I’m often asked why teaching is so exhausting. Since I’ve left the classroom, I often tell people how much less tired I am than when I was teaching. With private tutoring I have one, maybe two, kids at at time. There are weeks that I work all 7 days, with 5 of the days being 9-11 hours days. I have many fewer days/weeks off than I did when I was in the classroom. On paper, I work many more hours. And it is SO MUCH less tiring.
So, why is teaching so tiring? This list will not at all be exhaustive and I’d love to hear from other teachers because I’m sure I have forgotten some important reasons.
First of all, we’re always “on.” Teaching in front of a classroom is a performance. I don’t mean it’s insincere, but you are definitely performing. Keeping the attention of 20-36 students is no joke! I knew a first grade teacher who, when he sensed that he was losing the attention of his students, would walk into walls, in his own slapstick routine. No kid fails to find that funny, and he would get their attention. Most of us don’t do that, but we do funny voices, little dances, jokes, and more. I know that I always froze up when I realized that adults were in the room because I felt so self-conscious about all the silly things I was doing, that totally worked for the kids. I very rarely feel self-conscious in front of children, but throw a peer in the room and it’s tough.
Besides the performance aspect, we also have to be “on” in that we have to be aware of everything in the classroom, all the time. While we’re teaching a math lesson, we have to be aware of the kid trying to touch another kid (and plenty of desks are double desks so they can’t get away easily). We have to watch the child who can’t be trusted with scissors. Depending on the age we work with, we have to make sure all the phones are put away, no one is snapping bra straps, kids aren’t cheating, no one is eating crayons, kids aren’t squirming in their seat as a precursor to having a bathroom accident, they understand the lesson, their earbuds aren’t in, they’re not drawing on the desk, and much, much more. The hyper vigilance required is astounding.
During “breaks” — recess and lunch — teachers rarely get a break. Recess is usually 10-15 minutes and, depending on where your classroom is, it can take that long or longer to walk to the bathroom, wait for other teachers using it, and walk back. I STILL, 10 years later, have dreams about not having remembered to make copies in time and rushing to do it during recess, along with every other teacher who forgot or had to adjust lesson plans. If you need to call parents, plan field trips, or just plain call your doctor, this is when you have to squeeze it in.
Lunch is, in most districts, “protected” time for teachers. Most contracts allow for a “duty-free” lunch period of 30 minutes. We all know that this is a joke. First of all, you have to walk the kids to the lunchroom and make sure they all get their lunches and sit down and begin eating. Most of us try to leave the classroom a little early to get this done, but sometimes are reprimanded for that by administrators who have somehow forgotten how long it takes to get children through the lunch line. We then try to scarf down our lunches (and if we forgot lunch, we usually just power through without eating because there’s not time to get anything) and do all the things mentioned in the recess time. It’s no wonder that teachers have such a high rate of bladder infections — we don’t have time to go to the bathroom frequently enough!
But at least we only work 6 hours a day! Right? You can deal with an exhausting job if you only work 6 hours a day!
WRONG.
I know teachers who get up at 5 am to prep for the day. I can’t do that - I’m far from being a morning person. I prepped late into the night instead. I would go to social events with stacks of grading or lesson plans to work on because I needed time with my friends and I still had so much work. I usually left the school as soon as I could because I was so exhausted that I needed a nap. I’d make the copies I needed at school (or often at a copy shop, paying out of my own pocket, when they put copy limits on us without providing us with enough materials), go home and take a nap, then start hours of lesson planning, cutting things out, laminating (I bought a laminator!), gluing, organizing, grading, writing in journals, etc.
I could go on and on and on. The social interactions; switching between talking to colleagues, parents, students, and administrators;and more.
I remember in my second year of teaching, a friend came to teach the kids a few martial arts moves during PE. He was "in charge" of the kids for about 45 minutes, and that's in quotes because I did all the crowd control and took care of their behavior. At the end of it, he sat down, exhausted, and said, "Wow! So that's what a day in your life feels like!" I said, "No, that's what about 1/10th of a day in my life, with all the hard part done for you, feels like.
He didn't respond.
For you, what is the most exhausting thing about teaching?
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