How To Teach for Over 20 Years Without Losing Your Mind

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I was asked a question by a colleague the other day - how come you are still sane after twenty years of teaching?

Sadly, it is a good question. If you look at the TES teaching forums you will find plenty of colleagues who have thrown, or are about to throw, in the towel. After five, ten, fifteen years, they have given all they can and are either  stressed, anxious, exhausted or all of the above.

Not long ago, I was one of them. Knackered and fed up. I still loved being in the classroom, but the constant marking and that nagging feeling that I did not have time to do any part of my job to my satisfaction had taken its toll. And I worked in a fantastic, supportive school!

I was lucky.

I applied for, and got, a different job in a different environment and for 9 months I taught children and young people with mental health problems. It gave me a space and time to rethink some things, and to reconnect with teaching as both an art and a science. I went from being a teacher who simply did what she did without really understanding why it worked, to one who understood what she did and why.

A series of events brought me back to mainstream and back "home" to Hogwarts.

Now, I knew what I wanted. To teach small groups of children and focus on helping them to overcome the barriers to their learning.

Again, I have been lucky. I have been given the opportunity to do just that AND teach A Level.

My husband keeps me sane too. He knows what anxiety and stress are from personal experience and he keeps an eye on me.

To make sure we both continue to be on a mental even keel, we have a new hobby.

Together, we have just taken up scuba diving again after many years. It has the most amazing effect on us both physically and mentally. Diving makes you slow your breathing (or else you suck down the air in your tank too quickly and have to cut your dive short!). Spending an hour slowly swimming with the fishes is very therapeutic. Your focus HAS to be in the moment.

It's really important to carve out chunks of time for yourself in any walk of life. As I approach my 49th year, my priorities are clearer than they have every been.

Family, health, fun, work.

When we leave for work in the morning, my husband and I now say that we are off to earn scuba gear!

Good luck wth the new term everyone and stay healthy in body and mind.

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