Balancing Home and Work As a Teacher

I frequently get asked how I balance my home and work life as a teacher. The truth is, for many years I didn’t. When you are a new teacher, it can be overwhelming at first because the job is so demanding. To be honest, as you get a few years under your belt, it doesn’t get any easier. However, if you set your boundaries, it can be rewarding.

I have been a certified teacher for twelve years now, and I am going on my eighth year as a full-time teacher. In my first four years of teaching, I was a full-time substitute, so, while still a teacher, I didn’t have the extra responsibilities that I have today. I enjoyed the freedom of a certified substitute. I could work whenever and whatever I wanted, and choose jobs that didn’t have as much responsibility if I wanted to. Once I became a teacher under contract, I was dumped with immense responsibilities that I wasn’t prepared for, especially with what was going on in my life at the time.

In January of 2014, my mom went into the hospital with Diabetic Ketoacidosis which is a severe condition that occurs when your body cannot produce enough insulin. The condition caused my mother to have multiple strokes over a period of time and she eventually also lost part of her foot due to infection. I quit my job with the school I was working at to move back to my hometown to live with my mom and grandma. After nearly two months in the hospital, my mother’s insurance would not cover the cost of her recovery, and she was forced to recover at home. During that time, I learned how to give medications, perform physical therapy, clean wounds, and change her at-home IV. I also learned to do the things that my mom did to manage my grandma’s household and care.

It was overwhelming, to say the least. I took a job as an English teacher at one of the local schools to help pay for bills. It was a small school, so it did not provide things that larger schools provide such as mentorship or a curriculum. I was handed a classroom and was told to figure it out. My job also came with “hidden duties” that kept me away from my mom and grandma for long hours that were not discussed when I was hired. For example, I was to be the cheerleading coach and the One-Act Play director. That first year was tough for me because I felt like I was working 24 hours a day. I almost quit teaching after that first year.

A gift I made for my first class of graduating seniors.

According to Forbes, one in three pre-pandemic teachers left the profession within the first five years of teaching for the same frustrations I felt during my first few years of teaching:  lack of support, inability to have a life outside of school, and low wages. Since the pandemic, over 300,000 teachers have left the profession according to the Wall Street Journal, and 44% of schools across the United States have reported a vast number of vacancies. My personal experience has been much the same. After the initial quarantine ended, many teachers at my school (including myself) began to contract COVID-19, which caused mixed reactions such as teachers leaving and not coming back to work and parents quarantining their children. The results left my school understaffed for the rest of the school year. Every teacher I knew told me their school was having the same problem. A friend of mine told me that her school had 44 vacancies by the end of the school year and was unable to fill the positions for this coming school year.

How does this affect me? I made a promise to myself after my divorce to make more time for myself. Truth be told, I worked extra hours at my job pre-pandemic because I wasn’t happy and I was avoiding my home life. Yes, the first few years as a teacher are hard but I was always told to stick it out because it does get better, especially after a few years of making your curriculum. Although the post-pandemic school year was one of the most stressful years I’ve had teaching, it was also the easiest and most successful year I’ve had teaching.

Things I did to bring balance to my life:

• For starters, I told myself that it was okay to say “no.” I was a victim of not saying “no” during my first few years of teaching because I was afraid that I would lose my job. I didn’t value myself and what I brought to the table, so I volunteered myself for everything with the idea that it would make me a more valuable employee, but in reality, I burnt myself out. I was so exhausted, that I would just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling when I got home from work.
• I told myself that I would bring minimal work home. If I couldn’t do it during the school day or within an hour after school, it could wait until the next day. A big mistake that teachers make is that they give up their family time and weekends to grade papers and do lesson planning. I would oftentimes bring boxes of work home and just stare at them. Staring at that work usually ruined my off-time.
• Also, I started therapy. Post-divorce and post-pandemic, therapy has been a game changer, and there is nothing wrong with having to seek therapy. Mental health should always be the number one priority. In the process, it has taught me to let the little things that bother me go. Right before school started last year, I started having panic attacks to the point that I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. Therapy was a life-saver.
• I made work friends. Before my divorce, I had work friends, but it is hard to have friends when you are married to a narcissist. This year, I resolved to strengthen bonds with coworkers and participate in a team mentality. Some of those friendships even translated to outside-of-work relationships. Once a week, my coworker friends and I would go out to dinner, and once a month we would have a self-care day together.
• I started doing more out-of-work projects and am now here, writing this blog and recording a weekly podcast with Christen and Cindy. In a future blog, I will discuss the projects that I have been working on lately.
• I take time out for date nights. When I met Jason, neither of us got out of the house to do anything. We resolved early on in our relationship that we would have regular date nights and try something new every time we went out such as bowling, Shakespeare in the Park, circus performances, festivals, and spontaneous trips to the farmer’s market. Recently we went on a vacation to New Orleans and Gulf Shores, Alabama.

There is no perfect conclusion to balancing home and work. Before you can begin the process, you have to understand your priorities. Do you even want a life outside of work? For a long time, I didn’t, but I wasn’t living. I was just going from paycheck to paycheck, thinking that one day I would be able to live the life I wanted. Then, I just took that step and started living for myself and it was the greatest thing I ever did.

I want to hear from our readers. What are some things you do to balance home and work? Do you have any tips and tricks? Please, let me know in the comments.