Retired Teacher Urges Educators to Delete Their Work Email from Their Phones (Exclusive)

Michelle Manning, a retired teacher with a 25-year career predominantly spent on Long Island, has recently brought attention to a pressing issue affecting educators today: teacher burnout. In a viral TikTok video, she skilfully uses humour to illustrate the pressures teachers face, highlighting how incessant digital communication is exacerbating an already demanding profession.

In her video, Manning mimics a phone call to a pizza shop before it opens, insisting she should be allowed to place an order because it fits her schedule. This lighthearted skit struck a chord with many teachers who feel overwhelmed by the relentless demands of their roles and the constant influx of emails and messages from parents and students outside of school hours.

According to Manning, the landscape of education has changed significantly since she began her career in the early 1990s. In her early days, communication flowed at a much slower pace, allowing parents time to reflect on any concerns before reaching out. Today, however, parents are granted immediate updates about their children’s progress, leading to quick, sometimes emotionally charged reactions, often communicated online. “Parents tend to be a lot nicer in person than they are behind a keyboard,” Manning observed, explaining that this shift has altered the dynamic between educators and families.

Manning pointed out that while parents are now more informed than ever, they often overlook the fact that teachers are inundated with emails not just from parents but also from colleagues and school administrators. This contributes to a historically high volume of messages that teachers are expected to manage, which can be overwhelming. She notes that a prevailing misconception exists regarding the typical day of a teacher. Unlike many other professions, educators do not sit at their desks all day with constant access to their emails; they are actively engaged with students for most of their working hours.

With a mere half-hour each day to check emails, which also needs to accommodate planning and grading, Manning argues that important messages can easily slip through the cracks. To mitigate some of these challenges, she offers practical advice for new teachers on setting clear boundaries from the outset. Implementing automatic responses and adding informative signatures to emails can help recalibrate expectations. For example, she suggests a message stating, “I am working with students during most of the day; therefore, I may not see emails right away. Please know your message is important, and I will respond as soon as possible.”

Additionally, Manning advocates for teachers to disable email notifications and, if feasible, remove work-related email from their personal devices completely. Yet, she believes that the onus cannot entirely rest on educators. School leadership must play an active role in reinforcing these boundaries. Manning emphasises that administrators should empower teachers to set limits on after-hours communication, and suggest leading by example by avoiding out-of-hours emails themselves.

Creating a healthy structure within schools is crucial, as it can significantly relieve the pressures that educators face after hours. Manning argues that when teachers are compelled to divert their focus from lesson planning, grading, and engaging with students to administrative tasks, they can easily become overwhelmed. Many teachers end their days with the added burden of taking work home, resulting in a cycle where they feel they are never doing enough.

Maintaining work-life balance is especially vital in an already demanding role. Manning draws a comparison to flight safety protocols, which advise passengers to secure their oxygen masks before helping others. “Very often, teachers aren’t putting on their oxygen mask,” she remarked, underscoring the need for educators to prioritise their well-being in order to effectively support their students.

The long-term effects of burnout can manifest not only in teachers’ personal lives but also within the classroom environment, where nurturing relationships and maintaining focus are of utmost importance. As Manning succinctly puts it, “When teachers have to direct so much of their energy to activities other than lesson planning, grading, and interacting with students, it is very overwhelming.”

Her message resonates deeply in an era when the demand for immediate communication often clashes with the need for personal time and mental recovery. The repercussions of this ongoing pressure could have lasting implications, not only for educators’ mental health but also for their students’ learning experiences. The conversation surrounding teacher well-being is more critical now than ever, and by acknowledging these challenges, schools may start to pave the way for a healthier work environment where educators can thrive.