understood: “she couldn’t believe the sheer exhaustion that she felt at the end of the day,” Conrey
recalls. Finally, Conrey hit rock bottom. “It was awful. I was burned out, overwhelmed, and ready to
give up. I never wanted to set foot in a school again. I was disgusted with the school, the students, and
myself.”
Conrey was displaying the classic symptoms of burnout, and she wasn’t alone. Berkeley
psychologist Christina Maslach, the pioneer of research on job burnout, reports that across
occupational sectors, teaching has the highest rates of emotional exhaustion. One TFA teacher admires
the organization but says it is “focused on hard work and dedication almost to a fault... you leave
training with the mindset that unless you pour every waking hour of your life into the job then you’re
doing a disservice to your kids.” Of all TFA teachers, more than half leave after their two-year
contract is up, and more than 80 percent are gone after three years. About a third of all TFA alumni
walk away from education altogether.
Since givers tend to put others’ interests ahead of their own, they often help others at the expense
of their own well-being, placing themselves at risk for burnout. Four decades of extensive research
shows that when people become burned out, their job performance suffers. Exhausted employees
struggle to focus their attention and lack the energy to work their hardest, longest, and smartest, so the
quality and quantity of their work takes a nosedive. They also suffer from poorer emotional and
physical health. Strong evidence reveals that burned-out employees are at heightened risk for
depression, physical fatigue, sleep disruptions, impaired immune systems, alcohol abuse, and even
cardiovascular disease.
When Conrey hit rock bottom at Overbrook High School, she felt that she was giving too much.
She was arriving at work early, staying up late, and working weekends, and she could hardly keep up.
In this situation, it seems that the natural way to recover and recharge would be to reduce her giving.
But that wasn’t what she did. Instead, Conrey gave more.
While maintaining her overwhelming teaching workload, Conrey began volunteering her time as a
TFA alumni mentor. As a content support specialist, every other week she helped ten different
teachers create tests and design new lesson plans. Then, in her limited spare time, she founded a
mentoring program. With two friends, she created a Philadelphia chapter of Minds Matter, a national
nonprofit organization that helps high-achieving, low-income students prepare for college. Conrey
spent her nights and weekends filing for nonprofit status, finding a pro-bono law firm and accountant,
and applying for national approval. Finally, after a year, she was able to start recruiting students and
mentors, and she created the plans for weekly sessions. From then on, Conrey added five hours a
week mentoring high school students.
All told, Conrey was spending more than ten extra hours per week giving. This meant even less
room in her schedule for relaxation or restorative downtime, and even more responsibility to others.
And yet, when she started giving more, Conrey’s burnout faded, and her energy returned. Suddenly, in
fact, she seemed to be a renewed bundle of energy at Overbrook, finding the strength to serve as the
coordinator for gifted students and create a Spanish 3 program from scratch. Unlike many of her
peers, she didn’t quit. Of the five teachers who joined Overbrook from TFA with her, Conrey was the
only one still teaching there after four years. Of the dozen teachers who arrived in the same three-year
window as her, Conrey was one of just two left. She became one of the rare TFA teachers who
continued teaching for at least four years, and she was nominated for a national teaching award. How
is it possible that giving more revitalized her, instead of draining her?
michael s
(Michael S)
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