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Teaching after a business trip to Finland.
Submitted by bellabardos » Tue 26-Jul-2022, 17:37Subject Area: Human Factors | 0 member ratings |
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I think the leisurely pace of life in this small northern country did begin to affect me. During my first weeks in Helsinki school, I noticed that everyone was using essay services and I started consciously striving to work less after classes were over. When I returned home closer to evening, I would leave school materials in my backpack (it seemed rather strange at first) and set aside time to play with my one-year-old son or talk to my wife.
In Helsinki, I started more of a life, but only at home; things were different at school. At first, I was not ready to change my approach to work. And Finnish colleagues began to notice this.
As my wife told me, it turned out that there were several breaks of 15 minutes each during the school day, and the teachers usually rested in the teachers' lounge during that time. (Several teachers take turns looking after the younger students in the courtyard and the older ones indoors.) But in the first three weeks of the school year, I didn't spend two free minutes in the teachers' lounge with my colleagues. I'd pop in there in the mornings to pick up my mail quickly and run straight to class.
When I went into the teachers' lounge during recess, I saw an image very similar to what I used to see in the parks in Helsinki. Many of the teachers were quietly sipping coffee, leafing through newspapers, and chatting leisurely. Often when I opened the door, I heard loud laughter. I began to think that Finnish teachers were just lazy.
In September, three colleagues told me in one week that they were worried about my professional burnout because I didn't get any rest during the school day. I confessed that I regularly spend 15-minute breaks in the classroom doing my hard work as a teacher. In response, all three strongly advised me to give up this habit.
At first I laughingly dismissed their remarks. I said that I knew exactly what professional burnout looked like and that so far there was nothing wrong with me. But they insisted, saying that it was important to take small breaks during the day. One colleague stated that she just needed to come into the teachers' lounge for a few minutes every day and relax there in the company of other teachers. She claimed that it helped her in her work.
All of this struck me as odd. It seems that my altruistic desire to work without a break, often at the sacrifice of feeling well at a given moment, was not supported by my Finnish colleagues. I have always believed that the best teachers are those who work the hardest, even if that means not sleeping enough and forgoing lunch in favor of preparing for classes, as well as having no time to socialize with colleagues at all. Most of the teachers I admired in the U.S. were workaholics like that, forever balancing on the edge of burnout.
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