Can teacher burnout be avoided? Grace Stevens believes so. In Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries, Stevens helps people-pleasing teachers around the world regain control of their lives and learn how to say no. Is this 2024 self-help spectacular truly the cure for educators stricken with the chronic impulse to say yes? In this short, sandwich review, I’m going to give you my thoughts and help you decide whether this one is for you. Let’s take a look!
Before we begin
A few details about the book –
- Title: Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries
- Author: Grace Stevens
- Published: Mach 29, 2024
- Length: 182 pages
- Runtime: 3h 40m
Review of Grace Stevens’ Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries
What I liked
Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries is incredibly relatable. In each chapter, I saw myself in the uncanny, on-the-job scenarios Stevens describes, and I frequently found myself nodding, saying “wow, been there before.” Stevens’ articulation of specific situations teachers encounter is spot on, and most rewarding is her practical, boundary-setting solutions for helping you respond to them. Her perspectives helped me reevaluate assumptions and flawed ideas I’ve manifested regarding my duties as an educator, and having finished the book, I do believe I’ve picked up a few tricks that will help me avoid a premature burnout.
What could be improved
Throughout the book, the author provides scripts for responding to various circumstances, and the final chapter, The Scripts All In One Place, is simply a compilation of them. While this list is useful for consumers of the book’s text form, it comes across as stale and unserviceable in audiobook form. To find a specific scripts, you’d have to tediously fast-forward and rewind throughout the chapter’s 23 minute and 18 second runtime. Halfway through chapter, I stopped listening and marked it finished. I decided it would be much easier to revisit the previous chapters and find scripts within the context they’re presented. This chapter could have been left out of the audiobook in exchange for a link to a webpage featuring text versions of the scripts.
Final thoughts
A plethora of books have been written about boundaries, and in light of this, you might wonder—is Grace Stevens’ Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries truly worth it? If you can get it at a reasonable price (or free), I think so! What stands out is the book’s nuanced advice for educators and their unique challenges. Stevens gets right to the point, sparing you the boring details of boundary theory/psychology and diving right into strategies for applying them. With such a short runtime (3 hours and 40 minutes), you can get through it in no time, and if you’re an Audible subscriber, you can listen free on their Plus library.
