It's better to burn out, than to fade away...

At least that is what they say.

But burning out as a teacher is never a good thing. At one point someone suggested that we offer some advice for the first years on avoiding burnout. Unfortunately, I haven't had nearly the success in this department that Jeremy has had, and so the best advice I can offer is to be what I am not - organized. And don't coach football. But I am really not in the correct frame of mind to offer advice. I am just going to dive into how burnt out I am.


I'm not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to coach football last spring. Maybe I thought I would get more respect from the kids, just by spending more time with them, they'd understand, a little better how much I cared. I thought, perhaps, nostalgic for soccer season, that it would be great to spend a little more time with the boys who play both soccer and football, and that if the soccer guys were so great, maybe I'd be able to love the football players as much as I do the soccer players.

Regardless of what I thought, it was a poor decision. I was not helpful to the football team. I was not helpful to myself. I learned a few things from the football coaches, about football and coaching in general. I met a few great kids who I never would have met otherwise. But it was a mistake, because it left me already running on reserve when soccer season hit.

Football meant getting home between 7 and 7:30 every night, between 10 and 1 AM on Fridays, and a few hours on Sunday for film. Soccer means getting home between 7 and 7:30 every night plus responsibilities. We ordered new uniforms, we're still trying to track down some of last years, the field needs to be lined, the goals need to be moved and the new nets put up. We need buses for away games, checks for away game meals and pregame food, we need to order new balls and shin guards and cones. And then there is eligibility. Birth certificates, physicals, permission forms, eligibility sheets, counselors, principals, and athletic directors at four different schools - the two campuses of the high school and the two middle schools. And that is just the BS part of coaching. The real work of finding a system and putting the right people in the right places, and finding and fixing deficiencies, of discipline, spirit and pride, loses out to the paperwork. I got an assistant coach, finally, and she is fantastic. It's my delegating skills that are weak, and we got a bit of a late start, because of football.

In addition, for the last three or four weeks I've been teaching trig during my planning period. I volunteered - the trig teacher was in a car wreck and had to get stitches in his head, so our principal, rightly, did not want the kids to fall behind. I applaud her for that. But that has really been taking a toll too. Leave the house at 7:30, get back to the house at 7:30, no stopping. No getting anything done. It's not the fact that I can't get anything done during ym planning period that is the worst, although the enormous stack of grading that has piled up on my desk, shelves, in my backpack, and on top of my overhead projector has become an almost unbearble stressor. But rather, the fact that I am "on" for nearly 12 hours a day, in front of kids, putting on the teacher act, pretending to be an adult, nonstop. That just wears me down.

In closing, don't teach four block classes, coach two sports, and go to grad school at the same time.