We Don't Need No Water, Let the Mother****** Burn! (or How to Avoid Burnout)

Burnout is going to happen to some degree.  Accept this now, and it will be a whole lot easier down the road.  Its part of the experience of being a teacher.  You'll get so sick of some of the crap that teachers deal with and you will just feel like you've got nothing left.  But its nothing new and you aren't alone.  Here are some things that I did to cure the burnouts.

1.)  Long weekend - Don't be afraid to take a Friday or a Monday off to give you the long weekend.  In fact, I took them both one time.  When I took a mental health day like this, I used it to totally get away from school.  You might be tempted to work on grading or catch up, but you can't.  It defeats the purpose of a "mental health day."  Sleep, go shopping, drive, whatever.  Just get away from the daily grind.

2.)  Re-assess - Sometimes you think the kids are driving you nuts, but really, you are just wound so tightly that you can explode over nothing.  It happens too.  When you feel like you want to die, step back and think "am I holding on too tightly, or is it really them?"  A lot of times you'll recognize that you are just looking for a reason to go off.

3.)  Enjoy your class weekends - Don't whine to your MTC mates about "how much my school sucks."  It does nothing but reinforce the idea in your head that you are in hell.  You are not in hell.  Someone always has it worse than you, and nobody wants to hear somebody crying all the time.  Share the funny stories, enjoy your time together. 

This is just a partial list, there are tons more things that you can do, but these helped me the most!