Self Care
In our February 25, 2025, episode, “Compassionate Classrooms,” I shared that I feel shame when I am tired and not working on my to-do list. Like many teachers, like many caregivers, I have a lot to do and a lot of people to care for. As we continued to discuss self-compassion, Jackie told me that I should feel tired, I should rest, and her wish for me is to rest without guilt or, even worse, shame.
Because they couldn’t see me, the listeners didn’t know that I was near tears when she said that and then again the next day and then again the next day whenever I replayed her words in my mind. Jackie said we need to talk to ourselves with as much compassion as we use with our friends, and she talked to me in a way I try to talk to myself but really don’t believe when I dive below the surface of my own psyche.
The teachers and caregivers I know do what they do because they care deeply for others. They want to love others as they love themselves. But what happens when teachers and caregivers love others at the expense of themselves? Bitterness, resentment, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, burnout, despair, headaches, indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, weight gain, and weight loss to name a few.
Because of that episode, I am figuring out how to care for myself in better ways. For me, that is not a spa day, a vacation, a night out, or even a cleaning service. It is eliminating aspects of my to-do list and saying no more often. For others, it might be that cleaning service.
Collective Care
Unfortunately, emphasizing self care for teachers pretends no problems exist with a source of the stress: school structure. In the article “Self-care will not save educators, but collective care might,” Dr. Astrid Kendrick of the University of Calgary, says, “Depending only on self-directed strategies is not sufficient for recovery from compassion fatigue or burnout.”
The entire work environment must be evaluated. A 2022 Gallup Poll found that K-12 educators report the highest rate of burnout when compared to other professions including healthcare, law, and construction. And, what happens when teachers are physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted? In another study about teachers’ emotional exhaustion, researchers Arens and Morin said, “Altogether, these findings suggest that emotionally exhausted teachers may tend to provide a less favorable instructional context to their students, which in turn could lead to lower levels of achievement among students.”
According to Holly Kurtz’s 2022 article “A Profession in Crisis: Findings From a National Teacher Survey,” the average amount of hours teachers work a week is 54, much of which is hidden as they work at home and on the weekends. Why are so many teachers working what equates to a full-time job and a part-time job? Why are their emotions at such a low point? Citing a 2022 MetLife survey, an Education Week article adds that teachers’ increasing burnout also comes from their “growing perception that the general public does not understand or appreciate their work. Less than half of 2022 survey respondents say the general public respects them and views them as professionals, down from 77 percent of 2011 respondents.” The 2022 article and a March 4, 2025, EdWeek article also point to too much time spent on ancillary tasks (think lunch supervision) and not enough time for instruction and planning.
So, what can school administrators do? An Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) article by Chase Mielke, M.Ed., provides ideas for school leaders who want to move from an emphasis on self care to the collective care of their faculty and staff.
- Do not require teachers to sub during their planning periods.
- Reduce or eliminate extra duty requirements.
- Reduce the amount and length of meetings.
- Reduce the amount and length of emails.
- Limit the amount of initiatives at any given time.
Self care is important, but it must be in conjunction with collective care. It’s not only a matter of teacher wellbeing but also student wellbeing. As Mielke notes in his ASCD article, “it's not a question of whether we can reduce workloads for the sake of teacher well-being—it's a question of whether we will reduce workloads for the sake of student learning.”
