I Quit Teaching Mid-Year: Destination Unknown

I didn't start the year off thinking about quitting my job. 

The previous year had been my best year yet. I had great test scores the previous year and was given some leadership responsibilities within the school (a compliment and sign of trust). I completed my Masters degree in Reading, and felt great about all that I had taught my students. 

That year, I had one student say, "Thank you for teaching us so well. The end of year test was really easy because you prepared us so well." No lie. That came out of a 12 year old's mouth. I pinched myself! I began this year feeling excited, motivated, and ready to make this year even better!

The beginning of the school year is a simultaneously stressful and exhilarating time. New beginnings. New classes. Fresh starts for all. New bulletin boards and markers. Overflowing Pinterest boards of books you will read to your class and projects you will do. I had planned to have Genius Hour based on their own interests, as long as it helps someone or causes change. We watched the Ted Talk by Lisa Bu and had a fantastic discussion about our goals and dreams. We would call them passion projects and we would change the world. 

"I know where I'm heading as a teacher. My students are on board. They're passionate. We're excited. We're in this together."


After the lesson where we discussed our own goals and passions, we didn't have time to begin our passion projects. We needed to complete:
- benchmark testing
- unit 1 common formative assessments (pre-tests)
- individual reading conferences
- literature interest inventories and learning style inventories
- fundraiser collection for our end of year field trip
- fire drills, tornado drills, bomb threat drills, lockdown drills, pep rallies, picture days
- unit 1 lessons to set expectations for reader's workshop
- review of unit 1 expectations, because "Oh we didn't know that stuff was mandatory. We thought you just put it on the chart on the wall so we could look at it." true. story. 

The hours and days and weeks were filled up. Unit 1 came and went. I had to move onto Unit 2 so I could stay with catch up to my PLC (the other reading teachers). 

Unit 1 is important. 
All of the lessons I taught were important. 
The fire drills were important. 
Pre-assessments were important. 

It all truly is. However, any teacher will tell you that the problem with the job is that there is not enough time. 

I began to feel overwhelmed, but it comes with the territory. It's a bit exhilarating in itself to feel so important. To have so many people depending on you, then to satisfy their wishes. You work hard to be proactive. When things get a bit jumbled, you put out fires with a smile and good record-keeping. (That's always the plan anyway.)

When you don't have enough time to do everything, you prioritize right? Right. That's what we're told, too. However, most people in other careers prioritize, complete what they can, and catch up on what they didn't get to over the following days or weeks. That can't be done with teaching. 

Because it's all a priority and all time-sensitive. 

If it's not your top priority, it's someone else's.

If you don't complete the tasks necessary, you will get someone else in trouble or cause them more work. That is simply unprofessional.  

And teachers are well aware of the impossibility of it all. 

In the classroom, day in and day out, your priority is the students. 

You give a pre-test to see where they are. You observe, take notes, etc. If you don't pre-assess, you don't know where the kids are, and your lessons may be null and void. If you don't review procedures, kids and parents will have the valid argument that "You didn't say that that was an expectation. How were we to know?" 

You put the students first. You do what years of training and/or experience has prepared you to do. You are proactive and put out fires as needed. 

On top of a teacher's own documentation that a teacher uses for analyzing students' abilities, there are the school, district, and state required documentation: 
- taking attendance on time and accurately
- receipting money daily 
- collecting forms from students with parent signatures
- updating your website with homework, announcements, lesson materials, web links, rubrics, and study guides. 
- documenting behavior interventions on a google doc
- completing grade level spreadsheets to keep track of money students have raised for field trips
- creating, giving, and grading common formative assessments for each unit and analyzing the data with your PLC. Then, creating a plan to remediate or enrich students based on that data. Uploading all PLC decisions and information on a group website as documentation.
- completing a PDP (Professional Development Plan) with your personal goals for the year, and documenting your progress toward those goals throughout the year
- keeping grades updated on the online grade book at least once per week
- giving accurate modifications and accommodations according to students' IEPs or 504s

Then, there's teaching: 
- creating engaging, tech-filled, differentiated, goal oriented lessons - often a power-point or short video
- preparing materials - science labs, anchor charts, games, manipulatives, handouts (because textbooks don't exist and if they do, they are outdated.)
- posting daily objectives on the whiteboard
- making copies (this takes more time than one would think because copiers are of the devil.)
- catching up students that were absent and giving/collecting make-up work
- grading papers and analyzing the information (Do I need to reteach anything? Did I not teach something well enough if most students missed a question? How do I balance the points taken off for each item? Are they prepared for the next unit?)


I have many coping strategies to deal with the day to day stress. My favorite of which is to listen to my Jack Johnson Pandora station during planning time and work with the lights out. Introverts need time to recuperate from so much socializing and chaos. It was enough to recharge me to get through the day. Then there were the weeks where I had no breaks - PLC, parent conferences, staff meetings, grade level meetings, etc. filled up that time. (For the record, I'm not complaining about those things… Again, they're important, but they take away from planning time and recharging time. That work is taken home, and teachers are left with no time to recharge. Burnout ensues.)

Overwhelmed is a feeling I'm used to. I can do overwhelmed. Take a deep breathe. Have dinner with a good friend. Refocus your priorities. Remind yourself you can't be perfect. Remind others you can't do everything. Apologize to your children and spouse for the millionth time. Lean on coworkers for support, understanding, venting, and laughter between class periods. 

Feeling overwhelmed turned into anxiety, which turned into apathy when I realized I couldn't possibly keep up or do everything that was expected of me. Apathy turned into depression.

The "Back to School" rush was followed by 2 months of severe depression. It's something I've suffered with for a few years, beginning with postpartum "baby blues." My kids are toddlers now, and it comes and goes in waves. Huge changes can sort of shake me into a state of panic, feeling completely incapable of success, and then depressed when I can't dig myself out of it. 

The irony? I enjoy change. This year, however, transitioning from a summer mommy back to a teacher of 120 students shook me into quite a state of depression that rocked me to my core. Worse than anything I've ever dealt with. I told a few close friends at work about it. I'm a firm believer that if you are depressed, you need a support network. Those around you that will be honest with you and will also have your back. I've been fortunate enough to work with some wonderful friends that will do both for me. 

If you've never suffered depression, it's not dramatic. I consider it static. You are a robot. Going through the motions. You feel so much sadness, you are in physical pain. You can't cry, most of the time. It's not a problem/solution scenario, where you can have a light at the end of the tunnel - you run out of solutions. You are simply in the dark tunnel. Alone. You can go about your daily life. You can even laugh, joke, and have conversations, but you are still in that dark tunnel. 

Depression is diluted by normalcy - routine. You think, "Ok, if I just keep doing my thing, stay in my routine, this will get better. This is a season." It is always true. Some seasons are longer than others. Some "seasons" in life cause you to see your world differently when you get to the other side. 

I started thinking,  "I love my school. I love what's happening in my classroom, but the harder I work, the more resistance I receive. The direction we are headed in this classroom is being derailed by the requirements of the institution of school. Am I able to teach in an institution where I have to daily bend my principles?" 

I did not quit teaching because I was depressed. It was surviving the depression that opened my eyes to the idea that I didn't have to stay in this place. 

I didn't quit because I was overwhelmed. I've worked 2-3 jobs since I was 16. I like staying busy. With over 7 years of classroom experience, I had experience juggling.

I didn't quit because I couldn't be perfect. I have no delusions of being able to accomplish everything to others' satisfaction. 

I did not quit because I was angry. Were there situations over the years that were hurtful? That caused me to question why I put myself through this on a day to day basis? Yes, but I didn't walk out in a huff. 

It's like learning a dark secret about your best friend. Once you learn that secret, you can never look at them the same again. I had learned that teaching was not the friend I thought it was. That it would not get better over time, that I would never be able to feel satisfied. I spent years honing my craft. I had researched and analyzed and discussed solutions to every issue within the educational system imaginable. I awoke to the truth that one person, one school, even one state cannot make a difference in the way that our country needs. I lost hope. And until I could figure out how to navigate surviving in the pressure-cooker of teaching in public schools, I needed to do something else. 

The epiphany: I could be a teacher without have to be in a classroom. Whoa. This is not mind-blowing to most, but believe me, this was the epiphany of all epiphanies for me. I've always seen myself as a classroom teacher.  

I realized I could tutor. I could homeschool my own kids. I could substitute teach. I could work at a daycare. This isn't really a list of things that makes me beam with joy - these are terrifying scenarios  The thing is, I love teaching. I loved my classroom. I loved my students. I loved the exhilaration from collaborating with certain coworkers. I never felt more passionate and alive as when I was in the middle of a discussion about the theme of Wizard of Oz and kids were analyzing the symbolism of the red shoes without me forcing them to. It's my purpose. It's part of my identity. 

I was looking down the barrel of 23 more years of potentially being depressed for the first 2 months of the school year, being impossibly exhausted and frustrated, and being told by the system that it's still not enough. I was paying more than 1/2 of my paycheck to be away from my 2 kids.

My post-depression, pre-epiphany, fuzzy math:

2/10 months of each school year potentially depressed = 20% of the school year

30 years to receive retirement benefits - 7 years of teaching = 23 more until retirement

23 years x 20% potentially depressed = 4.6 years of my life

…that doesn't include the years of my life I'd waste in meetings. 

64% of my income paying for daycare, so I can spend time away from my own kids. 

6 out of 7 years of my teaching career was spent with no raise = 86% of it being paid as a first year teacher with more job requirements each year

This year, I received a10% raise for earning my Masters degree + FINALLY got a raise from the state of 16% = total 26% raise  (Not all teachers received a raise this big. It was based on experience, and I happened to be in the group that received the largest bump.) 

So if I received a huge raise, why would I quit? Because my mental and physical health was not worth the raise I'd received. 

Maybe my goals were too high at the beginning of the year. There was nowhere to go but down.

Maybe I should have stayed in the previous grade level and taught the lessons I had taught the previous year. 

Maybe I should have not read all of that educational research and watched the videos of forums on current issues in local education. 

Maybe I should not have tried to create innovative lessons; just ask the other teachers what they do and mimic them. 

Who am I kidding? I wouldn't have been happy copying others. I wouldn't have been happy without seeking more knowledge and understanding the institution which I was supporting with full devotion. I wouldn't have been happy without being innovative, and the students would have felt my boredom. (I've never been good at faking interest.)

I gave my notice in October and worked through Thanksgiving. I knew it was the right decision and have not regretted it once since. 

Have I had any "Whoa. Did I really do that?" moments? Definitely. 
Has it been easy? Not at all. 
Do I miss my students and coworkers? Every. minute. 

That's when you know it's the right decision. It would have been "easy" to stay and fake it…collect a paycheck and keep my mouth shut. "Fake it till you make it," is a frequent mantra with teachers. For me, it was now or never. 

I felt like I had the opportunity to choose the path for the rest of my life and trust in the unknown. 

I am not bitter. I am not angry. I am not disappointed. I am at peace. 

I know I am where God wants me and in the right place for myself and my family, as difficult and uncertain as it is. I chose to trust that God had taken me through this journey for a reason, and HE would take me through the next chapter. 


I know that the 8 years of teaching prepared me for this exact moment in my life. Although, I still feel unprepared for the daily task of taking care of a 2 and 4 year old. I know that I would have been unable to appreciate the nuances of daily life with them without having experienced the trials and joy that teaching gave me. 

Living with anxiety: Destination Self-Preservation

Self-preservation.

I seem to whisper this phrase to myself often lately. I’m reminding myself it’s okay to do. Maybe I’m justifying my selfish behavior. Nonetheless, it’s necessary for staying away from the pitfall of panic.

I constantly feel like I’m dipping a toe in the water, only to pull it out and say, “No, too hot. Need to wait a bit.” or “No, too cold, need to add a bit of warmer water to make this bearable.”

I suffer from anxiety and depression. The anxiety showed up after college, when I began teaching full-time and attempting to live up the lofty expectations of others and myself. Their dialogue became my inner dialogue.

Do you not want to be a Master teacher? Are you engaging them as much as you can? Do you feel that you could improve? Your team depends on you. The students and their parents depend on you. 

I remember having a panic attack in the elevator at school on the way to a staff meeting. A friend took my pulse and said it was high, “but not enough to have a heart attack or anything.” Whew! haha. Doctors brushed me off. Told me to “carry around a brown paper bag to breathe into when I felt a panic attack coming.”

When you don’t know what questions to ask, you suffer in silence. They assumed I just wanted medicine. I just wanted help. 

It’s my fault. I chose this career. I have to deal with my insecurities. I just need to be more confident. It will get better. 

After my daughter was born, 3 years after I began teaching, I barely finished the phrase “I feel overwhelmed” and I had a prescription in my hand for an anxiety and depression medicine.

I had never suffered from depression, only anxiety, but I assumed it didn’t matter when I began my medicine. It did.

I had my first bout of depression after my second child was born in 2012. Since then, it’s been an undulating wave of more and more frequent bouts of depression. At first, it was every few months. It was obvious that I couldn’t skip a dose or I’d feel a bit blue. Once, I tried to quit cold turkey (simply out of laziness because I forgot to refill my Rx). I told a coworker and friend, if I ever talk about quitting, smack me. This past 6 months has been a constant influx of depression.

After 2 babies and 8 years of teaching, it was no better. I quit teaching mid-year, about 6 months ago. I was so excited for school to begin, but then I spent the first month of the school year depressed. I loved teaching more than I ever had before and felt completely confident in my abilities and choices, but felt more depressed that I ever had. I knew the change of starting school, new schedules, chaos, had triggered it. I knew it was a wave and it would eventually subside. It did. But, I came out on the other side with clarity.

I can’t spend the next 23 years of my life (until retirement), depressed. This career will never get better. I will begin the school year with high hopes of changing lives and strong beliefs about how children should be educated, then the reality of beurocracy will smash those dreams into oblivion. Every year. 23 times over. 

I had two choices.
1) Lower my standards for what I expected my students to do.
2) Let go of teaching.

In most cases, quitting a job shows lack of commitment. Running away from a problem instead of solving it. In my case, I knew it was the right thing. 

A dear friend and coworker said, “Jenn, you know if you were doing the wrong thing, I would tell you. You’re not. I will miss you, but this is what you need to do.” I constantly whispered to myself…

Self-preservation.

My official reason was to stay home with my children. My unofficial reason, and what I told my administrative team, was that I was putting everything I had into this job that I love so deeply, but had nothing left for my family when I got home.

It’s been 6 months of struggle since I quit, but I still know it was the right decision. I’ve had guilt over taking my children out of an awesome daycare because I  needed to quit my job. Guilt over leaving my students mid-year. Guilt over putting pressure on my husband to provide for us. I remind myself they all deserved better from me. Better than the depressed mom, wife, and teacher who was venturing into apathy. A robot going through the motions with no concern. When I stopped caring… that’s what scared me.

As I type, my children are playing downstairs with some toys. I played with them this morning until I got overwhelmed with the noise.

self-preservation.

In those moments of anxiety, I picture the monster I’d become if I let me frustration get to me. Or if I gave into the expectation of a mother playing with her children all day, with no technology. Going to the park or library each day. I just can’t. It’s too much.

I’ve learned above all else, over the last 6 months staying home with my kids, that if I don’t pay attention to my mind and body, I will not be able to nurture them. I am often not mentally or physically able to live up to the American ideals of what a stay-at-home-mother should be. But I am confident that…

Through self-play, they learn imagination.Through sibling time, they learn cooperation.
Through my lack of intervention in every squabble, they learn problem-solving.
Through my lack of hovering, they learn to appreciate independence.
When I don’t rush them, they learn patience and perserverance.
When I preserve my energy, the time we spend together is quality.
When I have time to reflect, I make better choices as a mom.

I’ve learned to turn my guilt into trust in God’s plan. I’ve learned that anxiety is real, but can be manipulated into good by making choices of self-preservation. I”ve learned that social norms and others’ expectations are not always right. I’ve learned to treat depression as a chemical deamon that can be faught off with healthy choices and, for now, medicine. I’ve learned that my weaknesses are strengths in God’s eyes. There is a purpose for it all.

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven–
A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.
What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?  I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.
-Ecclesiastes 3:1-10

Some see these verses as permission to judge, kill, or hate. It’s not. The world is full of sin, and our free-will is a part of that sin. Sometimes we choose sin. Sometimes we don’t. These verses sum up our humanity. That there will be times of death, destruction, pain, hatred, sickness, and sadness. But on the other side of that is beauty. Heaven. Healing. Love. Communities rebuilding a city. Families coming together. Friends offering a kind word. Strangers choosing peace.

God doesn’t make bad things happen, but he sees the big picture and has a plan for our lives beyond anything we can imagine. 

Our daily lives are full of choices. Don’t let the pressure of the world’s expectations keep you from being your best self. Don’t believe in the hype of perfection. It’s a rouse. Sometimes we have to make choices that seem selfish, but will make us better in the end. Sometimes we have to choose self-preservation.