How to Love Teaching Again: Work Smarter, Beat Burnout, and Watch Your Students Thrive

by Jamie Sears

Somewhere along the way, educators decided that the Teacher of the Year award goes to whoever’s car is the last in the lot. But that’s a bunch of bullcrap that has nothing to do with being a quality teacher. In fact, I would argue that it’s the least efficient teacher who

What I want you to realize and remember is that your classroom is not the final destination.

It can be so tempting to base our self-worth as teachers on student test scores.

Instead, I bet you loved that teacher because of how they made you feel, how they spoke to you, what they believed or noticed about you that others didn’t.

Saturday, her husband stood between her and her computer and said, with tears, “I miss my wife.” She didn’t realize how bad things had gotten. When she decided to reserve weekends for family, she learned she was doing too much for school and not enough for home. And guess what? Even though she wasn’t working around the clock for her students, they still loved her.

In the end, what you do with your time matters more than the number of hours you work.

In fact, a recent study at Stanford showed that productivity drops off a cliff when we work more than fifty hours a week.

You will love your job ten times more when you also love your time outside work.

Over time, the things you do outside school will motivate you to make the most of your time at school.