4 types of boundaries you need to have a work-life blend in education

Back to School merchandise feels like old news now that the new school year is up and running.

(Speaking of which, here’s a game to play at school: “Feels like we’ve never been away from school!” bingo. How many times will you hear colleagues saying this over the coming days?)

You may start the new term with good intentions. You may spend a couple of evenings not doing too much (there’s no marking to do, yet). You may have all of your resources and lessons planned for the first couple of weeks. You may be on top of your TLR admin.

But, it won’t be long before the spinning plates begin to falter and may even begin to fall.

When that starts to happen, overwhelm may appear in your peripheral awareness. You may find yourself working longer hours to cope with the growing to-do list. You may find yourself making silly, insignificant errors, which would be water off a duck’s back on a good day but today feel like the end of the world.

Most significantly, you may catch yourself berating yourself, the negative chatter rising and your feeling of self-worth falling.

If this begins to occur for you, it’s important at this stage to know that you are not alone. I went through this cycle numerous times as a middle leader.

There is an expectation that you give all of your time and energy. In doing so, the job of teaching is given permission to permeate all areas of your life.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Yep, Gem. It hasn’t happened yet but I know it will. I always struggle to keep all of the plates spinning.”

Well, let me tell you that it’s possible to break this (no longer inevitable) cycle. 

It is possible to maintain a positive sense of control whilst having the capacity to fight the expectedly unexpected fires that crop up in your teacher day.

It is possible to finish the school day with a sense of achievement and next-to-no work to take home.

It is possible to avoid the overwhelm and feel calm, confident and resourceful.

It is possible to enjoy a life outside of teaching that empowers you to feel happy, centred and recharged each school day.

How is this possible?

Boundaries.

“What the heck are boundaries??” I hear you cry!

Boundaries are the ring fence that you put around yourself in order to protect and promote your health and wellbeing. They are vital to surviving in teaching because without them, the job can become all-consuming. To thrive in teaching, you need to consistently assert your boundaries. By doing so, you set yourself a strong foundation to teach from. 

One way that you can look at boundaries is by observing them as habits; daily practices that support your wellbeing. They are a way of life and can empower you to live a life with purpose and meaning in teaching, whilst keeping life joyful.

There are 4 types of boundaries that will help you to achieve a work-life blend that not only benefits you but also benefits your students.

They are: physical, mental, emotional and identity.

1)     Physical Boundaries

In many ways, physical boundaries are the easiest ones to implement because they can be observed by the 5 senses. These are the physical barriers you put up to promote your wellbeing and protect yourself from the creeping vines of teaching.

You’ll be able to see these boundaries in the actions of others: a consistent arrival and departure time each day from school, limiting the work taken home, a pre-determined time of day to finish school work.

This type of boundary is a great place to begin and practise the daily habits that help you to step away from teaching each day.

2)     Mental Boundaries

These are the first of the more subtle types of boundaries. This kind of boundary works to limit teaching from being the all-consuming element of your thoughts, both day and night.

This boundary requires more mental strength that physical boundaries and is more difficult to monitor. A study in 2020 at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario found that the average human has 6200 thoughts per day.

Obviously, it’s a huge challenge to be aware of that many thoughts. Many of these will be subconscious.

However, you can build greater control of your thoughts by raising your awareness of when thoughts of teaching crop up. When you notice thoughts of school, check in with yourself:

-         Is this a good time for this thought? No? Then make a note of it to return to later.

-         How does this thought make me feel? Positive? Negative? Somewhere in between?

-         What control do I have over this situation? If the answer is very little or none, what can you do to let go?

Mental boundaries are central to switching off from teaching. By switching off, you can more effectively rest, recharge and wholly apply yourself to other important areas of your life.

3)     Emotional Boundaries

Emotional boundaries address the fact that we are emotional beings and that teaching is all about working with other emotional beings.

A common trait of teachers is that they want to give value, care and attention to their students and colleagues. It’s not just about sharing subject knowledge.

This can mean two things:

-         You are an empathiser: you feel the emotions of others and have a greater comprehension of what others may be feeling. Although this is a superpower, it does mean that you risk taking on the emotions of others, which can weigh heavy on you and drain you.

-         You go out of your way to keep others happy, often at the expense of your own wellbeing.

The lack of emotional boundaries in teaching may lie in the traditional description of teaching as a vocation. The Cambridge Dictionary defines vocation as, “a type of work that you feel you are suited to doing and to which you should give all of your time and energy,”.

The word should is crucial here. There is an expectation that you give all of your time and energy. In doing so, the job of teaching is given permission to permeate all areas of your life. The risk of this can lead to overwhelm and compassion fatigue, which is a diminished capacity to empathise and feel compassion for others.

As this is one of your superpowers, it’s vital that you put emotional boundaries in place to protect your emotional wellbeing.

4)     Identity Boundary

When at school, you take on the identity of “Miss” or “Sir”. I wholly became Miss Drinkall when I was a teacher, misspellings and all.

You give everything to teaching.

All of your time.

All of your energy.

All of your thoughts and emotional capacity.

Consequently, your teacher-value begins to fuse with your own individual self-value. You lose the distinction between teacher-you and you-you, the person behind the teacher mask.

So, when something doesn’t go well in your work – a poor lesson, a difficult conversation with a parent, or a poor evaluation of your subject area – it feels like a personal and direct attack on your self-worth. 

You begin to question yourself, how much you contribute or even negatively compare yourself to others. Your self-value and self-love take a nose dive. This can lead to low mood, anxiety and depression.

This is potentially the most damaging consequence of teaching without boundaries. As such, it is vital that teaching is put in its appropriate place: its own compartment within your life.

To create a solid identity-boundary around teaching, you can create a balance of different areas of your life that support you in not allowing teaching to become all-consuming. In her book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, Susan Jeffers recommends creating a whole-life grid that enables you to engage in more than one aspect of your life, creating balance and vitality. This then helps you to spread your time and energy across different important aspects of your life such as, meeting up with friends and family, exercising and enjoying hobbies.

By doing this, and introducing the other boundaries into life your life, you too can thrive in teaching and enjoy a work-life blend that not only brings you energy and joy in life, but also ensures that your students benefit from the best version of you too.

Gemma Drinkall is an Educational Wellbeing Coach, helping middle leaders in education to create clear boundaries so that they can love teaching, and their lives, again.

Want to get in touch? Book a free, no obligation virtual coffee chat here: calendly.com/headsphere/bookacallwithgemma