The Subconscious Patterns of Teacher Life

Since leaving the classroom I’m becoming increasingly aware of the subconscious patterns and coping mechanisms we develop due to the unique stresses of teaching in a traditional school setting. Even now, four years into my life as a self-employed teacher, these patterns strongly influence how I live and work.

The first pattern I noticed I call the “Due Date List”. This pattern influences my daily life and decision-making regarding how I prioritize tasks. A mentor of mine once told me that teachers need due dates. Oh, how I’ve found this to be true. A task without a due date rarely gets accomplished. We live with never-ending To-Do Lists and are in a near-constant state of overwhelm 9-10 months out of the year, therefore tasks get accomplished in order of urgency - no matter how much we want to do it or how beneficial completing the task may be. 

The next pattern I call the “Teacher Hamster Wheel”. This pattern is how I function during a 24-hour period for 9-10 months of the year. Here’s a snapshot of a typical day.

• Alarm goes off 
• Snooze button 2-8 times depending on the level of sleep deprivation 
• Coffee 
• Get myself ready
• Get kids ready 
• Out the door 
• Pre-work work
• Work work
• Post-work work
• Pick up kids
• Make dinner (or at least a plan for dinner) 
• After school activities
• Veg out and try to visit with my spouse until I’ve worked up enough energy to put the kids to bed
• Put kids to bed
• Pass out (or at least try to)

In a nutshell, wake ➡️ triage needs/responsibilities  ➡️sleep ➡️repeat. A perfect recipe for burnout, exhaustion, and mental health struggles. This is the life of a human-doing, not a human-being.

The final pattern I noticed, I call the “Yearly Teacher Cycle”. This is how it goes: 

• Back-To-School, Starting the year off excited, nervous, and hopeful. I’m excited about some of the cool new ideas you want to try. I’m excited and nervous to meet my new students. I’m hopeful and optimistic that the new self-care habits I established over the summer coupled with the new workflow procedures I created will help me to spend less time on the “Teacher Hamster Wheel” this school year. Of course, the district has some new ideas and initiatives of their own, but thankfully I have new systems in place now, so I’m confident I can handle the additional workload.
• Late Fall, October-November, the first wave of exhaustion hits. My self-care habits are nearly gone by now, many of your new workflow systems and procedures aren’t functioning as well as I hoped (if at all). I’m firmly on the “Teacher Hamster Wheel” and just holding on until Fall Break and then Winter Break when I can work on recovery, get caught up on work, and maybe enjoy some socializing.
• January. It’s only been 10-14 days, but everyone needs to relearn how to be in school, and some form of high-stakes, standardized, benchmark assessment has to be administered in two weeks.
• The Long Dark Slog aka mid-January through March. Things usually go fairly smoothly here except for illnesses. Everyone seems to be in some sort routine which is nice, but everyone also takes turns being sick. Sub plans are exhausting and you need to save your PTO for when my own children are sick, so I go to school anyway as long as I can drag myself out of the house.
• Spring Break is a breath of fresh air (and allergies), but I finally get to catch up on some sleep and some grading.
• The Last Push, April through the Last Day of School. The older students get, it seems the less they fully return from spring break. For this reason and because of those lovely, high-stakes, standardized spring, assessments, most of us try to get 90% of our curriculum taught by early April at the latest. That last month of school feels like straight chaos and survival as both a teacher and a parent. We’ve also started packing up our classrooms because we might get 2-3 hours of contract time to do 10-12 hours worth of work.
• Summer Break Part 1 is all about recovery. I’m a shell of a person at this point. I’m in full zombie mode, doom-scrolling, and binge-watching TV (usually TV shows my non-teacher friends recommended during the school year but never had time to watch). I’m only barely able to make the simplest decisions. Depending on the year, this could take 5-15 days.
• Summer Break Part 2 welcomes “Summer Rachel”  I’m a person again, “Want to go out to lunch?” Want to meet at the pool?” In late June and July, I’m ready to be social again. I can’t wait to see all the friends and family I missed during the school year. I do fun things with my children and spouse. I develop healthy routines and healthy eating habits.  I also start casually working on plans for the next school year (about 5-10 hours a week). This is my favorite version of me. The only sad part is that I really don’t love this time of year where we live. 
• Summer Break Part 3 I start getting excited about Back To School. Late July into August, I begin moving back into my classroom. Just a few hours here and there. A couple of new projects, bulletin boards, seating styles, new organization, and maybe some new furniture. I also start getting new or updated systems in place to manage routine tasks and workflow that I’m certain will make this next year run much more smoothly.
• Back-To-School, ...

It’s been three years since I left the classroom completely, and it’s taken that amount of time to see how much these patterns became deeply and subconsciously ingrained those patterns had become. Even being my own boss as a self-employed teacher, I accidentally recreated these patterns in my life and businesses. Now that I am aware of these patterns, I can consciously create new ones that support my vision for a more balanced and harmonious life for me and my family. I hope this post will help you do the same.

Best wishes always! 💕