Crossroads

I'm at a crossroad in my life. I've been teaching for nearly 20 years now and the accumulated stress of this job is starting to show up in my physical health. Not to mention, for the most part, the job itself is pretty egregious.

The pressures of administrative initiatives that seem pointless at the time but are regarded as imperative, only to be replaced a few years later with the new purportedly better initiative that is equally impractical and ineffective. This leads to excessive and unessential paperwork that consumes the limited time that teachers do have during the day to work on other things, like preparing more engaging lessons for their students.

In addition, there seems to be a cultural resentment towards teachers that can likely be traced back to individual negative experiences in education from our own early lives, myself included. I can understand the public opinion that our system is broken, but as teachers, we are removed from the decision making processes that lead to its disfunction. We are required by law to carry out the wishes of the state and our opinions or professional aptitudes don't weigh into this decision making process in any meaningful or direct way. 

Public school teaching is a rather painful experience, sprinkled with occasional moments of dignity and grace. Most of the time you are doing the work of three people. If you're getting kicked in the face every day and then someone occasionally gives you a hug, would you consider that an environment of peace and growth? If you're being honest with yourself, you may even label this as a toxic environment.

I've worked on roofs, in hot attics, carried concrete or "mud" around, did landscaping. All of these jobs were physically tiring, but most of them weren't exhausting. Teaching is exhausting. 

I'm burned out. I know that this is only my story and my perspective, but it is not unique to me. Public school teaching has become unsustainable and the research seems to bear this out. In a 2022 study that the National Education Association conducted, "55% of all educators are thinking about leaving the profession earlier than planned". Here's a Forbes article that states that teachers are twice as likely to be stressed compared to other occupations. It's not just me who feels this way.

So in my search for what's next, I've decided that I should share these thoughts and feelings. Maybe it will help another teacher understand that they are not alone. Maybe it will help someone outside of public education understand the difficulties of the profession, or at least help them understand why so many teachers are leaving. All I know is that I hope to get out before I do permanent damage to my physical health.