Later that evening, I went for a walk and ran into a Lethbridge teacher in his final year before retirement. He shared with me his frustrations about the lack of funding to be able to improve learning in his classroom (while seeing money spent on team-building swag and colour flyers that no one will read), the 'wellness' initiatives of the board that ignore the fact that teachers cannot go for walks if they are expected to supervise, and the peer-pressure and administrative pressure to give that 110% which induces feelings of guilt over feeling exhausted, getting sick, or wanting to take time off to mourn the death of a close friend. He felt that these working conditions also contributed to his divorce.
The Singaporean commercial made me wonder what the teacher's relationship with her possible spouse and children might look like, or what her friendships consisted of, or what she would do if she had a class of several at-risk students. It also made me wonder if the Singaporean school boards hire or partner with educational assistants, guidance counselors, community leaders, psychologists, social workers, and other specialists to work alongside teachers, or whether teachers were expected to fulfill these roles (and, if so, whether they had any training or resources to fulfill these additional roles). During my ED2500 practicum, I observed that the Calgary Board of Education was generally good about supporting at least the kindergarten teachers with additional help upon request by the school admin staff, but was told that this is not always the case. I also observed that the teachers generally seemed to be able to set up healthy boundaries for themselves between their lives as teachers and their lives as people.
Any job in which one is working with people risks becoming a 24/7 (pre)occupation. Police officers, pastors, social workers, nurses, and teachers (to name a few) can easily become burned out if they:
a) let their work creep evermore into their non-work life,
b) adopt the belief that 'if it's gotta be, it's up to me', and
c) operate in a culture in which conditions a and b are common and even admired.
I've experienced and observed burnout because of these conditions, and want to prevent recurrence for myself, my colleagues, and my students. I think this involves:
a) maintaining time-sensitive boundaries between work and non-work life, and giving 100% into whatever activity/person I'm involved in at that time (e.g., teaching students, loving my husband, sleeping),
b) seeking to collaborate, sharing my skills and resources, and asking others for help, and
c) encouraging my colleagues (and students!) to do a and b.