This site is a class blog space for new Career and Technical Specializations and Heathcare Science teachers enrolled in the New Teacher Institute (NTI) at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Burn out!
I spoke to one of my mentors today and asked her "when do you start to feel a lack of drive and start to think about summer vacation"? Well, her answer essentially was that it's all relative to the work load. Being careful to provide your students with plenty of opportunities for evaluation but then being careful to not create too much extra work for yourself has it's own set of challenges. But then there are a lot of other factors, as we all well know, even with the limited amount of experience that we have. We issued progress reports today and several of my students were shocked to see that they had "F's" in my class. Because a good work ethic was so lacking in the majority of my students I decided that I needed to grade them a little harder in that area. Many of them seemed to resent me after I explained to them why they recieved the grade that they did. Where did the conscience go in so many of our students? This work outlook and these attitudes are what wear me out. Sometimes I feel like, as the verse in the bible states, I'm "throwing my pearls to the swine". These sorry attitudes.....this is what burns me out.
I've experienced exactly what you are talking about with various groups of students. When your students are not motivated, it's incredibly hard to stay motivated as their teacher. It does indeed cause burnout.
ReplyDeleteWhat has worked for me in this situation is to do get out of my comfort zone and do something radically different to spike the students' interest in my class again. You could design a game for them to play (related to your course content), or create a new learning activity/experience for them. Just do something that will surprise and engage them.