The Teacher Burnout Podcast

Rekindling Passion in Education: Overcoming Burnout with Starr Sackstein
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Teacher Burnout Podcast, where we explore the challenges of burnout for teachers and share practical strategies to support teacher well being. I'm your host, Barb Flowers. If you're a teacher looking for ways to prevent burnout or an educational leader searching for strategies to support your team, this podcast is for you.
Let's dive in.
Well, welcome everyone to the podcast. I'm here today with Star Sackstein and she's going to talk to us about her experiences in education. She has a lot of different experiences, a lot of advocacy in education.
So I'm excited for our conversation today. So welcome to the podcast, Star. Thanks so much, Barb. I'm excited to be here. If you could just start by telling us about your experience as a teacher and all the work you've done now outside of the classroom. Sure. So, I spent 16 years in the classroom, high school English mostly, journalism, and also, , I did [00:01:00] humanities, which was social studies and English together in middle school.
, I loved being a classroom teacher, honestly. I really never thought that I'd do anything but be a classroom teacher. I love being with kids. I love working to help them find their voices as a writing teacher. And, I would say that when the opportunity arose for me to become an instructional coach, which was The first move I made away from the classroom, , I would say that was the sweet spot.
I was still teaching one to two classes and I was also working with teachers. So I had a model classroom and I also had a space where as a new person in the school, , I could really show them that I was different. Working with the same kids. They were sometimes when you have some crazy stuff you want people to do and you're not in your own room anymore.
They don't believe that it could really happen with their kids, right? So I always really just wanted to show that things were possible if you set up the right environment in your classroom. And then I wanted to [00:02:00] help other people have the same kind of success that I was having in that space. , and then from there, because of personal reasons, I had, .
An opportunity to move into district administration. , the school that I was doing the instructional coaching in was really far from home and my son was struggling with anxiety for a little bit, , right before he went into middle school. And because of that, I wanted to be in a school, like I wanted to be Closer to home so that if I had to leave in the middle of the day, if he was having troubles, I could still go back to work after and the distance wasn't going to be an issue.
So I applied for this job as a K 12 humanities director. I didn't have my admin license yet, but I really believed I could do the job well. , I even wrote that in my cover letter. I was like, I am not licensed. , I do not have my administration degree, but I do believe I'm the right person for this job.
And, you know, after the Screener interview, they were just like, well, how fast can you get your [00:03:00] license? And I wasn't really in the market to go find a new program right now, but I'll see what I could do. And sure enough, I was able to find one. SUNY New Paltz had a program that , allowed me to go alternative route, which meant I could get into a program.
I could take all my tests up front. And then continue through the program if I passed all my tests and have a temporary license that would give me the right to evaluate teachers , in that regard and everything worked out great and we were able to get my scores relatively early and. I got to be a curriculum leader for a little bit.
And I would say the work of that job was everything that I would hope it would be like I tried to be the leader. I wanted when I was in the classroom. I'm always wearing my teacher hat first. How could I be really supportive? , what could I take off their plates? , if I wanted them to try something new, I would come in and model it.
If they wanted just another pair of eyes in the classroom, I really tried hard to be a [00:04:00] non evaluative second adult in the space that could just give feedback on what was going on. And. If that was my whole job in that job, I probably would have stayed in that job a lot longer than I did, but I'm sure your listeners know when you're in administration, it's never just the job.
There's politics, there's meetings, there's other people's initiatives that you have to do. And, , I wasn't so keen on, on those parts of it. I just want to interrupt you real quick because I love that you said you applied for that job because you knew you could do the job and you didn't have the credentials yet and you could get that because I think so often , there's really good teachers who could go into administration and they're afraid, , thinking they're not good enough.
It's all these internal. fears that they have. And so how brave and just bold of you to say, Hey, this is a great position for me. I'm going to apply. So I think that's encouraging for any teachers out there who maybe you're ready for another step. I think that's [00:05:00] sometimes it can cause burnout if you're just like done with the job that you're in, and so taking those risks and just being willing to put yourself out there, I think is such a great lesson that we all can learn from.
Yeah, I actually talk about that at the beginning of my book, because people always ask When is it the right time to leave the classroom? I don't really think that there is a right answer to that. It's a pretty personal opinion. You know, the things that kind of happen in that space is kind of like, you know, , what is your threshold for dealing with boredom?
For me personally, I get bored very easily. So things kind of have to change for me to be excited about work. And I love my work. So I want to be excited about it all the time, which is why, , all of The kind of assessment reform I was doing in my classroom was kind of coming out of my desire to continually push to give kids more ownership of what was happening.
And then in my leadership role as well, like giving teachers more [00:06:00] ownership to make decisions about. how they were going to help kids, , and giving them permission to take risks in those places. , and in , the book that just came out, Making an Impact Outside the Classroom, really for me, it's like a love letter to teachers because teachers have the most amazing variety of skill sets.
And I think when you're in the classroom, you just don't even realize how qualified you are for. a myriad of so many different jobs that you've never thought of before. And I've certainly said that, if you were to ask me a decade ago, would I be where I am now? I don't even know that I knew where I am now was a possibility.
And it was just like every time a new opportunity came around, thinking about, well, is this a risk I want to take? What is it going to look like in my day to day? How is it going to impact the other things that are going on in my orbit? And, it was a series of yeses to things I didn't even [00:07:00] know I wanted until I was in it.
So for your listeners, I would highly recommend that when somebody makes the suggestion, instead of writing it off right away, humor it for a little bit, kind of swim around in the possibilities of what could happen if you move into that other role that you never thought you would be. , you know, cause I didn't want to be an administrator.
And I would have told you maybe even 10 years into the classroom, I specifically didn't get my license so that they couldn't push me in that direction. And, I didn't want to go to the dark side, all the really kind of, all the metaphors that kind of go in that direction about, what leadership is.
Guess I wanted to be a different kind of leader. And now, in my role, I'm a COO of an ed tech company, and I really pride myself on being the kind of leader that my folks like working with. I listen to them, I ask them what they want to be doing, I try to support them in every way that I can, and, Our clients are happy because they have real people they're talking to [00:08:00] all the time to help them with the really challenging work of mastery learning and switching to that paradigm.
So it's, exciting all the time. , when you're a consultant or you're working outside of schools, , It's really exciting all the time because you're with a lot of different people and you're going to a lot of different schools. So if you're somebody who thrives on, , really making moment to moment kind of decisions, you have that opportunity when you're working with different groups who need different things.
Yeah. And I love to what you talked about, swim in the possibilities, right? Like we don't always see our strengths inside of us. And so when somebody else pulls it out, I think that's such a great piece of advice to swim in that possibility. What could that look like? Because what you said that I can relate to is.
I never thought I'd be where I am right now, doing life coaching full time. , I didn't even know what a life coach was 10 years ago. Right. And so things change all the time. And so just being willing to take a risk, [00:09:00] try something new, you can find passions in different ways. But, , yeah, I think that's such a good point.
Also, I just want to highlight what you said about administration. A lot of times I hear, Oh, you don't want to go to the dark side. And I heard that all the time when I, , transferred over and it's like, like you said, if you're an administrator who has that teacher hat on first, , It's so powerful.
Teachers respect that so much. And so you would have the opportunity to be that kind of leader that you would want as a teacher. I feel like those are really important things that you brought up that I think are great for listeners to hear. So I want to know more too about how you got into being a life coach and what that entails, because that's the other part of what was going on in my book.
I have this playlist of, , people who I interviewed so that when people were reading the book, if they wanted to know about specific jobs and what it looked like while we were doing it, , I have a playlist of about 13 or 14 different jobs that are mentioned in the book with people who do those jobs.[00:10:00]
So maybe at another time I could interview you about your work and put it in the playlist as another thing folks could do once they leave the classroom. That'd be cool. Yeah,
and it's just from my experience of getting life coaching that I'm like, this is transformational. We need educators to get life coaching. So I would love to do that because I just think it's such an important thing that we don't have enough of. Enough people aren't aware of what life coaching is and what it can do for them.
So you're obviously a veteran educator, right? Experience as a teacher, an administrator, author. What do you believe in all the time that you're talking with different educators and teachers? What are the most significant contributors to teacher burnout in today's education?
Initiative fatigue. Honestly, like, that's the first thing that comes to mind. It's when a school takes on too many initiatives at once, and instead of giving folks the time they need , , to build an efficacy around whatever that initiative is, they switch the initiative at the end of the year if it didn't yield the results that they [00:11:00] were looking for.
And those of us who have been in education long enough certainly know that no initiative works after one year. It kind of takes, I would say, anywhere from one to five years, depending on how big of a lift the initiative is and how well you prepared your teachers and your faculty for that particular initiative.
, I think often, at least in New York City public schools, a lot of stuff comes down from up high that the building folks don't even have control over. And so , there's even not like a consistency and how the expectation of what it's supposed to look like like there's no clarity on that.
So I think folks burn out when they're asked to do a lot of things that are additional to what is actually making really good classroom practice. If they're expected to be in school late or early or use their free period. So like now with teacher retention being such a challenge to thinking about like how many extra [00:12:00] periods you might have to sub for a colleague if you get a coverage and if that's happening every day.
And even if you're getting paid for those extra. Periods, at least in this is high school thinking. I don't know how bad it is in elementary because I never worked as an elementary teacher, but I do know that if I was having a stressful day and I got put into a class as a coverage and I needed that break, I was counting on it to, assess student learning or make lesson plans or just take some time to sit and reflect and then I get it.
thrown the curveball that I have to do an emergency coverage for a peer. I don't begrudge my colleague the right to have a coverage for that space, but the unexpected nature of taking that free time away from me was something that definitely made the day a lot harder. So, I think those two things are things that really help burnout.
And then, of course, the toll of being in the classroom. It's exhausting. It's an exhausting job and since COVID kids really [00:13:00] are different. It's not just something we're saying at the beginning of every year now. It's actually true. There's a lot of apathy. So I think that contributes as well. And I will say , I worked in an elementary and we have the same issue with coverage where if a sub was out or something, and I always told teachers, like I get it if they said no, because I mean, it's really not worth 30 or 40 taxes are taken out for , your sanity to have that time to plan and decompress.
So, yeah, I see that as a huge issue. , so what advice would you give to those teachers struggling with burnout, especially with all those things you're talking about initiative fatigue covering classrooms, and how kids are different. What are some tips that you have? I think for one. I know it's something I struggled with.
So this is, Definitely something that I wish I would have done better. I said yes to everything. And I felt like I wasn't allowed to say no, like that, that would somehow make me less valuable to my leaders. If [00:14:00] I said, you know what that infringes on my personal time or my son has an event at school and now I have to choose between being at my son's event or being at a thing that's happening at my own school.
, that was always really hard for me. So like learning the balance of when to say yes and when to say no. I think like giving yourself permission to say no, if that's what you If you're not in a space to really enjoy the thing you're saying yes to, like there are other people in the building, and someone else will say yes, and just be flattered that they asked, and I mean, I wish someone would have said to me, you don't have to say yes, it's not going to change my opinion of you, if you say no every once in a while to take care of yourself, and even if there is nothing else going on at home, but you just We're counting on a night off.
Yeah, and I always say that builds resentment, right? Like, the people pleaser in me is like, Sure, I'll do that to help out. But really, [00:15:00] I'm doing it and I'm resentful the whole time. So it's not good for anybody. So, yeah, that's great. And I mean, I also think that it's like, If you could schedule out yourself, like, like actually block time for yourself, whether it's reading time or exercise time or quiet time where you are giving yourself time to to kind of reinvigorate and, not fall into that burnout side.
Like that's something I do better now as a consultant where I get to make my own schedule so I choose when I want to work and when I don't want to work. And usually if I'm on, you know, I'm at home and I'm on meetings all day. I really make it a point to schedule my meetings so that too many of them aren't back to back so I could go out for a walk, get out from behind the computer, kind of make that space for myself and.
I wake up early to exercise because exercise makes me feel better [00:16:00] and, , I try to get to bed at this like I have, I have a routine at night where I try to get to bed at the same time so that my sleep is good because for your listeners who aren't as old as I am yet, like, Once you get to menopause for women, sleep is not easy.
So, you know, you kind of, you kind of want to grab onto that whenever you can get it. And it's important to nurture yourself that way and take care of yourself. You're not good for anybody else. if you're not good yourself. So, once you start feeling that fatigue or boredom or that resentment or whatever the thing is that's making you not want to go to work in the morning, that's like a big, a big sign and it's not going to go away unless You make a change yourself because the structures aren't going to change.
It's up to you. Yeah. I love that. I always say like burnout doesn't go away on its own. If you're burnout in may and you go back in August, it doesn't change because you'll pick up right where you left off. You've got to [00:17:00] do something different. So for sure. Yeah. Great advice.
Lots of great tips and advice on the podcast. How can people reach out to you or find you if they want to learn more about what you're doing? Sure. So I have a website, Ms. Saxine. com. Basically everything is branded Ms. Saxine. I'm still on X, but I'm not really on X anymore.
Like once we switched to X, , weird stuff happening on Twitter these days. , I'm mostly on LinkedIn. I'm easy to find there. I probably the only store Saxton, if you put in my name on there and , like I said, my website. , and my, my email is actually Ms. Saxton at Gmail. So if folks read something I've written and they want to chat about it, I'm always happy to have those conversations.
Awesome. Well, I'll put all that in the show notes as well. And I appreciate you being on the podcast with us today. Thanks so much
Outro [00:18:00] Music