We Tired Teachers

A recent series of events has led me to consider leaving my profession as a teacher. The idea had never passed my mind before, until yesterday. I am not alone in this. 1 in 4 teachers have left education as a profession entirely. Grading, lesson planning, counseling, and all the other tasks we have to do are already incredibly overwhelming. It's enough to burn out the strongest of us already, but I have never experienced a year like this.

Students, parents, and teachers have been traumatized due to the past two years. This has led to an exhausting year so far. Teachers are meant to teach and inspire learning, but this year it feels more like we are first responders in an emergency situation. We are tasked with making sure students learn as we also heal them from the trauma they are still experiencing. But that isn't why I am struggling.

My kids are doing the best they can in the situation, but their behavior is nearly unmanageable for me. They are disengaged and burnt out. But this isn't why I am struggling.

I am struggling because my students are struggling. Mentally, my students are sick. They are scared, traumatized, and tired. They are ask, like the adults around them, to work through and ignore the trauma as they are actively being traumatized. Then the adults around them are just as bad. We are trying to take care of ourselves as much as them and kids are slipping through the cracks.

I have been teaching for four years, and I have lost two students to gun violence. Yesterday, my school had an incident that led to students being rushed to the hospital due to gun violence. We sat in lockdown for over an hour.

It's a part of the job you think you can handle until it happens to you. I thought I could handle loss of students, students getting hurt, and possible violence in or around the school. That's a reality of the job even if we don't like it.

But then it happens. Your student dies. You have to face your class without them there. And then it happens again. You have a mental health team coming to your classroom to help students grieve. Then it really happens. You sit in a corner of your classroom, in the dark, listening for the gunfire and screaming.

I got lucky. It happened outside the actual school. No one died. Students in the hospital healed. But that's not enough. At first, without communication, I wondered if I was coming home to my family and friends. I sent texts to family and friends telling them I was safe and okay. It was real. It was scary.

Last night I looked into other jobs. I felt like no matter what I did as a teacher, it was never enough. I am just one person facing a world of injustice and pain.

I debated calling out and taking a mental health day to maybe spend it relaxing and redoing my resume to leave education entirely. Then I thought about my kids. I thought about their needs. I am an important adult in their lives. I am a part of their support system.

Some teachers did call out today and I am proud of them for taking care of themselves. I just couldn't bring myself to do it for myself.

We are teachers because we love our kids. We are teachers because we love learning and inspiring it in others. We are teachers because we are committed to a brighter and better future.

It is because of these reasons we are also struggling. We try closing our doors and teaching. We can only shut out the world for so long. The world comes to us. It attacks our children outside our classrooms. It is hard, and sometimes it is too much. So we struggle.