How teaching almost ruined me

I would like to preface this by making it abundantly clear that I am aware some experienced teachers will take one glance at this article, and consider me to be a weak individual who lacks the ability to keep up with the rigour of being a teacher. This article is in not intended to slander the education sector in the UK, but rather express how certain aspects of my personality failed to bode well with the job, damaging my mental health; something that many teachers in the country also face.

I began teaching Business and Economics in a secondary school almost immediately after graduating with my BSc. At the age of 21 and without a teaching qualification, I can easily say that I was one of the youngest and most naive practitioners in the country. Thrown into the deep end is an understatement. Over the next 3 years, I would deliver some of the best results ever obtained in my subjects, become qualified, help numerous students prepare for university, and eventually leave the profession.

One of things that came to realisation very early on was that unlike most other professions, teaching is inherently one in which there is no such thing as 'enough'. It become the norm for me to take large amounts of work home, working on weekends and needing to withdraw from my social life. If I had finished marking homework, I would need to plan new lessons for my classes, since the previous teachers deleted 90% of the lessons on the school system. Planning lessons would also involve refining those that I had already taught. It is simply impossible to finish 'planning lessons'. When I decided to move on to a different task, this would typically be creating challenging pieces of homework, reflecting on my teaching methods, analysing data and so on. There would - without fail - be an infinite loop of work. As humans, we naturally require time away from working for ourselves. Living to work is not exactly a way of life that the vast majority want. Unfortunately, as someone who wanted his students to achieve their potential, the feeling of guilt began to dominate my mind as soon as I 'finished' working. Guilt, because I was unable to detach myself from my work, and ultimately, my students' attainment and progress. Guilt, because my selfish desire to stop working for the evening indirectly meant that I would be doing wrong by my students. "If they don't do well, that's my fault" was my mentality for 3 years.

Although I consider myself to possess an admirable work ethic, my body would physically not allow me to succumb to my desperation to stay awake and work. Over the 3 years, I had no time to go to the gym and put on enough weight to damage my self-esteem. Meeting up with friends turned into a chore; upon leaving home, I found that I would want to return home without seeing them. A significant shortcoming of mine is my constant comparisons with others; seeing my banking and Civil Service friends smiling, having a real work-life balance and being compensated well for their jobs made me feel like an utter failure in the first few months of my own job. I lamented the decision that I made months earlier to teach. Despite working much longer hours and immersing myself in the job, it felt awful to be paid almost half as much as my peers. Teaching is never about the money, but as someone who graduated with a First in Economics, I incessantly questioned where my life could have taken me instead.

If you have read this far, thank you. I must stress that I have so far, painted a bleak image of the teaching profession. Of course, misery was not always the case. There were several times in which I felt proud of my students and even myself when I had facilitated excellent results, or when a student felt comfortable enough to tell me about an issue they were facing. Nevertheless, the success of my students was not something I could comfortably attribute to my efforts. I believed that students' weak performance was my fault, but their strong performance was not. I was not happy, nor healthy, mentally and physically. As I am sure you have gathered by now, I take things very personally.

The second year of teaching consisted of becoming qualified by attending cumbersome training sessions at local school. My levels of indignation heightened with an increasing number observations, as well as ridiculously minute details being mentioned and exaggerated for improvement.

My mental health issues began escalating 2 months into my third (and final) year with random panic attacks at work. It was impossible for me to finish creating a lesson that was going to be observed. Everyday, I would pray that I would not receive an email from my manager, who lacked any compassion whatsoever towards my mental health and personal issues in the year before. Instead, they were only concerned with the reputation of the department.

As a popular teacher with the Year 13 students, I was regularly approached by pupils to assist with the personal statements they would send to universities; something I truly enjoyed. One student in particular was in the process of applying for Economics & Maths at LSE, which warranted an excellent statement. I was almost ready to approve the statement to be sent, until one morning, the student came to my classroom before 08:30. He informed me that he attended LSE the evening before, as they were running sessions to help with personal statements. The admissions officer commented that although "good", some amendments were needed. My heart sank and I was almost in tears. If I had approved the sub-par statement and the student submitted the application, the only person to blame for a rejection from LSE, would be me. I was unable to mentally deal with the possibility that a student would/could have been rejected from one of the best universities in the world because of me not being able to help sufficiently. Their entire future could have been compromised, because of my shortcomings.

Between 08:35 and 08:55, I experienced my worst panic attack to date; struggling to breathe, sweating, feeling sick and flummoxed. I could no longer cope with the demands of the job. I was having a panic attack because of a personal statement, which is not something I know what to think of in retrospect. I made the decision to tell a senior member of staff - with whom I had a good relationship - that I was struggling. Thankfully, I was met with care, support and was actually listened to.

Not too long afterwards, I visited my GP to voice my concerns and daily struggles. At this point, my life was best described as a dark cloud permanently hovering over me. I was then formally diagnosed with anxiety and depression and was signed off work for a week and a half; something I believed would be looked down upon by the senior school staff. Going back to school with the letter from the GP, part of me was ecstatic at not having to be at work, yet again, I felt immense guilt at not being able to teach my GCSE and A-level students. Did I really need to be away from work? Did I genuinely have mental health issues? How would my students learn with work set virtually? I was encouraged to take the time off, with it being reassuringly relayed to me that I should take the time I need to get better.

I was able to somewhat relax and spend time with my fiancée. The antidepressant I was prescribed is one I still take almost 2 years later, and has been a literal lifesaver. I want to say that my return to work was positive and that I came back much stronger, but I can't be 100% sure of this. Nothing I ever did was really good enough. I continued to feel slightly unappreciated, as I think most teachers around the world do. I also struggled to accept any kind words that the students had for me upon my return. But also, how was it possible that almost all of my colleagues were coping so much better than I was? What were they doing differently?

I made the choice to resign by the end of the year to pursue an MSc. Teaching was never a career I planned on pursuing and was one I fell into. Since leaving teaching in July 2019, my mental health has drastically improved, albeit with some low moments. The entire ordeal has taught me a great deal, not least about myself but also about teaching.

1. Teaching and teachers lack respect from society
2. Teachers are immensely underpaid and unappreciated
3. Being responsible for the success of others is for me, challenging
4. I find it hard to detach myself from my career, and do not think this will change
5. It is extremely difficult for me to not compare myself to others
6. Mental health is something not taken as seriously as it should be by many people