in their care.
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Published March 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 7, 2022
I read this book for a PD course I did for CTLE credit. It’s no secret that teachers are burned the eff out, and joining two simultaneous book studies didn’t help me, but reading this book did.
Let me point something out and be clear: if you’re miserable and determined to stay that way, don’t read this book. If you, like me, are willing to give anything a try because this is your calling and you don’t want to wish your life away, give this book a read. Since starting it, I’ve actually found the suggestions I was reading about help me just as much in my life outside the classroom as in.
I definitely liked the part where the author spoke about crafting your calling and taking ownership of your choices and environment. Yes, many things are out of our control and many things could be better - but there’s a hell of a lot that we can control too.
Let me point something out and be clear: if you’re miserable and determined to stay that way, don’t read this book. If you, like me, are willing to give anything a try because this is your calling and you don’t want to wish your life away, give this book a read. Since starting it, I’ve actually found the suggestions I was reading about help me just as much in my life outside the classroom as in.
I definitely liked the part where the author spoke about crafting your calling and taking ownership of your choices and environment. Yes, many things are out of our control and many things could be better - but there’s a hell of a lot that we can control too.
March 21, 2022
Absolutely loved this book! I saw Chase speak at a conference in December and bought the book before I left. Fast forward a few months, I saw a book study happening and wanted to get involved. As someone who loves teaching, I was looking for something to refuel my passion, and this book did just that!
August 2, 2023
Every teacher should read this.
December 24, 2025
I think its possible to be TOO burnt out for this book.
July 22, 2024
I started reading this book in January and had to take a break on it for a while. I teach high school culinary which hadn't been a easy thing to do with the pandemic happening during my first couple of years as a high school teacher. I had had several near breaking points in the past. So when my admin team offered this book as part of a book club for CEUs, I jumped at the opportunity.
I actually started out the 2023-24 school year pretty good. Aside from being the only teacher still wearing a mask, and being like the only person at my school to still not get COVID, the first half of the year started quite well. The winter holiday came, my wife and I dodged a bullet by not going to visit in-laws who all got sick and I started out the new year forgoing ice cream and OTC pain killers that I was taking way too many of and having fatty liver issues with. Through January, I was feeling really good. And then it was February...
Around February 2nd, I started feeling pain over not just all my joints, but in the very center of my bones. Especially my femurs. But worst of all was my skin condition from having a family genetic issue. I was feeling every inch of skin over my entire body at the same time. It was this burning itch, constantly. I couldn't sleep. I was so exhausted. I was miserable.
Thankfully, the admin team leading the book club behind about this book was so supportive. The other participants were too. I still went to the meetings, but I gave up on the book because I just couldn't concentrate on it and I felt like I could only devote my small remaining energy to lesson plans and teaching.
Things thankfully got better at the end of March, right before spring break. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Put on a couple of meds that calmed things down. And I learned about my condition and started figuring out ways to cope with the disease.
So I started up the book in April. Nope. Then my goat was stolen. I went into an obsessive depression trying to find her. Then my Siamese cat Sarakit got sick and died. Needless to say, it took a while before I was in the right frame of mind to finish this book without giving in to burnout.
I set a goal to finish this book before I started back to work for the upcoming school year. I completed the last 100 pages with just over 4 weeks to go. Based on what I read in this book, I would like to think that author Chase Mielke would consider that a success! Goal achieved.
The Burnout Cure is aimed at teachers because Mielke is a teacher himself. Or at least he was before winning some awards and then probably became administrator as what usually happens to the good ones. Anyways, despite the education career focus, this is a book that anyone needing help and encouragement surviving a job or career that just didn't turn out as well as expected could benefit from. It gives a ton of tips on how to interact instead of just dealing with the current generation of students. Plus it offers tips on finding the good based on the worth you place on yourself instead of how you interpret your management team values you.
For example, my program and school has produced 2 consecutive district Teacher of the Year winners. (One actually was eventually named TOY for our entire state). My department boss really made me feel valueless because of those winners and how she told me once that she shouldn't have hired me based on a lesson plan that was a huge success with the entire school, despite being a tad extravagant. Anyways, as I was continuously passed over for TOY (heck, I've never ever been nominated), I began really thinking that I was a terrible teacher. That thinking got extremely worse during my massive fibro flare over the winter. Yet, my book club and my wife pointed out that with having students asking if they could put up flyers for my missing goat, asking me to come to prom and then graduation and then after graduation requesting to have lunch with me over the summer as a group with me, the only teacher, it's those kind of relationships built that is way more important than winning TOY.
Chase Mielke, has helped me reframe my thinking. Heck, I'm looking forward to going back to work... mostly. (I mean, what teacher wants to lose their vacation days?) With my illness, plus diabetes and anxiety disorder, I feel more empowered to say no and not for reasons of being a jerk. I also feel ready to focus on the student and parent relationships instead of just checking off boxes for the admin team's approval.
If a book like this can win over a pessimist like me, even to the point that I am recommending this book to other teachers, as well as my bride...
Look, I'm still not a fan of the extra admin work we teachers are forced to do. And I'll continue to keep a secret weapon in my arsenal: my sarcastic and slightly dark sense of humor used to disarm tense situations in my classroom. But I feel that thanks to this book, I can feel better in myself as an educator when I decide that my caring teaching relationships with my students are far more important than filling out busy work data projects for the department of education. If you're a teacher, especially one in need of encouragement because you'll on the cusp of calling it quits or pondering early retirement, you really should give this book a read! It very well could be the life preserver you need in order to keep making a difference in the life of a child.
I actually started out the 2023-24 school year pretty good. Aside from being the only teacher still wearing a mask, and being like the only person at my school to still not get COVID, the first half of the year started quite well. The winter holiday came, my wife and I dodged a bullet by not going to visit in-laws who all got sick and I started out the new year forgoing ice cream and OTC pain killers that I was taking way too many of and having fatty liver issues with. Through January, I was feeling really good. And then it was February...
Around February 2nd, I started feeling pain over not just all my joints, but in the very center of my bones. Especially my femurs. But worst of all was my skin condition from having a family genetic issue. I was feeling every inch of skin over my entire body at the same time. It was this burning itch, constantly. I couldn't sleep. I was so exhausted. I was miserable.
Thankfully, the admin team leading the book club behind about this book was so supportive. The other participants were too. I still went to the meetings, but I gave up on the book because I just couldn't concentrate on it and I felt like I could only devote my small remaining energy to lesson plans and teaching.
Things thankfully got better at the end of March, right before spring break. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Put on a couple of meds that calmed things down. And I learned about my condition and started figuring out ways to cope with the disease.
So I started up the book in April. Nope. Then my goat was stolen. I went into an obsessive depression trying to find her. Then my Siamese cat Sarakit got sick and died. Needless to say, it took a while before I was in the right frame of mind to finish this book without giving in to burnout.
I set a goal to finish this book before I started back to work for the upcoming school year. I completed the last 100 pages with just over 4 weeks to go. Based on what I read in this book, I would like to think that author Chase Mielke would consider that a success! Goal achieved.
The Burnout Cure is aimed at teachers because Mielke is a teacher himself. Or at least he was before winning some awards and then probably became administrator as what usually happens to the good ones. Anyways, despite the education career focus, this is a book that anyone needing help and encouragement surviving a job or career that just didn't turn out as well as expected could benefit from. It gives a ton of tips on how to interact instead of just dealing with the current generation of students. Plus it offers tips on finding the good based on the worth you place on yourself instead of how you interpret your management team values you.
For example, my program and school has produced 2 consecutive district Teacher of the Year winners. (One actually was eventually named TOY for our entire state). My department boss really made me feel valueless because of those winners and how she told me once that she shouldn't have hired me based on a lesson plan that was a huge success with the entire school, despite being a tad extravagant. Anyways, as I was continuously passed over for TOY (heck, I've never ever been nominated), I began really thinking that I was a terrible teacher. That thinking got extremely worse during my massive fibro flare over the winter. Yet, my book club and my wife pointed out that with having students asking if they could put up flyers for my missing goat, asking me to come to prom and then graduation and then after graduation requesting to have lunch with me over the summer as a group with me, the only teacher, it's those kind of relationships built that is way more important than winning TOY.
Chase Mielke, has helped me reframe my thinking. Heck, I'm looking forward to going back to work... mostly. (I mean, what teacher wants to lose their vacation days?) With my illness, plus diabetes and anxiety disorder, I feel more empowered to say no and not for reasons of being a jerk. I also feel ready to focus on the student and parent relationships instead of just checking off boxes for the admin team's approval.
If a book like this can win over a pessimist like me, even to the point that I am recommending this book to other teachers, as well as my bride...
Look, I'm still not a fan of the extra admin work we teachers are forced to do. And I'll continue to keep a secret weapon in my arsenal: my sarcastic and slightly dark sense of humor used to disarm tense situations in my classroom. But I feel that thanks to this book, I can feel better in myself as an educator when I decide that my caring teaching relationships with my students are far more important than filling out busy work data projects for the department of education. If you're a teacher, especially one in need of encouragement because you'll on the cusp of calling it quits or pondering early retirement, you really should give this book a read! It very well could be the life preserver you need in order to keep making a difference in the life of a child.
June 25, 2022
I read this with colleagues in an effort to somehow convince ourselves to keep teaching and slogging through the longest school year in history. I found much of the suggestions to be logical and somewhat intuitive - if educators weren’t currently so stressed, maxed out, and fending for themselves, we could probably identify many of them without reading the book. I relished the book club discussions with my teacher friends more than I enjoyed the actual book - but then, If that book brought us together and fostered meaningful conversation, I guess it did its job!
March 11, 2021
A really helpful book. No big surprises here, nothing someone hasn’t already told me about psychology and boundaries and reframing and the rest. But I appreciated having all of that in the context of teaching, and the exercises at the end of each chapter are actually helpful, which isn’t often the case with self-help books. I read a library copy, but this is a book that I think I will want to own to refer to again when I reach the breaking point again.
July 26, 2021
I read this book for a book study that my teacher union provided. I really liked the "real-lifeness" of it. It helped that the author was a teacher and knows the everyday challenges that we as educators face. This book has great strategies to combat teacher burnout! I think this will be one of those books that I will use as a reference when I'm questioning my career choice and/or need a boost midyear. Teaching is not just a job but is truly a calling!
August 26, 2025
One of the BEST books I’ve read this year. I had the privilege to hear Chase Mielke speak at a conference this summer. While this was geared at teachers, I ended up applying it even more to life in general. I recommend this for teachers especially, but really anyone who feels like they are drowning in negativity and trying to approach life with a more positive mindset!
July 12, 2022
I really enjoyed this book! I read it for a class and it really helped with ways to take care of ourselves. We all know teachers are extremely burnt out, this book is a great tool to help teachers to to recover from burnout.
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May 13, 2025Chase does an amazing job nailing the importance of teachers and provides first hand advice on teachers can avoid burnout! As a teacher and school administrator for over 30 years, and the author of The Joyful Educator, I can relate to the challenges teachers face. This is a must read!
August 5, 2019
Totally inspiring and uplifting! A great read for anyone, not just teachers!
March 5, 2022
Transformative.
Note to self: 4-L is powerful. Remember to use it.
Note to self: 4-L is powerful. Remember to use it.
July 6, 2022
Fantastic. I liked that he was realistic about teacher burnout (the system has problems) but still gives ways to bring joy, meaning, and heart back to teaching - and our everyday lives!
August 17, 2022
I read this for summer professional development and I enjoyed it. I would not have said I was burned out but he gives some great advice and activities that I���m definitely interested in using.
October 30, 2022
(2022 - #78)
1) Practical, self-help, teaching, inspirational
2) Self-awareness, gratitude, goal setting
3) Great real life examples, excellent assignments
Enjoyment: 3
1) Practical, self-help, teaching, inspirational
2) Self-awareness, gratitude, goal setting
3) Great real life examples, excellent assignments
Enjoyment: 3
August 8, 2025
Filled with practical advice to be your best and give your best as an educator
September 14, 2020
A great resource for educators, and humans, in general. Helped to get me into a positive mindset going back to school - especially during a pandemic!
July 6, 2021
Although rated very highly by others, this just didn't do it for me. Without questions, teaching from March 2020 through May 2021 was difficult and teachers are leaving the profession after years of being underpaid, and undervalued. I was looking for more practical advice to share with teachers who are thinking of leaving the profession and unfortunately that was not the avenue this book went down.
"How can you energize yourself to maintain or regain a positive outlook and love of teaching? What specific, immediate actions can you take to enhance your well-being and thrive both on and off the job? Often lighthearted, yet thoroughly grounded in research on social-emotional learning and positive psychology, The Burnout Cure explains how shifts in awareness, attitudes, and actions can be transformational for you and for your students. The book describes specific steps related to mindfulness, empathy, gratitude, and altruism that you can use on your own and with students via classroom lessons and activities. Equipped with these tools, teachers can be their best, so they can give their best to the learners in their care. "
"How can you energize yourself to maintain or regain a positive outlook and love of teaching? What specific, immediate actions can you take to enhance your well-being and thrive both on and off the job? Often lighthearted, yet thoroughly grounded in research on social-emotional learning and positive psychology, The Burnout Cure explains how shifts in awareness, attitudes, and actions can be transformational for you and for your students. The book describes specific steps related to mindfulness, empathy, gratitude, and altruism that you can use on your own and with students via classroom lessons and activities. Equipped with these tools, teachers can be their best, so they can give their best to the learners in their care. "
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews