Six to eight weeks into the school year, something predictable happens to teachers. Energy drops. Self-doubt climbs. The students who were testing limits in September are now wearing on you, and conferences and evaluations have landed on the calendar at the same time. Most teachers assume it is just them. It isn't.
This pattern has a name, and it has been documented for more than thirty years. Knowing its shape doesn't make October easier, but it changes the question from "am I bad at this" to "what do I protect until winter break."
The research: Moir's phases of the first year
In 1990, Ellen Moir, who went on to found the New Teacher Center, published a short article describing what she and her colleagues at the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project had seen after supporting nearly 1,500 new teachers. She noticed that most of them moved through the same sequence of attitudes across the year. She called the phases anticipation, survival, disillusionment, rejuvenation, and reflection.
Her descriptions, drawn from teachers' own journal entries, still hold up:
- Anticipation begins before the first day. New teachers arrive with "a tremendous commitment to making a difference and a somewhat idealistic view of how to accomplish their goals." The excitement carries them through the first few weeks.
- Survival is the first month. Teachers are "bombarded with a variety of problems and situations they had not anticipated." There is little time to reflect, and it is common to spend sixty or seventy hours a week on schoolwork. Energy stays high because teachers believe the turmoil will subside.
- Disillusionment arrives "after six to eight weeks of nonstop work and stress." Teachers "begin questioning both their commitment and their competence." Many get sick. The same stretch brings back-to-school night, parent conferences, and the first formal evaluation, each of which "places an already vulnerable individual in a very stressful situation." Classroom management becomes the main source of distress. Moir wrote that getting through this phase "may be the toughest challenge they face as a new teacher."
- Rejuvenation generally begins in January. Winter break "makes a tremendous difference," and teachers return with rest, a broader perspective, and coping skills they didn't have in the fall. The phase lasts into spring, with ups and downs.
- Reflection begins in May, as teachers look back at what worked and plan changes for the following year. That planning turns into anticipation again.
The six-to-eight-week mark lands in mid to late October for most schools. The New Teacher Center now describes the disillusionment phase as usually lasting from November through January, which is why some educators call it the October blues and others call it the November slump. The timing varies. The experience doesn't.
Read Moir's original article. Read the New Teacher Center's current guidance.
It isn't only first-year teachers
Moir's observations came from new teachers, and her phases are usually taught in induction programs. But the conditions that drive the disillusionment phase apply to anyone in a school building in October: the first stretch without a break, the arrival of conferences and evaluations, the accumulation of behavior that was manageable in September, and the realization that the year is not going the way it was planned in August.
Veteran teachers tend to recognize the pattern immediately when it's described to them. They have usually learned to expect it, which is part of what makes experience protective. What they haven't always learned is to say it out loud, so newer colleagues down the hall still think the feeling is unique to them.
The broader numbers suggest how much weight teachers are carrying into this stretch. In Gallup's 2022 workforce study, 44% of K-12 workers said they always or very often felt burned out at work, the highest rate of any industry measured, and teachers specifically reported 52%. In RAND's 2025 State of the American Teacher survey, teachers reported working about 49 hours a week and were more likely than similar working adults to report poor well-being on every measure the survey examined.
A phase that is hard under normal conditions is harder when the baseline is already stretched.
Why it matters to know the phase has a shape
The most useful thing in Moir's work is not the description of October. It's the description of January.
Teachers in the disillusionment phase tend to interpret how they feel as information about themselves: I'm not cut out for this, I'm worse at this than I thought, the students don't respect me. Moir's data suggests a different reading. The feeling is largely a product of time and conditions, it arrives on a schedule, and it lifts on a schedule too. The teachers who felt this way in November were, by and large, the same teachers who felt rejuvenated in January and reflective in May.
That reframe doesn't remove the stress. It does make it survivable, because it gives the stress an end date.
The New Teacher Center's current guidance to school leaders begins with exactly this: normalize the experience by telling teachers that most people feel this way at this point in the year. It is a small intervention, and it is often the one teachers remember.
What helps while you're in it
These are drawn from the New Teacher Center's recommendations and from what we see in the schools where our clinicians work. None of them are a cure. They are ways to get through a known hard stretch with less damage.
Lower the bar on everything that isn't instruction or safety. The disillusionment phase is not the time to launch a new unit structure, redesign your classroom, or take on a committee. Moir's teachers were spending seventy hours a week in the fall, and the ones who recovered in January were the ones who had something left. Decide what has to be good and let the rest be adequate until December.
Say no to one thing. The New Teacher Center advises leaders to help teachers set clear limits and identify what is essential. You can do that for yourself. Pick one request this month and decline it.
Expect the behavior to be worse than it was in September. Students are in their own version of this phase. The honeymoon is over, routines have loosened, and the students with the most need have figured out which adults they can push. That is a pattern, not a verdict on your management. The tools that help are the ones that lower the temperature rather than win the exchange. We built a free course on this, When Behavior Is Trauma Talking, and a short one on refusal and power struggles, When a Student Says No.
Eat lunch sitting down. Moir noted that many teachers get sick during this phase. The body is keeping score of the skipped meals, the shortened sleep, and the weekends that turned into planning sessions. The habits that feel optional in September are the ones that determine whether you are standing in December.
Find one honest colleague. Not a venting partner, and not someone who will tell you everything is fine. Someone who will tell you the truth about how their October is going. Moir's phases are easier to believe when you hear them from a person you respect.
Protect the stretch to Thanksgiving. The weeks between the end of October and the November break are the deepest part of the phase for most teachers. Keep that stretch as short and as unambitious as the job allows.
What school leaders can do
Teachers can manage their own response to the disillusionment phase. They cannot change the conditions that create it. That part belongs to the building.
The New Teacher Center's guidance for leaders during this stretch is specific:
- Name it. Tell staff, in a faculty meeting or in writing, that this is the part of the year when most teachers feel this way. It costs nothing and it reduces the isolation that makes the phase worse.
- Schedule observations with the phase in mind. The first formal evaluation often lands in the disillusionment window, which Moir identified as one of the events that compounds it. Where there is flexibility, moving an observation by a few weeks can change how a teacher experiences it.
- Ground feedback in student learning, not performance. Teachers in this phase are already questioning their competence. Feedback that focuses on what students did and what to try next is more usable than feedback about the teacher.
- Protect time. The Center recommends roughly 180 minutes a month of protected mentor time for new teachers. For the rest of the staff, the equivalent is planning time that does not get taken for coverage.
- Help teachers set limits. A leader who says "this can wait until January" gives teachers permission they may not give themselves.
Teachers with little preparation or support are, by the New Teacher Center's estimate, two and a half times more likely to leave after their first year. The disillusionment phase is where that decision often starts. It is also where a building's support, or its absence, is most visible.
Frequently asked questions
Is October really the hardest month for teachers? It is where the hardest phase begins for most teachers. Moir's research places the start of disillusionment at six to eight weeks into the year, and the New Teacher Center describes the phase as typically running from November through January. Whether October or November feels worst depends on the school calendar and the individual.
Does the disillusionment phase apply to experienced teachers? Moir's work described first-year teachers, and that is where the research is strongest. The conditions that drive the phase apply to the whole building, and veteran teachers commonly recognize the pattern. Experience tends to make it more predictable rather than absent.
How long does it last? Moir wrote that the intensity and length vary. In general, the phase runs until winter break, and rejuvenation begins in January. The weeks before Thanksgiving are often the lowest point.
What should I do if it feels like more than a phase? A rough stretch that lifts after a break is the pattern Moir described. Symptoms that are getting worse rather than holding steady, that are affecting sleep, appetite, or your ability to function outside school, or that include thoughts of harming yourself are not part of a normal phase and deserve attention now. If you are in Delaware or Maryland, our Educator Wellness Program sees educators directly; call 302-292-1334. Anywhere, you can call or text 988.
What can a school do this month? Tell staff the phase exists. Look at the evaluation calendar. Protect planning time. Ask teachers what one thing could come off their plate until January, and take it off.
Before you decide it's you
The feeling in October is real. The research says it is also shared, predictable, and temporary. Most of the teachers who felt it in Moir's study went on to feel like themselves again by spring, and then to start the next year with anticipation.
If you are a teacher, the job this month is to get through it with enough left for January. If you lead a building, the job is to make sure your staff know that what they are feeling has a name and an end date, and that someone noticed.