What can drain teachers’ energy?

Let me count the ways ...

It’s seldom—if ever—the students. Let’s see what teachers point to and how it can be fixed.

‘Morale Doesn’t Improve From Mandates’

Angel Martinez Sanchez is a teacher at the Norwich public schools in Connecticut:

The most draining part of teaching isn’t the students—it’s the systemic ambiguity. When expectations shift without clarity, when initiatives are rolled out with little input from educators, or when support feels reactive instead of proactive, it creates emotional whiplash. For multilingual educators especially, navigating ever-changing guidance about assessments, compliance, or programming—without adequate training—can feel like building a plane midflight.

Personally, I ground myself by staying rooted in my students. When the systems feel chaotic, the classroom remains sacred. I also carve out space for collaboration with like-minded colleagues, which helps me reframe challenges as opportunities for creativity rather than burdens.

At the administrative level, I believe the antidote is purposeful communication and teacher inclusion. Systems feel less draining when teachers understand the “why” behind decisions and are treated as partners, not just implementers. Transparency, trust, and time for teacher-led problem-solving go a long way in restoring morale.

To go a step further, school leaders can create structures that prioritize teacher agency—such as feedback loops, shared leadership roles, or opt-in pilot programs. Even modest efforts to involve educators meaningfully can shift the culture from top-down to collaborative. Teachers are more likely to stay motivated and committed when they feel ownership over their practice and are seen as experts in the room.

In a profession often weighed down by demands, restoring autonomy and voice is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. Morale doesn’t improve from mandates; it improves when leadership shows they’re willing to build the plane with teachers, not just expect them to fly it.

Teachers Need ‘Collaboration’

Bobson Wong and Larisa Bukalov teach math at Bayside High School in New York City. They are co-authors of The Math Teacher’s Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students and Practical Algebra: A Self-Teaching Guide (3rd edition) and winners of the Math for America Muller Award for Professional Influence in Education:

In our teaching careers, we’ve seen many teachers who burn out quickly because they experience the same routines and face the same frustrations year after year. Unfortunately, teachers usually work alone. Most classrooms consist of one teacher and a room full of children, with at most one or two other adults in the room. Teachers’ schedules often don’t align so that they can work with colleagues.

Teachers typically have less than one hour per school day to prepare lessons, but they are expected to do many other tasks, including grading student work, entering grades online, contacting parents, tutoring students, and making copies. By the end of the day, most teachers are mentally and emotionally (if not physically!) drained. They have little time and energy to connect with others.

We’ve avoided burnout because we found communities of educators that we could collaborate with and learn from. This collaboration not only made us more effective teachers but strengthened our commitment to the profession. To mitigate the isolation, we connect with communities of teachers on many levels. Since we teach at a large school, we can find like-minded teachers in our building and work with them.

We collaborate with colleagues at local teacher organizations, such as the community of Math for America teacher-fellowship recipients in New York City or teacher circles (educators who commit to working together to address common questions about pedagogy). We use social media platforms like X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These platforms have communities of teachers that are often separated by subject area, level, or geographic area and identified with hashtags like #ITeachMath. By posting questions online and responding to other teachers’ posts, we’ve connected with teachers around the world. (In fact, we wouldn’t be writing this article if we hadn’t become mutual followers on social media with Larry Ferlazzo years ago!)

Joining professional organizations like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and their local affiliates helped us build relationships with other educators. Such organizations offer a variety of virtual and in-person professional development opportunities, especially for educators in small schools who don’t have many colleagues nearby. The people that we met through these organizations encouraged us to attend local and national education conferences, which helped us improve our pedagogy and make us part of a larger community.

Administrators can also play an important role in fostering communities in schools. Most importantly, admins should give teachers more time and space to reflect on their practice and work with other educators. For example, our school rearranged student schedules so that students leave early and all teachers have 40 minutes of professional time at the end of our regular workday for tasks like co-planning or parent outreach.

Teachers should also be given more time and freedom to visit other teachers. When we see our colleagues teach, we often learn innovative strategies that we would never have figured out by ourselves. Ideally, inter-visitation can replace some of teachers’ nonteaching responsibilities, such as monitoring hallways.

In short, connecting with other educators has made us less isolated and more energized, which in turn has kept us in the profession. Our long teaching careers—we’ve taught for 20 and 27 years—are a testament to the support that we’ve received from educator communities and administrators.

‘Meetings That Felt Like Checklists’

Valerie Peña-Hernandez is an equity-driven education consultant, former bilingual special educator, and nationally recognized instructional consultant who helps schools design culturally responsive MTSS systems that center multilingual learners and students with disabilities:

It wasn’t the kids. It was never the kids.

What drained me, what quietly chipped away at my spirit, was the constant pressure to be everything, fix everything, and still feel like I was never enough. It was the late-night lesson planning after working a full day. It was the meetings that felt like checklists instead of conversations. It was the endless initiatives, each promising transformation, yet none addressing the root issue: that teachers are human and we are breaking under unrealistic expectations.

What exhausted me most was pouring my heart into the work, watching my students grow, giving them every ounce of care I had, and still being treated like I was disposable. No, thank you. No grace. Just another mandate, another form, another “you forgot to …" That level of emotional labor? It’s not sustainable. And yet we carry it because we care too deeply not to.

I had to learn how to protect my peace without numbing my heart. I started drawing emotional boundaries. I redefined success, not as perfection but as presence. I began to celebrate the small wins and gave myself permission to rest, cry, and say “not today” without guilt. That’s how I survived the burnout: I leaned into joy as a radical act of resistance.

And this is where district leaders and systems need to listen. Listen. Teachers don’t need another PD on data. They need space to breathe. They need the emotional labor of this profession to be acknowledged and respected. They need policies that make room for healing, not just hustle. When we reduce the noise, honor the human behind the role, and create systems that value balance, we get to keep our best educators.

Because if we want our students to thrive, we must start by ensuring their teachers aren’t just surviving. We deserve systems that love us back.

‘Practice Setting Time Boundaries’

Carol Pelletier Radford is a former classroom teacher and university educator. She is the founder of https://mentoringinaction.com/ and is a bestselling Corwin author. Her latest book is titled Be a Legacy Teacher: Five Purpose-Filled Pathways for Late Career and Retiring Educators:

Being a teacher has often been compared to being an air traffic controller. Teachers navigate through complex systems making critical decisions while dealing with interruptions, student behavior, meetings, and parent communication. This is in addition to planning, teaching, and correcting papers. Is it any wonder that by noon, most teachers feel drained and find it more difficult to make a clear decision?

Here are three ways teachers can personally minimize these stressors and enhance their own well-being.

• Practice Self-Compassion ~ Recognize the fact that you can’t do everything. Use the 80/20 rule as your guide. If you do 80% of what is on your list, it is a win!

• Practice Intentional Pauses ~ Begin your day with a positive affirmation or short breathing exercise. These pauses don’t have to be long. You can simply stop for one minute to take a few breaths or step outside to take in a view of nature.

• Practice Setting Time Boundaries ~ At least once a week, leave school on time. Staying late everyday just leads to mind and body burnout and often doesn’t help get everything on your list done, because it will never be done!

School leaders can make a huge difference in supporting the well-being of the teachers by minimizing some of the stressors that teachers face. When teachers feel administrators “walk the talk,” they know they can count on their support. This emotion minimizes stress, cultivates trust, and makes teachers want to stay at that school.

Here are three ways administrators can improve teacher well-being and show their support to teachers.

• Protect Planning Time ~ Don’t pull teachers to substitute or complete other administrative duties during their planning time.

• Survey Teachers Regularly ~ Use anonymous surveys to check on the pulse of the school. Get teacher reactions to initiatives, faculty meetings, and the overall school culture. Use the responses to improve your leadership.

• Provide Consistent Meaningful Feedback ~ When visiting classrooms, use coaching protocols as formative assessment instead of evaluation checklists and write personal notes to acknowledge teacher successes that are unrelated to test-score results.

System-level support from administrators is crucial to teacher well-being and retention. Research shows teachers experience less burnout and turnover when school leaders actively prioritize mental health. Teachers who practice healthy self-care can minimize their stress, but when school leaders model these practices, the school culture becomes a place where students thrive.

Thanks to Angel, Bobson, Larisa, Valerie, and Carol for contributing their thoughts!

Today’s post answered this question:

What part of teaching do you find the most de-energizing/draining? How do you minimize its impact on your life, and what do you think district/school level administrators can do to mitigate them?

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo or on Bluesky at @larryferlazzo.bsky.social .

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