Dealing with Teacher Burnout

All teachers, whether they teach piano or otherwise, go through periods of fatigue. Fatigue, if unchecked, can easily spell burnout for a teacher. The teacher becomes more easily frustrated with his students. He may get tired during the lessons, become distracted more easily, or even start daydreaming while a student is performing. For a host of reasons, teacher burnout can be detrimental to student progress.

Avoiding Teacher Burnout

Beth Lewis, a teacher and writer for About.Com, gives some tips for dealing with teacher burnout:



Though Beth offers several suggestions, perhaps the most important one on her list - at least in my opinion - is: remember why you became a teacher in the first place.

For me, I became a teacher for a number of reasons:

• To begin building a multimedia company


• To utilize my unique musical ablities to generate income


• Because I didn't have another piano teacher available at the time


• Because I love music

Now, your list may be quite different. You may have had nobler motivations for entering the teaching profession. Perhaps you're one of those "I wanna make a difference" types. I'm not disparaging those motivations; perhaps all great educators possess the trait of wanting to be a social uplifter of sorts.

But if your motivations were less "other-worldly," then be honest about it. Perhaps you just decided to try your hand at teaching to make some supplemental income. Or, maybe yout spouse or significant other was facing hard times in his or her job, and you turned to teaching to "pitch in."

Whatever the reasons, it's important to be honest about it.

On this matter, Beth says,

Look past all of the annoyances and hassles, both big and small, and remember why you became a teacher in the first place. I left a job in Human Resources at a Fortune 500 company to become a teacher. Some days, I do question my sanity. But, most of the time, I just have to think about how useless and uninspired I felt behind that desk, staring at a boring spreadsheet, and I can remember why I teach. I teach in order to make a difference for children and to share myself with the world. Keep your reasons for teaching close to your heart and you'll realize that all of the stress really can be worth it.