“Something Has to Happen”

“Something has to happen…” This is what I said to one of my teaching colleagues at school regarding the level of stress, burnout, and fatigue that we were all experiencing.

I have said this in previous years, but now going into a full two years this March of teaching in a pandemic, alterations need to be made to my strategies of self-care that are realistic and adjust to the new normal of teaching and motherhood. My life has changed in a multitude of ways in the past two years.

1.) Virtual teaching and the Covid-19 pandemic created an atmosphere where we lost boundaries we never had. Teaching moved itself into our living rooms. We taught with our children on our laps, in our living rooms, and with dinner cooking during staff meetings.

2.) I became a mama. Now with an almost toddler, I am still trying to navigate my schedule on a daily basis as a classroom teacher and what that looks like after bedtime.

Classroom teaching has remained unchanged. It is just as hard as it was before, but my overall tolerance for inadequate systems is becoming something that can’t be ignored anymore. When we moved back to in-person learning, the education system as a whole tried to hold on to the things that were good about virtual learning, but we quickly fell back into old habits, routines, and schedules. We lost the social-emotional learning aspects of teaching that were so important and needed for so many children. But, we also remembered that realistic self-care wasn’t just wanted for teachers; it was needed. This post is a declaration of boundary-setting and some strategies I am going to propose regarding setting actual healthy boundaries with the profession of teaching as a whole. I am beyond wanting band aid fixes. I acknowledge that I do not have all of the answers, but one thing I know is clear: I can’t keep doing business as usual.

Boundaries aren’t just for romantic relationships and friendships.

This post is largely my response after reading the book Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab.

I was immediately drawn to the strong connections between wanting a work-life balance and constantly feeling disappointed by my attempts to try to put anything that resembles self-care into place. This post is essentially an outline of my notes while reading, and my plan for how I am going to apply boundaries to my own teaching practice. While personal boundaries are something that I often do not struggle with in my life, I do struggle with the work boundaries and creating a separate space for my life outside of teaching. I have nodded my head in agreement in the past decade about the memes and social media accounts that preach:

“Don’t work outside of your contract hours.”

“Your life outside teaching is your own.”

“Take your work email off of your phone.”

“Family first.”

But, have they met an English teacher? We have to review writing (in bulk) and provide feedback which is the highest form of adaptive learning. I have done it all. I have researched, tried to put into place, and practiced every single grading strategy out there. It was even one of the reasons I started blogging in 2017 so I could start to figure out a way to stay teaching when I was starting to burn out more often. I think even before I had our daughter, I knew that teaching was something I would struggle with in terms of navigating the workload of the profession because I have never had any sort of boundary. Teaching was and has been life.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

The telltale signs that boundaries are needed.

I have never been able to put a type of work schedule into practice that looks anything like the elusive work-life balance people talk about. In Tawwab’s introduction, she calls out a few of the signs you may need to put some boundaries into place:

Signs of lack of boundaries in the introduction:

Overwhelmed
Burnt out
Daydream about leaving
No time for yourself

These speak directly to the teacher that is making the same excuses I was making. She stated on her Instagram account, “The things you complain about most often are teaching you where you need healthier boundaries.” I never complain about the kids, but I have found myself being drawn into coworker negativity, ranting about work after school, and bringing home the work day into my evening. Everything with teaching began to feel impossible.

One of the very first signs that I knew that things weren’t quite right were the constant Sunday Scaries. I started by complaining about Sundays. A lot.

Sunday Scaries (noun): anxiety or dread about the upcoming work week that sets in on Sunday

Tawwab states, “Mental health issues such as anxiety can be prompted by our neurological response to stress. When we are stressed, our brain has difficulty shutting down. Our sleep is affected. Dread sets in” (5). This dread is essentially the Sunday Scaries. She goes on to say, “They [people in general] are drowning in thoughts about squeezing more into an already packed schedule. This type of busyness is endemic in our culture. Everyone is striving to do more and more. Time is an after-thought” (6). My personal Sunday Scaries were about time management.

Sundays went from being one of my favorite days of the week to one that was just hard. I would procrastinate my work pile during the weekend or try to also balance working on Writing Mindset, and I would know that Sunday after bedtime would be work time. I would spend the day trying not to think about the pile of work that was going to consume my mind. But, I would also start waking up during the night thinking about my to-do list.

I have never thought I could do anything about my lack of boundaries with teaching because I fell into many of the thought patterns that Tawwab mentions in her book (pg. 60 for those reading along):

You feel powerless. I felt like I didn’t have any choices to change my teaching outlook. I should be grateful I get 13 weeks off of the year. I just need to suck it up during those 10 months.

You get your value from helping others. I love helping kids. They need the writing feedback, and they deserve quality lessons that are engaging and interesting. It takes time to create lessons that are fun, interesting, and make kids want to be in class.

You have no clue where to start. I have 12 years of experience teaching and I have refined my systems that work for me. Figuring out how to do something new takes time, research, and resources that I don’t have right now while I am also trying to figure out motherhood.

You believe that you can’t have boundaries in certain types of relationships (teaching). Good teachers work nights and weekends, right? Sacrificing your time is just a part of the job. I often will hear, “This is what you signed up for.” But, is it? Teaching without boundaries has always been the norm of the profession.

Guilt is the sign you are doing it right.

So, after coming to the realization that change has to happen. I have succumbed to the idea that teaching will never look the same for me. I need to also come to terms with the fact that I am going to feel some guilt for the above reasons about imposing some boundaries. Some things that I know I am going to feel right away:

“My welcome screens aren’t done…”

“I didn’t grade those character trait paragraphs this weekend…”

“What if that parent is mad at me for not responding to their email…”

“I am going to walk into this evaluation meeting unprepared…”

Tawwab states: “Remember: there is no such thing as guilt-free boundary setting” (252). It is not about having time. It is about making time. I have always hated this phrase because I felt like it was so unrealistic. However, boundaries are just forcing yourself to prioritize the things that you actually want to do or putting in place the systems for self-care that are actually needed to feel like a healthy human being.

For me, the aspect of time is the essential issue that is connected directly to boundary creation. “Time boundaries consist of how you manage your time, how you allow others to use your time, how you deal with favor requests, and how you structure your free time. People with these issues struggle with work-life balance, self-care, and prioritizing their needs” (75). Tawwab goes on to describe the time boundaries issue by stating: “Simply put, your boundaries around how you manage your time are the solution to your time management issues” (153). I don’t think I have ever felt really in control of my own time; hence, the relentless love of planners and planning.

Teaching won’t respect your boundaries. Ever.

I write this knowing that the teaching profession as a whole won’t necessarily support my choices to declare boundaries. Our districts are always asking for more. In the past 11 years, I can’t count the number of extra jobs I have taken on in addition to being a classroom teacher.

Department head.

Team leader.

School improvement team facilitator.

Curriculum writer.

Summer school teacher.

Culturally Responsive Education facilitator.

Professional development presenter.

Diverse libraries presenter.

And more.

Tawwab talks about the type of boundaries in her book, but what resonated with me was the idea of porous boundaries.

In reference to boundaries, Tawwad describes: “But overwork is often more within your control than you think. It comes from having porous boundaries with your boss, your team, and your time. Limits can help you maintain a healthy work-life harmony” (23). This idea of porous boundary setting is true for me in my experience with teaching because teaching has flooded over into every aspect of my life. The real harm here was that I didn’t have a problem saying no, I just never defaulted to “no” because it was an expectation of the job. We, as teachers, always have to give more.

Teaching routines that I am going to try.

So, what am I going to do about the boundaries I need to put into place? Some of these ideas I am going to propose are ideas I would have never considered in the past.

1. I am not working outside of work anymore. Not nights. Not weekends. If my lesson plans aren’t done, they aren’t done. If I need to setup welcome screens, they won’t get setup. The one exception will be helping to provide feedback on larger writing projects one time a marking period. I feel like this is a fair boundary for every six weeks of time.

Boundary: I will only work outside of my school day ONE time every six weeks.

2. I am not focused on creating cute welcome screens or fancy presentations anymore. If I need a welcome screen or weekly overview, it will be simple and straight forward. I will let my energy carry me into the day instead of a highly edited presentation.

Boundary: Cute presentations are out.

3. I am not answering work emails outside of work hours. Even if the email states it is “urgent” or needed right away.

Boundary: I am keeping email on my phone, but I am not answering work communications outside of work hours.

4. I am not staying late after school to work on school to-do list items either. I am ending my work day and moving into the other portions of my day that are focused around family, self-care, and writing.

Boundary: I am only staying after school for 30-45 minutes to reset my room for the day. I am not staying longer than this. I won’t carry leftover projects home with me.

5. I am not making anything new in terms of lessons or materials presented in the interim. I might revisit this in the future. If I need to make a something new, this will happen during plan time or after school. This one is really tough because I love, love, love lesson planning and instructional design. I love professional development books. But, I am not dedicating time outside of work to this anymore.

Redefine Work Boundaries as a Classroom Teacher