Planning to Stay: Burnout, Demoralization, Exploitation, and How to Reclaim Self-Care, Your Classroom, and Your Life... Anyway

by Jess Cleeves, Bryan A. Brown (Foreword)

This is a book for teachers who don't want to have to quit.
Teaching has never been easy, but these days it seems to keep getting harder. As the pressure builds, many educators are calling it quits on a profession that once felt like a calling.
Planning to Stay offers a hopeful alternative; in spite of teachings' very real challenges, you can rediscover joy in the classroom and live a connected, fulfilling life year-round.
An easy read for such a monumental task, this conversational book validates with relatable examples and orients with useful structural analysis. Respect for educators underpins specific, concrete exercises to support readers to make this work, this hope, and their lives their own.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Education

211 pages, Paperback

Published May 25, 2023

About the author

I'm a teacher-turned-therapist whose writing supports teachers.

Reviews

[Jennifer Roe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I connected with Part 1 of this book way more than I connected with Part 2. As an experienced teacher, I feel as if my classroom procedures are refined to me and what works best for both myself and my students. This book validated my feelings of BD&A but still didn’t answer or offer solutions for the specific issues that are causing my BD&A.

[Robert Violano · Rating 5 out of 5]

This past school year marks a decade that I have been working in public education but my journey started much before that in my Masters of Ed program. The conversation this book invites is one that I had wished I been privy to much sooner. Until I read I did not realize that the way I have been feeling about my job is not because of me but instead, because of the structure and expectations placed upon me by a system that ultimately does not care about me. However, the author provides an accessible framework to avoid BD&E though an open, candid, and conversational tone that is backed with extra reading and research. This year went much better than I anticipated and I feel hopeful that I can more successfully navigate my job after reading this book (i've read it twice now). I have also been taking adult education and instructional coaching classes. I will also have a student teacher next year and I am excited to support people in their journey with the knowledge I've gained through this book as well as workshops with Jess Cleeves. I hope to give a realistic and supported view in the hope that my student teacher will be a part of the small percentage that turn into career teachers. In terms of the lay-out of the book I appreciated the invitation to skip around in a non-linear fashion as well as the strategies and the TL:DR sections. Personally, I think every educator needs to read this book regardless of where they are at in their career.

[Kevin Matuseski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very important book for me and the entire teaching profession, especially since teachers across the U.S. are leaving the profession at such high rates. I just finished up my 13th year as a middle school English teacher, and I have seen firsthand many great teachers leave to go do something else. It's often implied by education training that if we just keep mastering our craft, we will be more successful, happy, and fulfilled teachers. But I'm seeing even award-winning teachers leave due to stress, low pay, lack of respect etc. There is a missing component to helping teachers be effective, while at the same time, living a balanced and happy life. I also think it's overlooked how those things go hand-in-hand. Jess Cleeves has addressed that missing component in this book. It's much more than simply exercising and meditation. Unlike a lot of district professional development, this book gives practical tips for self-care throughout a teacher's day-to-day. It spans from the ideological, like naming your values, all the way down to specific strategies like planning time within your lesson to move your own body. We don't talk enough about how happy and healthy teachers make the most effective ones. I plan to recommend this book to all future preservice teachers I mentor along with my current colleagues.

[Laurie Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book fills a niche that has been missing for years. It speaks directly to the teacher who is wondering about their job and their place in the system and has hope that things can be better. Jess Cleeves has been there, has had the hope but has also been beaten down, and has done the work to figure out how to bring us all up and find the good in the job and in ourselves and she does so in a very real, straightforward, no nonsense fashion. Each chapter has a helpful summary for those who don't manage to read it all and there are exercises to make it personal and applicable to all. This is a must-read for all teachers who have been on the job a few years and want to keep it going!

[Tillie Uribe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Planning to Stay is a must read for anyone who is in the teaching profession. The author highlights her experience in the classroom along with teachers in all steps of their career from beginning teachers, to those who have been in the classroom a long time. It is a practical guide to reclaiming self and the joy in the profession for teachers who are struggling with burnout, demoralization, and exploitation. The cliff notes at the end of each chapter are a nice touch when short on time, but needing to get the most information from a chapter.

[Yazz Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often find reading teacher-help books as draining: I’m not doing enough, the kids are awful and everyone hates teachers. It leaves me feeling quite powerless against the many forces that work in opposition to teaching. However, Cleeves has provided an empowering and happy medium: she acknowledges that the job is hard and that we are basically on our own but gives explicit tools to help teachers cope in this landscape. Her values-driven rhetoric is inspiring, witty and actionable which, for an ECT like me, makes me feel as though I can plan to stay

[Stephen Therrien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been using this book every day and would highly recommend it to all teachers. I owe a lot to this book; without its help and support, I wouldn't be the educator I am today. Jess does an excellent job identifying ways to keep doing what you love as a teacher while also maintaining sustainability and love for the profession.

[Jaeleigh Mecham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for anyone feeling that leaving teaching is inevitable and no longer sustainable. A practical guide for all teachers and those that desire to exist outside of "the work".