1.

Introduction
What I didnt know then was that I wouldnt make it.
Less than a year after facing my first year after facing
my first classroom of thirty-two fidgeting tenth graders, I
walked away and never come back to that classroom or
to teaching
(Graziano, 2005)
The excerpt shared by Graziano showed an example of a new teacher from
the United States who experienced the effect of burnout. Besides that, according to
Ding (2000) cited in Lee Chuan (2001), in Malaysia itself, there are 73% of teachers
reported to have high intention to quit due to burnout issue. Therefore, now we know
that burnout is a serious case that is experienced by both novice and also the
veteran teachers.
According to Mukundan and Khandehroo (2010), the term burnout was first
introduced by Freudenberger (1974) where according to his study, a lot of young
workers were becoming depressed after a few years due to the stress issues that
they experienced from their work. The term burnout can be refer as a result of a
chronic stress that can cause the exhaustion of the physical and emotional, cynicism
and detachment feeling with their work, and also the feeling of ineffectiveness and
lack of personal accomplishment (Carter, 2013).
There are a lot of causes for the teachers to experience burnout. For example
in Malaysia, Mukundan and Khandehroo (2010) stated that, based on their findings,
it is revealed that one of the causes is lack of professional experience which as a
result caused them to always feel underappreciated and the feel of lack
achievement. This is usually faced by the novice teachers. Another cause is due to
their workload, especially from their teaching hours inside or outside of the school
context.

2. The Symptoms of Burnout Effects That Are Experienced By Teachers

There are a lot of symptoms or signs of the burnout effect that can be
experienced by a teacher. In my opinion, it is very important for a teacher to
recognize the early signs of a burnout before the problem become even worse. This
is because, according to Hughes (2001) as cited in Evers, Tomic and Brouwers
(2004), a teacher who suffers from burnout will affect the teaching and learning
effectiveness, but also the students, and themselves, physically and psychologically.
Therefore, one of the important symptoms of the effect of the burnout is
exhaustion. According to Rush (2015), teachers who are exhausted will greatly affect
their job performance because they have almost no motivation and commitment to
continue with their jobs. This as the result will greatly impact their effectiveness on
teaching and learning skills for example their classroom management and methods
of instruction or delivering of the learning contents. Rush (2015) further stated that,
due to the decreasing level of job performance, the teachers will actually realize
about it and eventually will become more stress as things are not going well.
Another symptom of the burnout effect is that, the teachers will start to
isolate themselves from others. Wood (2002) stated in his article that isolation is
actually a form of a defense mechanism for them to hide their feelings of worn-out
and also their development of cynical views towards others. Teachers who are
having this symptom will isolate themselves from their peers and will only interact
with their students. Another reason why these burnout teachers start to alienate
themselves from others is also related to mental exhaustion, especially when they
start to think of themselves as meaningless to others, especially to those with high
expectations (Le Compte and Dworkin, 1991 as cited in Wood, 2002).
After the teachers lose all their motivation on their work and suffering from
depression, the next symptom of the burnout effect is that, they will become anxious
easily. Teachers who have this symptom will become easily nervous and full of
worries. According to Shilingfor-Butler, Patel and Ngazimbi (2012), teacher anxiety
can affect the teacher-parents relationship and also the relationship with other

teachers.

In my opinion, both relationships are very important because without

having a good relationship among the school community, then the goal to become
an effective teaching cannot be achieved.
The fourth burnout effect symptom that is experienced by the teachers is that,
they can get irritated easily. For example, when they are encountering conflict
among their co-workers and team, they will start to make offensive remarks about
them and when they are encountering small problem like missing personal item, they
will act like it is a big difficulty that need to be solved (Elias, 2012). According to
Carter (2013), if this symptom is becoming heavier, it will lead to angry outburst and
serious arguments where it can affect the teachers workplace environment for
example in the staffroom or in the classroom and even with their family at home.
Apart from that, procrastination is also one of the symptoms of the burnout
effect among the teachers where they are becoming less productive as they take a
lot of time to finish their task. If the teachers keep on procrastinating, the work load
will become heavier and it will add more stress to them. According to Wood (2001),
the main reason for this reason is because the teachers are having difficulty in
focusing on their tasks. Besides that, the teachers also tend to procrastinate as they
might feel too overwhelmed by their workload, to the point that they feel it is almost
impossible for them to finish it, since they have loss all their confidence in their
capability.
3. Burnout Prevention as a Novice Teacher
Based from my experience as a teacher trainee during my last three phase of
practicum, it is no doubt that teaching may become stressful to any teacher. this is
because, teachers is not only as a record keeper and also to cooperate with the
school community but the most important is that, they need to foster the students
academic learning and also their social emotional well being (Flook, Goldberg,
Pinger, Bonus & Davidson, 2013). Thus from this stress, it will result in burnout
situation where it can have serious consequences for the health and happiness
(Wood & Chris, 2002) which it can affect the teachers themselves, the students and

also their family. From this reason, I think that it is important for me to know the
steps to prevent myself from burnout situation, especially when I am going to
become a teacher in the future, where many challenges might lie ahead.
Therefore, the first step that I should take in order to prevent myself from
burnout situation is that, I should be very discipline with their work. According to
Tomlinson (2004), teachers with great work discipline is very organized and wellordered. For example, they will carry on with their tasks and duties ahead of
schedules or deadlines. Besides that, they also will do their work in a calm manner,
or in other word, professionally. For example, although they do not like to handle
with a lot of paper work, a discipline teacher will strive to complete them without any
complain because they knew that it is the duty to make it done. In my opinion, this
step is very important because it will prevent me from procrastinating in doing my
work. Procrastination will only increase my workload and when there is too much for
me to handle, it will make me to become anxious. As the result, I will happen to
burnout due to my own doing.
The next step is for me to practice cooperation among other teachers. In my
opinion, I think that this type of environment is very important to avoid me from being
because if I am working alone too much, I will end up isolate myself from others and
caused me to lose my confidence level which lead to burnout. Besides that,
according to Mclure (2008), by collaborating with other teachers, it will create an
environment where teachers can share ideas with each other especially when each
teacher has their own area of expertise. Through cooperation also, teachers will
learn to share their credit throughout them and as the result will create a harmonic
and a productive working environment.
As a novice teacher also, another step that I can take to prevent myself from
burnout situation is by being creative. According to Monteiro (2009), due to the
repetitiveness work with little or no variation is one of the causes of burnout among
teachers. In my opinion, I agree with this statement because as a future teacher, I
realize that learning is a long-life process and therefore it is important for me to
always equip myself with new knowledge, especially in new method and techniques

in teaching and learning because I think that if I am going to use the same method
without variation, I will get tired of it and might lose my motivation.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is by exploring the wide borderless
world of information and communications technology (ICT). Majumdar (2015) stated
in his article that in todays growth of communication and computer systems, the
opportunity to find a lot of effective learning materials and teaching ideas have
become easier, with different styles and format of learning resources. He also stated
that by integrating ICT in improving teaching and learning session, it will allow not
only interactive environment, but also will promote a learner centered session that
permit creative and critical thinking.
Besides that, another step that I am going to take is by taking care of my
appearance, so that I will always look smart and tidy. In my opinion, our appearance
can really affect our psychology as can help to build our self-motivation. It is very
important for teachers to feel motivated, especially when they are going to school,
the first thing in the morning. This is because, if the teachers are already feeling
unmotivated from the beginning, then, it will surely affect their whole experience
during the school hours. As a future teacher, I will always try to look smart and tidy
but at the same time adhere to the Teachers Code of Ethics, every time I am going
to go to school. This will help to build up my motivation and at the same time
upholding the high standard of the teaching profession. I am sure that by building up
my self-motivation, I will prevent myself from burnout.
Apart from that, learning ways to manage stress is also one of the important
steps that I should take in order to prevent myself from this burnout situation,
especially a novice teacher. According to Delaney (2014), as a teacher, you should
always need to take care of yourself first before taking care of others. For example,
how can we manage an effective teaching and learning session to our students if we
cannot manage ourselves? One of the examples of ways that I can take in learning
on how to manage my stress is by attending a stress management workshop where
I can learn a lot of useful tips. Besides that, I can also do some research and reading
on how I can cope with stress.

4. Conclusion
In conclusion, as a future teacher, it is very important for me to do more
research about this burnout situation especially when my journey is this profession is
still long. One of the advantages of doing so is that, I will able to understand more
about causes of burnout and ways to prevent it, so that I will become an effective
teacher because in my opinion, teaching is also one of the professions that requires
a high standard of professionalism.

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