Course Description
Course Description: This course is for anyone who is tired of feeling tired. Whether you work in education, healthcare, nonprofits, corporate spaces, or caregiving, burnout can show up as exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense that nothing you do is enough. In this graduate-level course, participants will examine burnout as both a personal experience and a systemic phenomenon shaped by culture, workload, power, and expectations.
Through contemporary books on burnout, guided reflection, and practical design work, you’ll map your own patterns of stress, experiment with realistic self-care and boundary-setting, and analyze the systems you work and live in. The course culminates in a personalized “Burnout Rewrite Plan” that integrates nervous-system care, values-aligned decision-making, and concrete workplace or life changes. The goal is not to make you tougher, but to help you build a more sustainable relationship with work, rest, and yourself.
Note: Educators and professionals who have previously completed a burnout course with this instructor are welcome to enroll. The content, readings, and course design for Rewriting Burnout: Systems, Self-Care, and Sustainable Change are substantially different in focus and format.
Audience: All educators and leaders with a Bachelor’s Degree
Session Information
The first video meeting will be scheduled two weeks prior to the start of the course, and all other course meetings will be scheduled with the class at the first class.
Times/Days can shift depending on the needs of the class!
Instructors
Eddie Wilkin, Ed.D.
Eddie Wilkin, Ed.D.
As a conductor, guest speaker, educator, and pianist, Dr. Eddie Wilkin encourages everyone to find their core being through music and self-discovery. Eddie’s philosophy is built on past experiences at home, in school, and through his recent musical activities. Eddie thoroughly enjoys working with students of all ages in a wide array of disciplines. Eddie is currently the Music Teacher at Nantucket Intermediate School in Nantucket, Massachusetts and course instructor/designer with Castleton’s Center for Schools. He is also the Founder of Lighthouse Education and Coaching (providing PD and educational opportunities for the education workforce) and the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Nantucket Community Music Centers’ Community Chorus. Through his enjoyment and craft of leadership, Eddie has received many honors and awards, including but not limited to the GMMDV New Music Educator of the Year (2016), ARSU Teacher of the Year (2017), UVM Teacher of the Year (2017), Grammy Music Educator Semi-Finalist (2018 & 2019), Vermont, Teacher of the Year, Finalist (2018), and GMMDV Music Teacher of the Year (2019).
Additional Content Area
Course Goals:
• Understand burnout more deeply as a multidimensional experience involving exhaustion, detachment, and reduced sense of effectiveness, and distinguish it from everyday stress.
• Increase self-awareness and regulation, recognizing personal warning signs and experimenting with practical tools for nervous-system regulation, rest, and recovery.
• Design sustainable habits and boundaries that better align time, energy, and responsibilities with core values and real-life constraints.
• Apply a systems lens to burnout, examining how organizational cultures, policies, and broader social narratives contribute to burnout and what can realistically be changed.
• Develop a personalized Burnout Rewrite Plan that outlines specific practices, boundaries, and systemic strategies for the next 3–6 months.