The start of a new school year brings a frenzy of positive activity. Setting up classrooms, getting acquainted with students, and jumping into the curriculum is exciting, but also exhausting.

Experts are calling it a crisis. The United States are experiencing a national shortage in teachers, with eight percent of educators leaving the field each year. The cause? An exponential rise in teacher burnout.

The modern trend for digitizing education is getting really overwhelming. Modern classes look nothing like they did a half-century ago. Smart apps and VR technologies have completely transformed the education process in schools last couple years.

If you’re reading this article, I imagine that you’re on the fence about staying a teacher. Maybe you’ve been in the classroom for a year, two, or as was the case with me, four. The fact is, however, that you feel burned out, defeated, finished, etc. Is there a way to shake this feeling and move on? Or is it time to pack it up?

Teaching is, by nature, a collaborative and community-driven profession. Over the past few decades or so, this need for professional teamwork has evolved into the concept of Personal Learning Networks (PLNs).

The concept of teacher burnout is nothing new. However, much of the discussion surrounding teacher burnout focuses on new teachers that wind up making a quick exit from the profession.

The reality is, only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of teachers who leave teaching each year are novices. Veteran teachers too, it turns out, are quite susceptible to burnout. Each year, a growing percentage of the nation’s experienced teachers are voluntarily leaving the classroom.