Teacher Burnout

Teaching is considered to be one of the most rewarding and noble professions out there, however, it is also thought to be an easy profession. People who believe that being a teacher is easy is wrong. Teachers pour their hearts and souls into their jobs, day in and day out. This can easily lead to burnout for the teachers and the students.
Teacher burnout is a preventable problem and there are ways to keep it at bay, we just need to work together and create support systems to help both educators and students.

Ways to prevent burnout, for teachers and students
1. Switch up your teaching style
Change the focus of your classroom, utilize the tools given to you, even if they aren't the most conventional. An example of this is in the documentary Teach one of the teachers the film follows, Shelly Harris, decided to use Khan Academy, an online classroom/workbook to help one of her students when she was not able to reach her herself.
2. Be flexible
When someone becomes a teacher they need to be able to be flexible with their plans and expectations, students are not always going to follow your plans exactly, sometimes nothing will go to plan, Learn to adapt to your students, their needs, and your surroundings.
3. Take time for yourself
You can't teach your best if you do not feel your best, it is important to take time for yourself so you can better take care of your students, remember you are a person too. Even taking a little time to oneself to meditate will be very helpful to the over-stressed teacher (Iancu, et. al, 2018). 
4. Remember why you do it
Remember why you wanted to become a teacher, whether it was the love you have for your students or the love you have for passing on knowledge. Whatever it is remember why you became a teacher and keep that feeling in your heart, use it to fuel you, not break you down.
5. Find a support system
surround yourself with people who support you and want to help you take care of yourself. Teaching can be a difficult job, it is important to surround yourself with people who will build you up.

According to studies, 93% of teachers site high stress or of a combination of stress and low job satisfaction as the reason for teacher burn out (Herman, et. al, 2018). This stress can lead to a lower ability to cope with the demands of the job, which leads to more stress and ultimately burnout.
I believe necessary to provide our teachers and students with the support they need in order for them to be the best they can be, both, in school and out. While teaching could be the most rewarding job there is it also has the potential to be the most draining if teachers do not take care of themselves or are not given the proper support systems needed. If we give students and teachers the support they need they will not only survive but thrive.