01/04/2026
25 years of teaching, 25 tips to be a great teacher. Tip number 15!
You need time off of teaching once in a while. This is hard! I struggled with this the most when I was a new teacher. I said yes to every opportunity to teach and burned out pretty quickly. It’s also tricky when you get paid to teach, and generally don’t get paid time off.
I’ve burned out several times and have learned some strategies over the years. I generally don’t teach on the weekends (unless it’s a retreat) and follow a Monday to Friday schedule. I also take time off during natural breaks in the calendar like over the holidays and over the summer. My classes are the busiest from September - December and again from January - May. Things start to slow down in June, July is pretty quiet and August is the slowest. My future goal is to take all of August off teaching.
In the years that I’ve been teaching I’ve gone through a divorce and the death of my step dad. I took a little bit of time off during those difficult periods but wish I was able to take off more time. My mom passed last May, and she had been sick for some time. I had a small emergency savings account and used that money to take 5 weeks off of teaching to grieve. It was worth it. Sometimes you do have to teach through really hard things, and we can do hard things, but I’m grateful I could take a break.
If you can swing it I highly recommend having periods of time - a weekend, a week, a few weeks - to rest and regroup. And not just because you are struggling, but because we all need time downtime.
