Beginning of the School Year Stress: Optional or Mandatory?

At the beginning of Tami’s quest to find the joy in teaching, she went back to school and studied to be a yoga teacher. She figured if nothing else, she could find some inner peace by spending a lot of time on her yoga mat.

She found a whole lot more.

As these things happen, her rigorous yoga teacher training coincided with the beginning of the academic school year and the very long year with a very difficult class. Talk about conflict and stress!

In her post entitled, I Teach, Therefore I Suffer, Tami explores the learning process and holding expectations lightly while simultaneously trying to let go of her über controlling ways.

Just how does one have expectations of themselves as teachers and for their students without getting too caught up in the outcomes?

beginning of the school year stress

So this brings us to the question at hand: Is beginning of the school year stress inevitable? Have you found ways to transition from the relative ease of summer to the rigors of a demanding classroom? 

Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

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Image source: Teachers by iwannt on Flickr (cc)

3 thoughts on “Beginning of the School Year Stress: Optional or Mandatory?

  1. That’s an interesting question. I definitely am having back-to-school nightmares already, but I need to avoid stress for health reasons, so I’m doing everything in my power to take things slowly and breathe. So far I’ve paced myself in getting my room ready and that has already helped to remove the stress a bit by doing a couple hours here and there… We’ll see how the real deal goes, however, kids back in school a week from tomorrow!

    • Olivia – first let me say OMG! school is next week?!?! And breathing is such a good plan, as is pacing yourself.

      One thing that helped at the beginning of the year is knowing I have all year to get stuff done – meaning I didn’t have to kill myself before the students even got there.

      Also, legs up the wall in the classroom can be a reset button any time you need it.

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