I hadn’t heard from Bradley Donaldson (NYC) for a long time so I checked in with him last week asking for an update. Here is his response:
Hey Ben,
Sorry I’ve been MIA. Started off great with CI at the beginning of the year, but I fell off the wagon into my old ways when I lost steam. I must admit I feel a bit burnt out right about now and trying to salvage what’s left of the year.
I’m going to start checking in on the blog regularly again to regain that sense of community support.
Bradley
Now, the tone here is unmistakable. Bradley got hit hard this year. Real burn out is my guess as the honeymoon period some of us will remember that he was in last fall gave way, probably, to a hurricane of difficulty. Such hurricanes happen often to new teachers, with or without CI.
Here is how I responded:
You’re burnt out. It happens. Many are. What I want to do is present this to the group. When you dropped off the radar I personally felt the vacuum.
Can you make a Chicago conference this summer? You need a conference and we need to get a discussion going about this because it is so common. You can be the guinea pig for an action plan for yourself and others.
So the questions for us are, “How does one come back from burnout? What must we do specifically to make our CI classes next year work?”
Related: https://benslavic.com/blog/time-to-rest/