Unhinged but Thriving: Why Teacher Burnout Deserves a Trophy

I’m fine. This is fine. Everything’s fine. Except the copy machine is jammed again and someone just sneezed on me.

Listen, if you’ve never had a mental breakdown in a Target parking lot mid-May, are you even a teacher?

May is a special brand of unhinged. Field trips, testing, report cards, performances, class parties... it’s a wild ride. And somehow, we're expected to smile through it like we didn’t just spend our lunch break crying over broken glue sticks.

Here’s what got me through:

• Iced coffee (obviously)

• Ridiculous stickers that made my students laugh (and me laugh harder)

• A group chat that said “you’ve got this” when I definitely did not

• And an “I’m doing my best” attitude, even when “my best” meant frozen pizza for the fifth night in a row.

If no one has told you lately, teachers, you are doing freaking amazing. You don’t just deserve a break. You deserve a throne.