So I quit my job this morning with $.11 in the bank. Yeah, I kinda felt like I was crazy walking over to talk to talk to my boss, but somehow I have peace that this was the right thing to do. I feel certain that this is the right step and that God’s going to take care of me and my family. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do or what’s going to happen next, but God does.
My Background
For those of you who don’t know me personally, I’ve been a teacher for the last 20 years. I taught kindergarten one year and the other 19 years have all been in first grade. All 20 years have been in the same school district. I had two years at one campus, then 1-year teaching at a second campus and the other 17 years have all been at my “home” campus.
I have loved the majority of my years of teaching. There have been probably 2 years of the 20 that I have wanted to flat out quit. This year I’m doing it.
I went into teaching because I felt like it was my mission field. I was always good at school and I felt like I could make a difference in the world by helping other kids love to learn and be successful. I was the first one in my family to graduate with a degree from college and I kinda hoped that I could get some other kids started on that same track.
I just loved school when I was growing up. My friends and I even went to the teacher supply store and bought our own grade books to play school!
I especially loved my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Spaugh. She made learning so fun. As students, we never knew what we were going to get into when we walked into her class each day. In Mrs. Spaugh’s class I remember learning about a different country every six weeks and on the last day of the six weeks, we would eat food from that country!
As third-grade kids, we loved that!
Heck, I’d enjoy doing that still today!
Unfortunately, it seems like most of the fun stuff we used to do in elementary school has slowly gotten taken away from us over the years.
But still I quit my job?
Honestly, I’m tired.
This is the end of my 20th year. I’m not sure if I’m tired because I’m older or if I’m tired because this year is been so stressful.
The main contributor to my stress has been that the district took away our reading series this year and we had to find EVERYTHING on our own. Honestly, it’s just been exhausting. We have spent so much money on Teacherspayteachers and so much time planning for the language arts and social studies block.
Generally, in the past 10 years or so I was the teacher with the most experience in teaching first grade so, at the beginning of the year, I tried planning the whole block for my grade level because that’s what I have done in the past. However, when I tried to plan the entire language arts block by myself I ended up spending 2-3 hours every night doing lesson plans, staying up late, and sometimes in tears with a very aggravated family.
I was drowning!!!
It didn’t take long for me to ask for help! Thankfully my assistant principal and CIC (Curriculum Instructional Coach) helped me divide up the workload of the language arts block and my grade level pitched in to help. It became much easier for me with the workload displaced on everyone across the grade level, but it still is just so much work for everyone now. We’re all stressed out on a weekly basis.
In my 20 years of teaching, lots of things have changed. The curriculum and technology, of course, has changed. But I’ve never really minded those two things changing.
The parents, kids, and added requirements have slowly worn me down.
When I first started teaching the parents thought I was the greatest thing in the world. They were so supportive. They worked with their kids, they worked with me, and they cared.
It’s not the same now 20 years later.
I’m not saying that none of the parents care. There are parents that do care and still work with me and work with their children. But more and more each year I’m getting less of those parents.
These kids (and technology) are too often raising themselves. They are exposed to so much more now 20 years later than when I first started teaching. They watch scary and inappropriate movies and YouTube videos that I would never ever let my own children watch. The conversations I deal with in 1st grade about things kids their age should not know!
I know at some point there were some rules passed about reducing the amount of paperwork teachers have to do. Guess what? Instead of paperwork, it’s all digital computer work! HA!
Yeah, they pretty much just have us doing the same kind of “paper” things on the computer now. Lesson plans, grade books, contacting parents, digital books, technology projects, IEP documents, RTI documentation, attendance, testing data collection, online trainings, gifted and talented referrals, at-risk of failure notification documentation, slideshows documenting your class projects, digital documentation of you working on your teacher goals throughout the year, digital pictures of printed notes you send home to parents, digital student journals, digital professional journals, etc.
That’s a pretty long list and I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting!
I don’t want to ramble on and on, but you can add lack of discipline support, too much testing, too much importance placed on testing, feeling like no one is listening to your concerns, parents who think their children never do anything wrong, planning periods filled with required meetings and trainings, being required to tutor after the end of the workday without getting any supplemental pay, too much curriculum shoved into one week, not enough support for struggling students (or teachers for that matter), and just a general disorganization of relaying information in a timely manner, i.e.we have to do what by tomorrow?!
But I honestly think the biggest thing this year is that with all of this extra work I’m being required to do to be “a real teacher” I spend way too many weeknights and weekends planning and grading and not with my family.
My son will be a senior in high school next year and my daughter will be transitioning from elementary to middle school next year. I feel like I am so out of the loop with my own children because I am raising and spending so much time helping other people’s children.
I don’t want to miss my children.
Time is going by way too fast. My son is going to be a senior! How did that happen? I want to be there with my family on my time “off” instead of grading papers on the couch or in the car or sitting at the table doing lesson plans for 2 hours 2 nights a week.
It’s all going to be okay
So yes I quit my job and it’s all kind of bittersweet to see the end of my teaching career. I only need 10 more years to get my full retirement benefits, but I don’t think I have 10 more years in me as a first-grade teacher.
I’m not really sure what I’m going to do next, but I’m up for the adventure. My principal did mention that maybe I could find a job that pays into Social Security and that might help me out later. That’s a good thought since my school district chooses not to pay into social security.
And don’t freak out or try sending me money. LOL, Today is Friday and my husband will be getting a paycheck today. So we’re going to be OK.
And since I’m a teacher I’ll still be getting paychecks through the end of August. So that’s a little bit of time to figure out what exactly I’m going to do next.
Or should I say what God wants me to do next? I quit my job and I’m stepping out in faith!
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