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Ways to Take Control of Your Teaching Career and Prevent Burnout


A smiling female teacher writes arithmetic problems on a whiteboard for her students.

The teaching profession has always offered its fair share of stress. Still, rising expectations for educators in recent years and the aftermath of the global pandemic have increased those stress levels to new heights. Fortunately, you can help prevent teacher burnout by taking steps to control both your career and your classroom better.

One of the first steps toward developing that control is strengthening emotional resilience. Because emotional resilience and emotional intelligence are critical to a successful teaching career, Fresno Pacific University offers professional development courses, Teacher Burnout: Prevention & Recovery and Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators, that give teachers the skills and knowledge they need in this vital area.

Learning to Manage Stress and Preventing Teacher Burnout

Emotional resilience is the ability to bounce back after a setback and thrive amid challenges. Developing emotional resilience in yourself and supporting its development in your students is a critical part of educator care and support. It’s also key to your self-care as a teacher. Emotional resilience also can help prevent teacher burnout.

The curriculum for the 100% online Developing Emotional Resilience in Educators course helps you build a solid foundation in emotional resilience and use your emotional intelligence to help identify and support students who also are struggling.

You will learn how to:

  • Guide yourself and your students to build emotional intelligence and resilience
  • Use tools to acquire a resilient disposition, helping you better face workplace changes and challenges
  • Apply emotional resilience concepts and strategies to make positive transformations in your classroom
  • Recognize strategies to manage daily stressors and rebound from inevitable setbacks
  • Implement active listening strategies for difficult conversations with students and their families

Other related online courses from Fresno Pacific University that you may find beneficial include Trauma-Informed Teaching, Healthy Self-Esteem and Cultural Intelligence in Education.

The Extent of the Teacher Burnout Problem

Millions of professionals work in the teaching profession, fulfilling their career ambition to positively impact students’ lives. However, school districts now expect teachers to manage many student learning styles, plan curriculums, work with parents and accommodate special needs students.

Those additional responsibilities, as well as the pandemic and its aftermath, have resulted in an increasing teacher burnout rate. A survey from Adopt a Classroom put it succinctly: “Our findings show that more than two years after the pandemic, and in the midst of rising inflation, teachers are burned out, struggling to provide their students with school supplies, and considering leaving the profession.”

What the Teachers Say

The Adopt a Classroom survey included responses from 4,000 teachers. It found that 87% of teachers were not considering leaving the profession in the months leading up to the 2022-2023 school year. However, 80% of teachers agreed with the phrase, “I am burned out.” They also offered a list of issues they experience that add to stress and potential burnout:

  • 64% said teachers do not have enough support staff
  • 63% said pay is too low for teachers
  • 62% said they must spend their own money on classroom materials
  • 58% said their community does not treat them with respect
  • 81% said their workload has increased
  • 55% said they have less planning time due to staff shortages and other factors

Solving those issues is, for the most part, outside your control as a teacher. However, you can develop stronger emotional resilience and emotional intelligence to better control what happens in the classroom better. It’s an important step to prevent teacher burnout and improve classroom management.

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