teacher burnout – A Cincinnati educator describes building DEI and radical possibility in school—then realizing the personal cost can be severe, pushing her to claim rest and self-preservation.
Radical possibility in education can feel like a promise—until the person carrying it starts to break down.
For a Voices of Change Fellowship application. an educator leaned on words from the musician Olu Dara to his son: “Quit school if you want to save your own life.” The line landed with immediate force because it did not read as reckless.. It sounded like survival knowledge—an audacity Black families often have to protect simply to make learning possible in a system that has repeatedly failed them.. From there. her thinking widened from one student’s moment to an education lineage: Why did her father leave school early?. Why did her mother step away?. What kind of learning did earlier generations receive, and who decided it was “good enough” for their needs?
That historical lens matters, because it reframes choice.. Quitting can be interpreted as surrender. but in communities shaped by exclusion. it can also be a form of care—care for life. health. safety. and dignity.. The educator connects her own path to repeated encounters with structures built to privilege some identities while punishing others.. Across multiple presidencies, across pandemic-era upheaval, the theme stays consistent: systems can be violent without ever raising a hand.
Her goal in the fellowship was to treat the classroom as a radical space of possibility—one where student identity is not merely tolerated. but centered.. She describes publishing essays that explored the freedom-dreaming power of Black literature. the emancipatory potential of radical Black joy. and how discriminatory school policies aimed at natural hair can affect Black students’ daily experience and sense of belonging.. Those topics point to an important shift educators are increasingly trying to make: moving beyond symbolic inclusion toward learning environments that actively remove barriers.
She then brings those ideas into operational reality as a director of diversity. equity. inclusion and belonging at a preK-8 Catholic Montessori school in Cincinnati.. In that role. she helped share the school’s strategic direction around DEI and described the ongoing work intended to meet those goals.. Yet her account does not treat DEI as a set of checklists.. She portrays it as a lived practice that requires emotional labor. stamina. and continuous navigation of resistance—especially for educators expected to “carry” change.
The central warning in her story is that burnout often arrives quietly, not dramatically.. She writes that Black women in education and leadership commonly learn to ignore early signs of burnout until it becomes too late.. Her realization is blunt: she woke up one day noticing she had not taken a full week off from work in three years.. Awards and recognition did not cancel the misalignment she felt between what she was trying to build and what it was costing her.. In a line that reads like a turning point. she describes wishing she could stay asleep—unhappy. unfulfilled. and somehow protected from the pressure to keep pushing.
This is where her personal narrative turns into something educators and policymakers should treat as evidence.. When schools ask staff to be transformation engines—guarding identity. responding to discrimination. managing family concerns. redesigning practices. and still producing results—there is a hidden system cost: mental health.. DEI work can become a “permanent emergency,” where urgency replaces sustainability.. That can lead to attrition, reduced capacity for reflection, and, eventually, poorer support for students.
A helpful comparison is to look at how learning reforms often measure success.. Many frameworks emphasize outcomes in classrooms—achievement, attendance, discipline rates, climate surveys.. Misalignment happens when organizations fail to measure the well-being of the people leading the work.. Her account suggests that rest is not an indulgence; it is infrastructure.. If a school expects educators to build environments where students can feel safe enough to learn. then it must also create conditions where educators can survive the effort.
Globally, education systems are increasingly discussing teacher retention, workload, and the post-pandemic strain on staff.. Her story lands inside that broader conversation. while also offering a uniquely grounded perspective: radical possibility requires a willingness to recognize human limits.. When she references the rapper Nas and the idea that he did not wait for a society that did not believe in him. the analogy becomes about permission—permission for self-preservation. permission to step back. and permission to claim healing as part of freedom.
By the end of her reflection, she does not present a neat solution.. Instead, she describes an internal decision: granting herself permission to set herself free and save her own life.. For schools planning DEI strategies and curriculum shifts, the implication is practical.. Sustainability should be designed—not assumed.. If the goal is to create classrooms where students can thrive. then leaders must build support systems that protect the educators who are trying to make that future real.