Sweet Jesus, Is It June Yet?: 10 Ways the Gospels Can Help You Combat Teacher Burnout and Rediscover Your Passion for Teaching

by Amy J. Cattapan, A.J. Cattapan

You work hard to motivate your students every day, but where can you find the inspiration you need when teaching gets tough or your passion for the classroom starts to wane?

Veteran teacher Amy J. Cattapan invites you to look to the greatest teacher of all time—Jesus. With humor and stories from the trenches, Cattapan draws valuable insight and tools from the Gospels and shares ten life-changing principles every teacher can learn from Jesus. In Sweet Jesus, Is It June Yet?, she’ll help you hang onto your sanity and fulfill your calling even when you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and on the verge of burnout.

Classroom burnout is real. About 44 percent of new teachers in New York leave the profession by their fourth year and 40 percent of new teachers leave Chicago schools within five years. All over the country, managing online instruction has only added to the pressures teachers face.

In order to combat frustration and burnout, Cattapan will help you:


remember where your calling began;
rediscover who this is all about;
know when to lean on others for help;
learn how Jesus dealt with challenges; and
understand that God’s grace really is enough.
Whether you’re a brand new teacher, a veteran educator, or a homeschooling parent, you’ll find wisdom—and more than a few laughs—in Cattapan’s reflections on the Great Teacher and in classroom stories straight from the front lines.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Christian

160 pages, Paperback

Published August 20, 2021

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a nice reminder to any and all teachers who get burned out, discouraged, or just not sure what to do next.

I taught in a Christian school and this book was written from a Catholic teacher's perspective but really none of that matters. As teachers we can all learn lessons from the gospel to help us overcome hurdles.

I felt that all of the author's thoughts were relatable and give encouragement. I would highly recommend this to teachers, no matter what the time of year.

I was given this book by NetGalley and Ave Maria Press. All opinions are my own.

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what an incredible read. This was an excellent volume. Now I need to be up front, I am not a teacher, at least in the classroom sense. Though I did debate it 35 years ago. I have been a TA at university and in college. And in my current role in IT I teach or mentor both up and down. But once I started reading this book I could not put it down. There were so many good stories in this volume. Cattapan in this volume writes from her 25 plus years’ experience in the field. The chapters in the book are:

Introduction
1. Jesus Began Small
2. Jesus Had a First Day, Too
3. Jesus Knew Who He Was Doing It All For
4. Jesus Set the Stage for Learning
5. Jesus Asked for Help
6. Jesus Knew When (and How Far) to Bend the Rules
7. Jesus Knew the Power of a Good Story
8. Jesus Took Challenges in Stride
9. Jesus Trusted God’s Grace to Do Divine Arithmetic
10. Jesus Knew When to Stop and Just Let It Be
Epilogue

I picked this up for several reasons. First I have read the 2 novels and a published short story by Cattapan and enjoy her fiction. Second I have several friends who are teachers. Some in Catholic Schools and some in public schools and even a few in private schools. I thought about all the great teachers I had, and some of the amazing teachers my children have had. And I wanted to read this and if it was as good as it looked, recommend it to many of those teachers I know. And I have already ordered a copy for the teacher resource shelf in my youngest children’s school.

The introduction begins with these words:

“I have been teaching for more than twenty years. And since I’m Catholic and guilt would only gnaw at me if I weren’t honest, I’m going to tell you the truth: I have thought of throwing in the towel numerous times. This is not the result of any one bad school or bad administrator or bad set of colleagues or frustrating group of students or parents.”

And further she states:

“The burnout I’ve experienced over the years has not come as a surprise. While studying to become a secondary-school English teacher in the 1990s, I heard grim statistics about teacher retention, and the implication was always that teachers quit because they were burned out. In 1997, Linda Darling-Hammond reported that more than thirty percent of beginning teachers leave within their first five years of teaching.1 More recently, Charles M. Payne stated that 44 percent of new teachers in New York are gone by their fourth year, and about 40 percent of new teachers in Chicago are gone within five years.”

And yet further:

“If you’re like me, you felt the Lord call you to be a teacher at a young age, but at times you’ve wondered if you misunderstood what he was trying to tell you. Some of us went into teaching with grandiose ideas of being the next Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society, inspiring our students to “Carpe diem!” Or maybe we thought we’d be like Michelle Pfeiffer’s character in Dangerous Minds and stride into an inner-city classroom in a leather jacket, teach some karate moves, and somehow unlock the potential of a group of students nobody thought was worth their time.”

And also:

“The answer seems to be to keep finding ways to reinvigo¬rate my love for teaching and reenergize my approach in the classroom. That’s what I hope this book will do for you. As I mentioned before, I’m Catholic, so my guilt won’t let me lie to you on this point either. I need this book right now. Over twenty years in, and there are still days when I ask God, “Are you sure you still want me doing this?” (Maybe it’s a result of my Jesuit education, but ongoing discernment seems to be a way of life for me.) So I am writing this book to reinvigorate my own teaching and to reenergize my own approach to the classroom, but I think that it will also do the same for you.”

I hope those few quotes from the introduction will help you see how engaging and honest this volume it. It is wonderfully written and I am certain it will benefit any teacher who picks it up or has it gifted to them.

The book is engaging and entertaining. Once you get going you will have a hard time putting it down. And for those of us not in the profession many of the lessons are transferable. I know that several of the pieces of advice transfer to working on a team and working in IT. This is a great read and valuable resource for the teachers in your life. I highly recommend it.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2021 Catholic Reading Plan!

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a rough couple of school years for teachers, and the upcoming school year may be more of the same. Sweet Jesus, Is it June Yet? - even from this non-teacher's perspective - encourages teachers in the profession the way only another teacher who's been in the trenches can. Amy Cattapan draws from experiences in the classroom and out to relate her successes and failures to the lessons gleaned from the teacher of all teachers, Jesus Christ, as shared in the Gospels.

Chapters are short, easy to read, and eminently practical. If you're a Christian teacher, you'll find understanding, support, and gentle encouragement in these pages. And, I think, a fresh perspective that might help counter the burnout you've been feeling.

This will make a great gift to the wonderful teachers who help to educate my children.

[Kristen Herrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am getting ready to start my fourth year as a public school teacher who also happens to be Catholic. My first year of teaching we had a hurricane come through my area that closed schools for eight weeks due to damage to buildings. The next year we closed down for Covid in March and I had to learn how to remote teach. My third year, we taught on a hybrid schedule. Oh, I am a special education teacher as well. Why is any of that relevant to this book? Well, because AJ Cattapan is a veteran teacher who endured at least all of the pandemic craziness and who has written a book that can give all teachers struggling to remember why we started or why we are continuing. Her use of the Gospel readings to show how Jesus’ public ministry can directly be relational to many teachers’ struggles is incredibly helpful to assist Catholic and Christian teachers to live out their vocation as teachers. Strongly recommend!

[Jaime K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ARC from the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review.

I have liked Cattapan’s fiction, and was very excited to hear she was coming out with a nonfiction about teaching. In learning the title, I knew I HAD to read it because I was wishing it was June when we were knee-deep in COVID restrictions and uncertainty about the future a possible vaccine would bring--so in December.

Although I teach at a public school (though have taught at a very small Catholic school, and was raised in the Catholic school system), Cattapan’s words work for all teachers (though things like prayer may always have to be done in silence). Still, she understands this as she has taught at both public and parochial schools; large and small ones; schools that were diverse in culture, gender, or socioeconomic status and ones where she had to constantly be on the lookout for gang symbols.

This is a book about how to teach like Jesus, and focuses mainly on the gospels to do so. After all, very few historical figures “can say their teachings are still being passed on two thousand years later.” Each chapter ends with reflection questions that are pretty fantastic.
This is also a book about how to face and hopefully combat burnout, though the majority of the tips center around a ‘breathe, reach out for help, and reflect on your own experiences as a kid’ mentality. Yet she truly understands the “paper” work, lack of resources, administration and parents to continuously communicate with, and the teaching itself that we all face in the job.

As a side note, her pointing out socioeconomic diversity made me think a lot about the school I currently work at and a discussion I had with colleagues during a meeting about our vision statement. I definitely have students in the same class from million dollar homes, trailer-style homes, and huge farms where they come to school late because they were up late helping a cow birth her calf.
And while I’ve never had to look for visible gang symbols, some of my former students worried about brothers in gangs and I have been on suicide alert too many times in the past 4 years that my entire school community is still reeling from being heartbroken.

I digress. But I didn’t expect to tear up from Cattapan’s book. It hits very close to home, and most of it in a very good way.
(By the way, Amy, I also cried nearly every night during my first year of teaching. Why does no one prepare us for this)!?

I do feel like Amy and I would have been best friends in school if she wasn’t older than me, and by more years than I realized. (She studied to be a secondary-school English teacher in the 1990s; I was only realizing I wanted to teach then, and wasn’t even solid about the math). I would have much rather read in the corner than do anything else, I’m a control freak who’s learning to let go a bit each year, I’ve always been a rule follower, and I like to get things done early. I knew I would enjoy this book but I found myself thinking more often than I thought I would, “Preach!”
Though she teaches middle school and I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole if I could avoid it. All the freaking power to you 7th grade teachers because dealing with high school hormones is rough, but 7th grade was my worst educational year for people reasons.

I would love to read her dissertation on culturally relevant literature!


Here are my additional takeaways as I read:

~ Teaching is a mission that we share with Jesus. He had a first day too. He had students/people question his words and authority. He had apostles constantly interrupt with “what?” statements and questions. And he got tired.

~ Like Jesus (and the apostles), there are many ways in which teaching allows us to have “first days.” When a lesson slogs because we’ve done it 4 other times already in the past day or two, we have to remember that a new class is receiving it. If it’s the same content year after year, although we mature we have to remember that each new class is the same age as the students the previous year.
But we can also have “first” opportunities in how we arrange the classroom or activities.

~ Jesus was clear in our purpose; so too do we have to be about ours. This is not only with the students but with ourselves. We may not have realized that we “signed up” for knowing how to administer an EPI-Pen or attend to a student having a seizure; that we would have to face gang and suicide watches; that we would have to ‘deal with’ the emotional problems of the students. But we knew we were signing up to work with and teach /people/ and doing so means that we definitely signed up to be involved in more than just our discipline(s).
Because “teaching requires recognizing the whole person, as best we can.” (Chapter 2) This also means we have to remember that we won’t reach every kid, just like Jesus didn’t reach anyone. We still however have to always show compassion.

~ In Matthew 9:9-13, Jesus is admonished for dining with a tax collector. Cattapan reminds us that this is similar to the person who no one wants to work with because of their behavior and/or they force their partner to do the work. These students typically feed teacher burnout due to how exhausting they are. But we have to strategize to welcome them in and help them grow and be better people.

~ Like Jesus, we have to spend time building a teacher-student relationship in order for them to trust us, and sometimes that trust takes a lot of time to develop.

~ I love the idea of adding a video aspect of a GTKY assignment. With about 100 students each year, I don’t know if I’ll ever require my students to do this, but I still really like it.

~ I like the notion of Jesus having formed a professional learning community in the apostles.

~ In chapter 5, in the section “Outside Resources,” Cattapan empathizes with us in cold climates where in Feb and March “we are all sick of the frigid temps and snow.”
In all honesty, I first read that as “friggin temps and snow,” which I would also agree with.

~ Ugh. Everyone--parents, politicians, textbook companies, business leaders, policy makers, and more--definitely tell teachers how to teach. It’s highly annoying, and one reason why I’ve considered going into the DOE for my state even though I hate high level bureaucracy and can’t comprehend the politics of things. Like Cattapan though, I prayed on it--and God told me I’m meant to stay in teaching (and just teach, nothing at the admin level) which is actually a relief. But I’ll still complain!

~ There are some great reminders about what fairness means to different students, and not only for those with educational plans. We can’t be rigid rule followers all the time but have to look at the bigger picture like Jesus did. What is best for the /students/? Even Jesus bent the rules (like healing or eating on the Sabbath).

~ Sometimes teaching is like the parable of the scattered seeds. Sometimes we plant seeds in the minds and hearts of students; sometimes we prepare the soil; and sometimes we are the sun and water to help a student grow. No matter what point of the journey they’re at, we have to be ready to reap the harvest of their learning.

~ Jesus got frustrated. Jesus needed alone (desert) time.
So if we get annoyed at the “why” of Times New Roman, 12-point font (oh my goodness, I get this as a math teacher too and I just want to yell out “WHAT TEACHER WANTS ANYTHING ELSE?!”) yes we have to breathe and find a way to be kind about our response (often this is found through a quick prayer), but we can also remember Jesus had his annoyances too.

~ Cattapan says that sometimes teaching means we have to sacrifice our pride. I think that my pride flew out the window once I became a teacher, and I very quickly became okay with that.

[Amanda Lauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a teacher but I loved this book! Amy Cattapan, who's been teaching for more than 20 years, talks about the struggles and joys of teaching using many of her own experiences in both Catholic and public schools. She draws parallels from Jesus' time on this earth teaching and gives some concrete ideas of how to battle teacher burn out. This would be a fantastic gift for anyone who's in the teaching field. It's a quick read, has lots of humorous bits, and is like sitting down and chatting with Cattapan over a cup of coffee. And, like any real-life conversation with her, she'll drop in a couple references to her favorite show, The Chosen!

[Jan Stoner · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, I love the title! Anyone in Catholic education knows the sweetness of Jesus, our Savior, and of June, that magical start of summer vacation away from school and mostly all of its responsibilities!

While the custom of summer break originally began due to the needs of an agrarian society, the significance of escaping from school and returning refreshed is still important today to combat the issue of high teacher burnout, which the author names and addresses. From her own experience, she herself has sometimes questioned her calling to be an educator and witnesses how her faith has helped her restore her passion for teaching.

Using scripture readings as a lens for perspective, the author identifies the ten gospel lessons that follow Christ’s life as a compassionate rabbi, teacher, to learn some practical and spiritual tips to stay the course. Using her experience as an English teacher, the author uses active-reading strategies to help the reader work through the content, including helpful reflection questions at the end of each chapter.

Finally, the author weaves in humor to ease our journey through sometimes parched career landscapes. A heartfelt and wonderful read for educators!

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have been teaching for almost 20 years and did not really find anything new within this book to ignite any fires. I still love my job, but I think all teachers are feeling a little burned out after over a year of pandemic-style teaching. This book might be better for teachers earlier in their careers, but I feel like I already do the things that the author talks about. I know the value of relationships, I talk to my colleagues, I do try to reach the kids who are difficult, etc. I had high hopes for the book and was ready to buy several copies for my teacher friends, but it did not live up to what I was expecting.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book couldn’t have come at a better time for me. After one of the craziest school years of my life, I was feeling discouraged and utterly exhausted. Reading it this summer energized me to return to the classroom and was a wonderful reminder what a privilege it is to be His hands and feet. While this is told in a Catholic perspective and I’m a Christian, this will work for any denomination. Rich is scripture and truth, this is wonderful tool to keep in your arsenal and go back to it when you need a boost. My thanks to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

[Carrie Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This last year in education (CoVID , politics) has been incredibly rough. So much so, that many are leaving the profession altogether. This makes me so sad. While many of the things covered in this book, I already know and do, I did find it refreshing and needed to read and have it lay out in front of me. There couldn’t have been a better time for a hope infused book specifically for teachers. Thank you!
** huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written for new and veteran teachers alike, this book is the perfect read at the beginning of the school year, offering Bible-based strategies teachers can use to battle discouragement, stress, and burnout.
Read my full review and interview with the author.
(Advance review copy received from publisher)

[Jenna Rohret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book! A lot of thoughtful reflections on teaching, and burnout. I really enjoyed the scripture throughout! The author had great commentary on all of it.

This book is great on its own, however, I bet it would be even better read as a school staff for PD enrichment.

I know I’ll be picking this book up again!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a book that I will read again and again. I love the reflection/discussion questions at the end of each chapter. Such a nice way to encourage the readers to really pause and reflect on their own experiences and how they relate to the gospels. Highly recommend!!

[Dave Cattapan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining and easy read. You don't have to be a teacher to appreciate it!

[Beth J · Rating 2 out of 5]

So not funny! The only thing funny was the title. I was very disappointing by this book.

[Julie Schiltmeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that made me consider all the ways of Jesus teaching me to be a patient teacher myself. A perfect read for the end of the school year!