Real Talk On Burnout

Educating is hard work. And for the people who work for Geoffrey
Canada — the man who created one of the most ambitious education
models in existence — burnout is real. “It sounds glib when I say
this work is not for everybody, but it’s not for everybody for
their entire life,” Canada says on Art of Power. “When you’ve
served well and it’s time for you to move on, I want to give you
nothing for respect and love, because you did what you could do for
as long as you could do it.” In this episode, Canada explains his
views on burnout. He also explains his crazy idea that was
eventually adopted by the federal government: If you want to help
kids in poor communities, you have to invest in both the kids and
the communities. He tells Art of Power host Aarti Shahani about how
he grew up in poverty, broke out with the help of a good education,
witnessed the lives of the well-to-do, and then came back home to
build a school system in Harlem that at one point earned 100% of
his students college acceptance letters. This episode was
originally published on April 29.