Cars remain in the school parking lot hours after the last bell rings. Coffee cups see several refills throughout each day. The seemingly endless grading tends to dominate Sunday evenings. Whether it’s the evening hours spent planning and grading or time devoted to after school programs and activities, teachers find themselves struggling to leave the workload at school and spend time with their loved ones. The stress of an overloaded career bleeds into both their work lives and home lives.
Spanish teacher Ashley Dense has dealt with numerous challenges after having her first child in October of 2023.
“One of the biggest challenges is just managing your time, because you really want to spend a lot of time with your kids, but it’s hard because as a teacher, you also take work home with you a lot of the time,” Dense said. “So I try to be as efficient as I can while I’m at school, so I don’t have to take as much stuff home with me.”
Balancing the teaching load with the parenting load can add extra stress.
“It was mentally and emotionally exhausting when I first came back to work,” Dense said. “Because unfortunately, in the United States, you don’t really get a lot of maternity leave and … if you’re going to take time off, you either are using sick days or you just don’t get paid, which in my case, I used all of my sick days so I can take two months off. But the reality is, babies need their parents, so really, it kind of sucks that you only get that short amount of time off, because it’d be a lot easier if you could take more time off and be there for your baby that still needs you.”
One of Dense’s biggest worries was that her Spanish students would fall behind due to her absence.
“That was a huge anxiety for me, because I really care a lot about what I do,” Dense said. “I’m really passionate about what I teach. So, I mean, I was working on my maternity leave plans over the summer, and I was really stressed about getting them done. … Thankfully, I was able to find a sub that spoke Spanish. He did a fantastic job, he was actually a former student, so I was very relieved when I did come back.”
One of the hardest parts of balancing one’s home life and work life is time management.
This is the case for English teacher Taylor Montana who is also studying for her masters in administration at Missouri State University.
“I think managing my time is probably the biggest one — figuring out how I’m going to make sure that I get everything done to the best of my ability without neglecting one aspect of my life,” Montana said.
Having a supportive partner can help an individual’s stress levels decrease, knowing that they have someone in their corner cheering them on.
“My wife is understanding,” high school/ junior high softball coach and American history teacher Matt Walker said. “There’s times whenever I’m gone for a Friday, Saturday and an out of town tournament, and then also on a Tuesday night, getting home late. She kind of almost has to be a single mom when we’re in season. But she understands, and she knows it’s a passion and love of mine.”
Another common way of reducing stress is to find an escape that will help take your mind off whatever is going on.
“This is kind of cliche, since I’m an English teacher, but I like reading,” Montana said. “I think reading is a good de-stressing activity. Just helps you calm down and just like, take your mind off stuff. Like, you can be transported anywhere in a book. And I think that’s really cool. That’s the really beautiful part about reading, is you can go anywhere.”
Walker has found it easier to balance his work life and being a coach with each passing year.
“When I was first teaching, getting things going was definitely kind of more of a stress,” Walker said. “Kind of figured it out over the years. Also, having the athletic eighth hour helps being able to have more time once practices or games are over, but also having that flexibility to start practices a little bit earlier.”
A benefit that Walker finds in being a coach is building strong bonds with his players.
“I mean, you get to be around more students,” Walker said. “Get to impact them a little bit more — quite a bit more as a coach, really get to know your players more than probably you do your average student.”
One of the things Dense had to learn when she had her child was to take time for herself and her well-being.
“I think the most important thing was I had to force myself to take time for myself,” Dense said. “You know, whenever it was 3:00 and it was time for me to go home, I was like, ‘OK, work is done for the day. I’m going to go home and relax or spend time with my family,’ and just kind of making sure that I didn’t overdo it, and just understanding, like after having a baby, you just have to do your best, and not every day is going to be like my best day of teaching and just making sure I had realistic expectations of myself.”
