Teaching

I didn't just quit teaching.

I was intimidated...no...cornered, into giving up something that had been a part of me since I was a child.

Although it's been a rough transition, it's been a healthy one for me overall. Teaching gave me energy and hope, but it also sucked my life away. The growth mindset in education is a careful line to walk as a teacher. It means you can always do better, but sometimes striving for that best version of myself cut into other aspects of my life. There was a beautiful bitterness to it. For every gain in teaching, I felt like I lost something as a wife or mother.

My husband and kids felt like even after I was home from work, I was always working. Always thinking about life through the teacher perspective. Seeing resources and real-world learning around every corner in life. “How can I use that experience in my classroom?” “Oh that relates to what I was talking about with Joe.” Roughly eighty percent of my time and energy was spent trying to live up to an expectation that society has made increasingly difficult to meet.

Teachers always complain about expectations. How society expects them to not only teach content, but discipline, character, technology, socio-emotional health, and more. Society expects teachers to act like perfect human beings who never make mistakes, never complain, never fail, and never give up.

But the ones who put the most pressure on themselves, create the highest expectations for themselves, are often teachers. Sure there are lazy teachers who don’t care and just collect a paycheck, but they don’t make it very far in education. It’s too thankless of a job, too much stress involved.

I always thought I was stressed. In high school, I was busy with sports, music, and schoolwork, therefore stressed. In college, I had jobs, participated in clubs, and worried about my future after college, which equaled stress in my mind. After I had my own kids, I realized what real stress was. The constant worry that something could go wrong. The pressure-filled goal to make them into good people. Not sleeping until they slept. Not eating until they ate. Providing. Nurturing. Developing. Loving.

In a classroom, it’s like having 130 of my own kids. Sure I don’t get along with every single one of them, but I care about them, what they’re thinking and what happens to them. I am skilled at finding the good in a student. And I hope for their success, even the mouthy ones.

But the stress. The worry. Not only of making sure I do my job. Of keeping up with grades and teaching them English skills. Of taking attendance and supervising an extracurricular. But the worry about the ones you care about. And you care about all of them to an extent. Even the ones who don’t like me strike a chord with me, because I didn’t get along with every teacher or coach in my academic career. The worry that keeps you up at night because you know that you as a teacher could have enough impact to make this kid or that kid a success.

Life post-teaching has made me realize how stressed I was. What high expectations I put upon myself. Changing the world doesn’t have to happen 130 kids at a time. I’ve started to pay attention to how other people give part of themselves to their career and part of themselves to themselves. I’ve never been good at keeping enough of myself to myself, if that makes sense. But I want to try changing the world that’s closer to me.

I'm leaving work at work. Writing for enjoyment and audiences. Focusing on the moment and the home we've built. Besidss, managing our daughters' schedules is a nearly a full time job in itself. I'm smiling. Happy. Content. Still motivated, just in different directions.

So that’s where I’m at now. Teaching taught me more than I could ever write about, and is still an integral part of who I am. I’ll continue to teach, but closer to my heart. I’ll always learn and grow as a student of life. But my roots will stay closer to home. In the end, there is a beautiful bitterness to teaching that I chose not to swallow anymore.