A raw, honest look at teacher burnout in April—and how to keep teaching when your life is unraveling. Survival tips, solidarity, and soft places to land.

People who don’t work in the public school system believe that August is the darkest month of the educational year. New classes. New rosters. Relearning how to awaken before dawn. Reestablishing the rhythm and routine of school with 160 unenthusiastic adolescents. And while August is something of a marathon, there is a kernel of promise in that month. It’s the promise of potential. The promise that this school year could be the Best Year Ever. The fabric of community is smooth and tight and new in August, waiting only to be sewn into whatever garment you choose. August is a birth. And birth, while exhausting and difficult, feels eternally worthwhile.

And then there’s April.

Fuck April.

That bolt of fresh and lovely fabric has been shredded by April. You thought you were sewing a ball gown and ended up with a corduroy jumper. And it’s an itchy one…with straps that don’t line up and a wrinkle in the hem. The careful plans and cheerful prompts of August have disintegrated by April, and—if you’re lucky—you’re clinging to the tattered remains of your patience with the desperation of someone in an inflatable lifeboat amid a sea of sharks. Vaya, Si. The lifeboat is full of your own urine…and you’re soaking in it. Good times.

And this is under ideal conditions. Years when life at school and at home more or less follows a plodding, natural rhythm. Even in the most benign of school years, April is a shit show. Throw in a few colleagues’ early resignations, maternity leave, the discovery of a breast lump, or the death of a spouse, and you’ve entered a whole new level of shit show. Because the pacing guide and your students’ parents give no fucks that your mental fabric has the tensile strength of cat-scatched upholstery; time and expectations march onward with or without your complicity. As if they possess a second sight for terrible timing, this is inevitably when your building admin will remind you the importance of building relationships with students because you’ve obviously spent the entire school year up until April feigning face blindness and referring to all of the students as “Rusty.”

Back in August, you no doubt planned an ambitious scope and sequence. You carefully scaffolded skill upon skill, layering your teaching in a tapestry designed to produce the finest of cloth. And the weaving may have gone smoothly until roughly Labor Day. But then the loom broke. And you ran out of silk and had to switch to wool. Maybe you lost the tip of a finger in some sort of inexplicable accident with the gears. Whatever the calamity, the pattern was probably already starting to skew unevenly even before the first frost. Todavía, you persisted, weaving stolidly on despite the increasingly disappointing results. la mayor parte del tiempo, you are able to do precisely that, and your design–while a little wonky at the edges—still passingly resembles the pattern with which you started.

And just when you think to yourself “I’m not so bad at this weaving thing,” a tornado blows through and decimates your entire house…except for your miraculously-still-functional loom. You have no bed. You have no kitchen. You don’t even have any walls. Todavía, still, you are expected to keep on weaving that fabric into a masterpiece. Or at least a reasonably functional poncho. Who gives a fuck that your house has no walls and you’re sleeping out in the elements? You’ve still got your loom! Make it work for you! Find solace in the task before you! Weaving is therapeutic! It’ll take your mind off the subzero temperatures and freezing rain.

So you slog onward through the challenges of winter. You eagerly look ahead to the warm months to come. But first…April. You’re battered and windblown. The loom, at this point, is held together with duct tape and prayers. You’ve reached the limits of your talent and your materials…with eight weeks left to go. An eternity when you’re reeling from fatigue, disappointment, and personal struggle. Every school year is hard, and some–the ones further stretched thin by personal tragedy–are seemingly impossible to endure. sin embargo, endure you must. But how?

When my husband, Jorge, died unexpectedly in December, teaching was not my safe space; it was another thing that demanded my already-frazzled and fragmented attention. No amount of pep talks or notes in my mailbox could have pulled me out of the hole I was in. I was still sitting there at the loom, but I wasn’t weaving. I was mostly staring at my cracked fingertips and wondering how anyone expected me to create anything at all without covering it in blood. Después de todo, people will forgive a drop or two getting onto the cloth, but saturation is where they draw the line.

Asi que, how do you keep weaving when your world is coming apart at the seams?

You don’t. Not the way you used to. Not with silk. Not with precision. Not with any kind of enthusiasm. But you still show up at the loom. That’s the secret: you modify the expectations.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. Downshift the Pattern

That elaborate double-weave tapestry you designed back in August? Abandon it. Let it go. Reduce your ambitions to something survivable. You don’t need to create high art right now—you need to keep weaving just enough to cover the essentials. This might look like:

• Turning detailed essays into shorter reflections.

• Choosing discussion over lectures when your energy is low.

• Allowing for more student-led work while you sit in the back pretending not to cry (or just…crying. Crying is okay.)

Some days, just threading the loom is the win. If you showed up, you’re doing enough.

2. Embrace Ugly Stitches

When you’re running on emotional fumes, your work might get sloppy. You’ll forget things. Your lessons might fall flat. You’ll snap at a kid and immediately feel like trash. But here’s the thing—every teacher stitches ugly sometimes. Especially in April. Especially when their world outside of school is a mess.

Don’t aim for excellence. Aim for presence. Let good enough be good enough. Patch the holes later.

3. Use the Weird Materials

If life has stripped you of your usual teaching toolkit, grab what you’ve got. Weird materials make for weird garments—but they’re still garments. Lean on:

• YouTube videos instead of lectures.

• Kahoots you didn’t make.

• Last year’s slide decks.

• That one activity your students inexplicably love and will happily do four times a semester.

• The occasional game day. SECD is still a buzzword. Lean in.

You don’t need novelty. You need stability. Use the tools that require the least effort but keep the wheels turning.

4. Ask Someone to Sit at the Loom With You

This one’s big: you’re not supposed to do this alone. Let someone in. Ask a colleague to share resources. Tell your admin (if they’re human) that you’re struggling. Text your teacher friend three classrooms down and ask, “Can we co-grade or co-cry after school today?”

Even if they can’t carry your burden, just having someone witness it can lessen its weight. Mucho.

5. When All Else Fails, Weave a Blanket

If you’re too exhausted to keep shaping your students into academic masterpieces, then shift your energy toward creating a soft place to land. Focus on warmth. On safety. On letting your students know that even if you’re fraying at the edges, you still care about them.

• Greet them with gentleness.

• Se honesto (without oversharing) about having a hard time.

• Let the classroom be a less demanding space, for you and them both.

A veces, a blanket is more useful than a poncho.

Final Thread: You’re Still a Weaver

No matter how ragged the result, no matter how slow the progress, you’re still here. Still weaving.

That’s not failure. That’s resilience.

You’re not the only one duct-taping your loom together right now. You’re not the only one cursing April. You’re not the only one whose tapestry looks nothing like the plan. And you’re not alone if your personal life is dissolving in your hands while you stand in front of thirty kids and try to pretend otherwise.

I’m surviving. And in times like this, that’s enough.

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