Teacher Wellness: Tips On Managing Inertia and Avoiding Burnout

Beware Of Inertia

This week’s wellness thought is simply this: beware of inertia. Especially when headed into a break in the school year.

Here we are going to be putting a ‘teacher’ twist on the physics connotation of the word. 

In physics inertia is defined by:

“a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.” – Oxford Dictionary

And transform it into:

“A propensity within a teacher’s psychology whereby they can get stuck in a grind or survive mindset that can blind them to just how tired or overtaxed they actually are…”

Burnout Due To Inertia Is A Thing But So Is Being Blind To It

The tricky bit as a teacher is that there aren’t many people who can intervene on your behalf. Or let you know you are suffering from the negative effects of inertia. As when it comes to teaching, at certain times of the year –experiencing high levels of inertia is the norm. 

To add another level of complexity, oftentimes the notion of surviving till the weekend, till the next holiday, or till the next break in the school year is treated as the solution to the problem. When really, it's an exercise in compounding the problem. 

“Don’t worry, there’s only a week left until the break…” Is a piece of advice I have been given and which I can recall giving on multiple occasions. 

The problem is advising someone to ‘endure’ isn’t so much a piece of advice as it is an invitation for someone to share in a communal sense of shared suffering. 

Grindset bonding is totally a thing. The same can be said of burnout bonding too. As there are communal dopamine hits to be found in the notion that you and others like you are going through the trials and tribulations together. 

Yet, the notion that you can use the break to recover just enough to start the whole process again in two, three, seven, or fourteen days time is small comfort when the recovery process is one which you have to deal with alone. 

Is Inertia Something Teacher’s Can Get Away From?

Not really…

Inertia is something which is built. Building a sense of inertia and progression into your class is actually something that you should aim to develop for your students. 

If you have a class which enjoys what you are teaching and wants to learn more. It can be a joy to add more activities, more projects, and more of more. 

If you have a class or classes which need a lot of management, or which requires significant adaptation to meet the students' learning needs. This can lead to adding more time, enacting more interventions, and more of many other kinds of more.

The kicker is, that whether it be in a positive context or a negative one, inertia builds and can continue to keep on building. Till it reaches a state where attempting to change its trajectory outstrips your skills, and energy to deal with it no matter how much you try to recover or rest. 

Inertia Is A Problem Which Is Mediated Not Solved

Inertia is a problem which is mediated, not solved. I know this might sound like cold comfort. However, dealing with the effects of teaching related inertia is about developing a skill set robust enough to tackle a problem that’s moving parts are liable to change both within the course of a term and over the course of years. 

But here are some principles to play with which I wish I had been told at the beginning of my teaching career. 

• Know Your Number

Oftentimes dealing with things like burnout, and mitigating the impact of inertia, becomes a question of taking ownership over your workflow. 

This can take many forms, but one of the most important is knowing your number. That is the total amount of things you know you can say ‘yes’ to before you give an absolute ‘no’ to any more things being added to your plate without first shifting something else. 

Check out Cal Newport’s book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art Of Accomplishment Without Burnout or this guide to Designing Your Teacher Workflow. 

• Breaks Should Not Be Treated As Work Periods

This can be done a number of ways, but the important realization here is that your ability to rest and recover is on a diminishing returns curve. As the semester progresses, your ability to effectively recover tends to diminish as well. 

There are things you can do to offset this, but one of the biggest mistakes teachers make is assuming that they can get a substantial amount of work done over a holiday. When they would be better served for the rest of the holiday.

• Don’t Schedule Due Dates Near Breaks

Whether it be aspiring teachers on their practicum. Or teachers in need of getting some project work onto the next report card breaks. Do your utmost best not to schedule the due dates for major assignments for multiple classes in the week before the break. 

This principle builds off of the previous one. Ensuring that you have a pile of marking to get to over the course of a semester break will diminish your ability to recover. Optimizing for recovery is always the better option when it comes to dealing with the next segment of the school year. 

Better to make the due dates in the weeks prior to a break, and to put an emphasis on getting students to help in the marking process. Or, so that the days leading up to the break can be allocated for other activities.  

• Set Aside Some Time To Reflect

Once you’ve made it to the break, give yourself some time to decompress and then set a date. Get a pen and a notepad and give yourself an hour or two of distraction free time to breathe and reflect on causes and relative intensity of the inertia that you experienced, and that you put yourself through. 

• Take some time to breath

• Identify the causes

• Identify your rational

• Identify things you would do differently when faced with the same situation

• Set out actionable steps you can follow to lessen the intensity of the inertia you’ll be feeling as you head into the next long break in the school year. 

• Small Improvements Are To Be Celebrated

If you as a teacher can improve their ability to reduce the negative implications of inertia by 2% in a school year. Then make sure to celebrate your achievement!

Improving your ability to reduce the negative effects of inertia by even 2% over a school year is no small feat. Teaching is a demanding profession where small, incremental improvements compound over time, much like interest on an investment.

Remember, progress in teaching is rarely flashy, but each small step toward reducing stress, improving workflow, or reclaiming time adds up to a more sustainable and fulfilling career.

Wellness Is A Incremental Process & Not A Destination

Although it might seem like small comfort. It's important to keep in mind that when dealing with inertia, just as so many other things in teaching, the pursuit of wellness is a process and not a destination. 

So aim to develop your skills. Aim to pick the types of inertia you are willing to create. And what types of negative inertia you are willing to deal with as you develop strategies to reduce its occurrence in the future. 

Just be aware, once a sense of inertia has been developed it can become increasingly hard to change your trajectory.