Educator Burn Out

Ending last week at work was a difficult one. I work in a behavioral school for children with Autism and some days can be extremely exhausting. I felt like every student in the building at one point was experiencing a crisis. I was going from one behavior to the next to the next and the days felt like they would honestly never end. My students were having really hard days and I did my best to leave my exhaustion at the doors. By the end of the week, the staff couldn't wait for the weekend for two days to relax. I remember sitting in my classroom with some staff talking about staff appreciation and how to boost morale. We talked about how low morale can lead to educators burn out and ultimately a higher turn over rate. I explained that a book I read in my Introduction To Education class called School Culture Rewired wrote that most jobs focus on increasing morale once the morale has been lowered instead of making it a constant priority. Managing stress, communicate with coworkers, and indulging in personal time are great ideas to prevent burn out. My job did a professional development day a few weeks back where we did yoga, wrote positive affirmations about ourselves and learned how to handle anxiety/stress. We also learned a few cool apps to use for us and our students. Although, what staff doesn't love donuts and coffee every once and a while?