Why I left the classroom (the second time)

Teachers leave the field for a variety of reasons— it’s rarely a single factor that motivates them to hand in their badge and (if they worked at a fancy school) their campus-issued stapler.

I left once before, after three years of teaching first grade. This post details the reasons I left and what I planned to accomplish. I ended up traveling and subbing for two years, then returned to start my era of teaching in the intermediate grades.

(Unknowingly, I also entered the era of teaching during Covid.)

When I chose not to renew my contract after two years teaching 3rd and 4th grade, my goals were different than my first exit.

I want to elaborate on them here for any educators out there who are thinking of making the decision. It’s a hard choice to make– and sometimes just hearing someone else’s story can help.

So– why did I leave?

Let me start by saying there were some great things about my job: I had a wonderful class. I actually looped with them from third to fourth grade, retaining my students. I loved them and my heart shattered when I had made up my mind to quit but I had a few kids asking if I would be their fifth grade teacher.

Most of my students were advanced, so I enjoyed creating lessons and projects that went deeper into the content and complexity level. One of my favorite aspects of teaching is developing units of study that are meaningful and rich, drawing from quality texts and literature, bringing in real-life relevance and bridging multiple subjects. I was lucky to create these units from time to time. And I had a school leader that supported me in these endeavors.

But I found that the heartbeats of why I became an educator were being batted away by other encroaching forces.

I found myself pinned down, with little to no time to create and do the things I loved in the classroom.

I found myself pinned down, with little to no time to create and do the things I loved in the classroom.

Charmaine

That brings me to reason #1 for leaving my position:

1. The intense workload affected my personal health and happiness and left me jaded with the job.

Even before and after the storm of Covid policies sweeping into our classrooms, the modern state of public education in our country has brought on almost impossible-to-achieve teacher expectations and workloads.

Add in pandemic-era policies, and you get a befuddlingly troublesome concoction.

I entered my last school year as a classroom teacher and virtual teacher at the same time. My district was allowing parents to choose their child’s mode of education. This meant I had a group of masked, distanced, partitioned-off fourth graders before my very eyes and also a group of students watching me (presumably) from a computer screen.

And they were allowed to switch education locations instantly. As the months wore on, I had a handful of families that decided to send their children back to the in-person classroom. This trickle of students physically back with us meant all of the physical preparations that went along with it– gathering necessary supplies, finding appropriate seating arrangments, etc. on any given day they had decided to return.

Then if students were sick or newly designated virtual learners because contact tracing found that they had sat within six feet of an infected student in art class– online they went and I had to suddenly accommodate that change in setting as well.

My classroom was a revolving door as I tried to juggle it all. I made my best efforts to make my virtual instruction as accessible and effective as possible– I wanted those students to succeed and learn as much as my in-person students. The truth, amidst all my trying, was that education on screens was no match for the real deal. I was hustling to fill that impossible gap.

All of this piled on with the other spinning plates led me to feel like a failure and question my role and its role in my life. Did I really want my life to be like this?

And the stress was splintering into my personal life.

I came to the conclusion that the job wasn’t worth the trades I was making.

2. We wanted to have a baby

I didn’t want to be pregnant and teaching. Pregnancy involves a host of physical needs (some that are very immediate) and being confined to a classroom of children that need you probably ranks somewhere on the list of worst places to be when one has immediate physical needs.

3. I yearned to learn more life skills

The uncertainty that walloped us in 2020-2021 really caused me to evaluate my life and the products I use every day. I wished to be more reliant on myself and my family for our needs instead of large companies. To be more self-sufficient meant learning how to do more, how to make more, and working with my hands.

This pursuit of home economy skills in my (little) free time felt empowering. I learned useful things like how to embroider and keep a tiny herb garden from perishing immediately and make biscuits from scratch. I loved the feeling of spreading dough over the cooktop, flaking it from my fingers, rolling it in my hands, working it into a smooth ball.

Full-time teaching didn’t allow much room in the schedule for these pursuits. I could barely get a hot meal on the table on school nights.

But leaving meant I could dedicate a whole lot more time to growing in this way.

For those reasons– alleviating work-related stress, pregnancy and learning domestic skills– I chose not to renew my teaching contract.

Teachers who have also passed on the baton: What were your reasons for leaving? Let me know in the comments!