I have had extensive personal experience with teacher burnout and DEI workshops gone wrong. Lack of passion is not why change-workers burn out, nor why well-intentioned DEI workshops fall flat. Passion is probably what accelerates these phenomena; we care so much that it hurts extra when it isn’t working out.

 

After creating customized curricula from scratch three years in a row, I had lost the fire in my belly. While full reign over my curriculum gave me the creativity and freedom I had always craved, I was working three jobs in one: designing multiple curricula, teaching every day, and grading the work of 120 students. Of course, this doesn’t include all the other jobs teachers do as well: emotional support, club supervision, school-wide logistics…

 

Every night I dreamed of creative, savvy curriculum designers who held the vision of super relevant,  justice-based lessons with as much knowledge and passion as I did who could co-create with me and offer feedback on my teaching as I broke into this new, justice-based lens of approaching education. I wanted to teach about social change, about creating empowerment in unjust societies, about the interplay between history and how our contemporary systems work. This kind of support would have helped me stay in classroom teaching. 

 

After a DEI professional development session exploded in flames at a school where we worked in a very racially divided environment, I saw how the issues of teacher burnout, DEI implementation, and the greater context of creating positive change in our world were linked. We needed DEI training from people who had worked in schools, who were grounded and strong and anything but fluffy. We didn’t need platitudes and generalizations about being kind. We needed meaningful, constructive dialogue and realistic, actionable steps. 

 

If we couldn’t figure out how to make small microcosms of healthy community and growth, then how could we expect the larger, concentric circles of society to create them either? We needed to make students, teachers, and admin feel seen, heard, and empowered. We were failing. Teachers were quitting from burnout and lack of support. Students were leaving school feeling they had wasted the day on irrelevant subjects. Admin were feeling ostracized and labeled the “bad guy.” 

 

I see how powerful DEI workshops and 1:1 teacher support can make school communities more unified and empowered. When the adults working in a school feel energized and supported by their team, they show up differently to work. When teachers feel supported, they have more to give to their students. When students enter a classroom knowing they are going to receive hyper relevant, empowering curriculum from a teacher with spoons to give, they feel ready to learn. 

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This all makes a big difference when it comes to attracting, hiring, and retaining the lifeblood of a school: teachers.