What are the most common causes of teacher burnout?

This is part 1 of a 2-part series on teacher burnout.

Teacher burnout is real, pervasive, and increasing. In fact, teachers are twice as likely to experience job-related stress than the general population.

The reasons for burnout vary from teacher to teacher, but several common causes exist:

Challenging Student Behaviors

Spending 7+ hours with anywhere between 20 to 120+ students can be overwhelming, especially considering the amount of time and energy responding to student behaviors can take.

Teachers must effectively set and model expected behaviors, be aware of said behaviors when teaching, and respond appropriately. Simply put, teachers must demonstrate “withitness” throughout the day. The constant awareness required to teach and be mindful of behaviors can be exhausting.

In addition to withitness, many students show an overall lack of respect to teachers through their word and actions. This can be emotionally taxing and exhausting, causing an increase in stress and likelihood of burnout.

Lack of support from leadership and colleagues

Teacher burnout increases when they feel they are not receiving proper support or receiving appropriate appreciation (see below) from their leaders or colleagues. Whether it be from challenging student behaviors (see above), lack of support planning, or any number of other factors, teachers feel increased stress when they are left to believe they are doing the work alone. 92% of teachers recently reported feeling a lack of connection and support.

Feeling unappreciated

According to the iAspire 4 Principles of Connection™ survey given during the ‘21-22 school year, the average teacher response to “I feel appreciated at work” is the second lowest rated question, falling behind a question about effective communication at work.

This lack of appreciation can come from many angles, including students, parents, the community, and even administrators. When teachers feel unappreciated and undervalued, they are more likely to feel job-related stress and leave the teaching profession.

Societal pressures/forces

Many state governments make teaching exceedingly difficult because of several processes, demands, and (sometimes) unnecessary involvement. When making these ever-evolving demands, teachers often feel disrespected and belittled as professionals. The language used by political figures matter, and many teachers are displayed negatively during these conversations.

Standardized testing

Assessments are important as they provide data regarding the overall effectiveness of teaching on student achievement. However, many states have placed too much emphasis on a one-time, multiple-day standardized assessment. The scores from these assessments oftentimes are front-page headlines in papers, on the news, and otherwise openly discussed. The preparation for these assessments oftentimes includes technology stress tests, completely changed schedules, and high expectations for their students to do well. All of which can lead to increased stress for the teacher.

Difficult parents

Planning for and delivering high-quality instruction requires tremendous time, energy, and focus. Teachers follow state and local standards while considering the needs of each of their students.

Parent interactions can increase the difficulty of an educator’s job as well. Sometimes it seems like nothing can be done to appease some parents/guardians, no matter hard the teacher tries. Oftentimes one upset parent can take an inordinate amount of time because of the communications and meetings needed. Typically this communication happens because the parent is upset and emotions are high, causing even more stress and burnout for teachers.

Long hours

Teaching is not a 9-5 job. According to a recent EdWeek article, teachers typically devote 54 hours/week to their craft. Well before the school year starts teachers are planning lessons and preparing their classrooms. The beginning of the school year is exhausting for teachers trying to plan for their students and meet-the-teacher events.

Teachers are often seen at schools several hours after the day is over planning, providing feedback on students’ work, and getting ready for the next day. Nights and weekends are spent doing similar work, not to mention the amount of time teachers also spend reading books and participating in professional development activities.

Lack of feeling empowered/autonomous

A lot of boundaries are provided to teachers at the state and district/organizational level, including the curriculum to teach, standards to cover, professional development options, and hours to work. This guidance can be helpful, but it also restricts a lot of choices teachers are able to make.

Teachers have a voice and want to be able to share it. However, teachers are oftentimes told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it without any real voice in decision-making. This lack of empowerment can be frustrating, and absence of flexibility causes increased stress on teachers.

Lack of sufficient resources

The physical environment of schools greatly affects teachers and how they feel. For example, teachers at a major metropolitan district in Ohio recently decided to strike because of issues with air conditioning and class sizes.

Teachers are expected to help with the holistic growth of students, meaning emotional, social, physical, and academic. For this to happen, the environment must be conducive to this growth. Teachers spend $750 on average of their own money each year to purchase resources and supports for students. With teachers already not getting paid enough, each dollar a teacher spends out of pocket only exacerbates the problem.

Large class sizes

Class sizes are increasing across the country, especially in schools that are short-staffed. This means more papers to grade, more students to supervise, the opportunity for additional negative student behaviors, more individualized needs to plan for, and more parent/guardians with which to communicate.

Additional responsibilities

Because of the many unfilled classified and certified positions, teachers have been asked to take on additional responsibilities in their teaching time and during prep. Teachers are asked to cover for other teachers when they don’t have enough substitute teachers. Teachers take more shifts with playground supervision, car/bus duty, teaching additional classes, and larger class sizes (see above). Many teachers are flexible and willing to offer help whenever possible, but this leads to increases in teacher burnout and leads to turnover.

Insufficient training

To increase the hiring pool for schools, many states are relaxing the requirements for teachers. Florida, for example, has recently enacted a law that allows veterans to teach with only two years of college.

A larger candidate pool is great, but research has shown about 50% of new teachers leave within their first five years. Those with little to no training are two to three times more likely to leave than teachers with a more traditional and comprehensive preparation program. Higher turnover leads to increases in stress and burnout from those who stay as they need to take on additional responsibilities to cover for the teacher that has left.

Evaluation processes

According to the iAspire 4 Principles of Connection™ survey data, teachers rated “I receive actionable feedback that helps me consistently improve my performance” as the 3rd lowest item. This means that teacher evaluation processes aren’t meeting the needs of teachers.

Additionally the final report in the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching study concluded that teacher evaluations didn’t lead to improved student achievement, teacher effectiveness, or retention rates of effective teachers.

Teachers want to receive feedback that helps them consistently improve, but the current evaluation methodologies aren’t working.

Too much on their plates

It's an old adage in education that things are only added to educators' plates; they're never taken away (or so it seems). This leaves a feeling of being consistently overwhelmed, never being quite able to master what's already in front of us before something new gets introduced. This leads to the thinking process of “this too shall pass”, where teachers actively choose to not implement the new initiative because of the assumption that it will go away soon, only to be replaced by something new.

Low Salary

On top of the demands and challenging employee experience outlined above, according to a recent EdWeek article, teachers are paid 23.5 percent less than comparable college graduates. And the gap continues to increase in size.

Teacher burnout is a major problem, resulting in thousands of unfilled classrooms across the country. For us to ensure we have certified and classified positions filled, we must intentionally design an employee experience that meets the expectations, needs, and wants of our teachers. If we don’t, teacher burnout will continue to increase, resulting in increased pressures placed on the teachers who decided to stay…which will only keep the teacher burnout cycle spinning.