Teaching: Why I Left and Won’t Come Back

This post is a challenging but long one for me. So I’m going to apologize ahead of time if this feels very scatterbrained. I struggle with the fact that I spent $50k on a degree I don’t ever see myself returning to. I only taught for three years, but I’m so much happier since I left. And so many people are finding themselves in the same position when it comes to teaching. According to NPR in February 2022, over half of teachers are looking to leave the field.

Now, let me start by saying this: I’m not going to name names. I don’t want anything bad to come of this post aside from highlighting why teaching just isn’t in the cards for me or many others. In doing so, that means I discuss experiences that happened with parents, students or my supervisors while still keeping them anonymous. If you know anyone involved in any of the situations I discuss in this post or if you know where I used to teach, I ask that you not share names. Throwing people or districts under the bus isn’t my goal. But rather I just want to give a glimpse into the craziness that IS teaching.

My First Year Teaching

When I was first offered a teaching job, I was fresh out of college. I had just graduated and many of my friends were struggling to find teaching jobs too. So, I was basically looking for anything I could find. I went on several interviews that didn’t pan out. But, I want to say it was the 4th interview when I scored a jackpot. I landed a full-time teaching job at one of the better school districts in my state. I was ecstatic. But the job came with a BUNCH of challenges.

Challenges My First Year:

Scheduling Issues

First, I was teaching at two schools. This wasn’t so bad except it was actually really stressful when the two schools I taught at were on different schedules for the day… or if I got stuck at a long stoplight. I remember there were several times when I was supposed to basically be in two places at once. And typically it meant that I didn’t have a planning period for that day. This was before the schools in the district switched to being block schedule. I had about 10 minutes to get to my second school sometimes, which was about 7 minutes away.

Disrespect from Students

The second challenge was that I was a replacement for the previous Spanish teacher. Which meant the students she taught the year before became my students. That was honestly the most challenging class I ever taught in all three of my years of teaching, and I had MANY challenging classes.

I’m gonna say it. Sometimes teachers leave because of the students. When you’re constantly being disrespected, talked over, laughed at, mocked, etc. Yep, that’s enough to make you want to quit any job. So I’ll say it again. Sometimes teachers leave because of the students. Students these days lack respect for teachers and their classmates. And from the teacher friends I have who are still in the field, it’s only getting worse.

Because I was a first year teacher, I hadn’t really gotten the hang of classroom management yet. Almost none of the kids took me seriously. I even had to call in the principal to observe because of how incredibly disrespectful the class was. I can’t even say for sure that that class even learned anything because of how often they were screwing around. And it wasn’t even the only disrespectful class that I had that year.

Disrespect from Parents

I also remember that a parent questioned my ability to teach at one point. This was simply because I wrote her child up for plagiarism. The student blatantly copied an assignment with open ended responses, down to the spelling mistakes. So they and their friend both received zeros. This lead to me waking up on an extremely important personal day to an email that was completely berating me. They had included the principal on the email, so we met and held a parent teacher conference with the principal present the following week.

The Parent Conference

Let me start by saying that this was the parent from hell. The parent you never EVER want to have to deal with. I remember one of the things she brought up was that it was unprofessional that I wasn’t there for open house. (I worked at two schools, remember?) The principal stepped in and said that because I taught three classes at the other school vs two at that school, that the school I was at more frequently took precedence. The open house was on the same night for both schools. This parent was literally trying to throw me under the bus for ANYTHING she thought she could get me on.

The principal actually had to tell her to stop because she was talking over me, belittling me, and even went so far as to talk about stalking my social media accounts. She said she didn’t think I was qualified to teach my subject because I had posted on Twitter ONCE looking for study materials for one of my college classes before I had even graduated. After the meeting, I sat in my classroom sobbing that morning before class started. I had done nothing wrong. But none of that even mattered because this parent felt justified in treating me like garbage.

Things I Never Said:

I never got to say it then, but I’ll say it now. Stalking your children’s teacher because your child does something wrong and you think they’re a perfect little angel is fucking WEIRD. Treating a teacher like garbage and trying to dig up dirt to do what? Get them fired? Because you think your kid can do no wrong? Yikes. Despicable behavior. Teach your child to accept responsibility for their actions.

There were so many days my first year teaching when I came home in tears. I was stretched too thin, I was overworked, and I wasn’t being respected at all by parents or students. And in some ways this got better over the next two years, but in many ways, it never did.

My Second Year Teaching

Big Changes This Year

My second year was a bit better in terms of respect, however it still came with many challenges. The schools switched from being junior high schools (grades 7-9) to being middle schools (grades 6-8). They also switched from being 6 periods per day to block schedule and only having 3 classes per day. So there was a huge bunch of planning I did my first year that wasn’t able to be reused in the same way for my second year. Plus there was an attitude shift for the 8th graders in my classes because now they were the top dogs.

This wasn’t as big of an issue as working with the 9th graders the year before, but it still had unique challenges. And having to rework all of my lesson plans was a giant pain.

Scheduling Issues… Again.

Additionally, my 2nd year, I was now teaching at three different schools instead of just two. I also shared a classroom at two of the schools. So, it felt like I never really had a space of my own to call home. I constantly had to worry about leaving something I needed at one of the two other schools. It created its own set of challenges. If there was a special schedule like an assembly or a snow day, it was really hard. I remember multiple times where if there was a two hour late start or if there was some wonky schedule, I would just call out sick. It was easier than trying to deal with the anxiety of figuring my schedule out at 3 different places. Plus, most of the time when schools had a schedule like that, I had to teach in two places at once.

Because of the clashes between schedules, I wasn’t even able to greet my kids for my first class at one of the schools. They had to “meet” me via video. I felt that this put both of us at a disadvantage. I wasn’t able to meet my students at all, and they only got to see a short snippet of me. That’s definitely not what you want for the first day of school.

My Time is Valuable

In teaching, it’s not uncommon to have to switch rooms. It’s also not uncommon for teachers to use time during summer “break” to set up for the upcoming year. However, most teachers don’t work at three schools. So, for me, this meant unpacking and setting up three classrooms, which each of my principals knew. I didn’t get to keep any of the same classrooms from the year before either. This meant that I had a tight schedule to follow for almost my entire last month of summer “break” to ensure that all of my classes would be set up on time.

All of my schools knew that I had been working my ass off to set up weeks in advance because I had so much work to do to prepare three different classrooms. I also didn’t get any compensation for the extra time or money I had to spend. About a week and a half at each school is the time that I allotted for setting up. At the first school, I had finished setting up in early August. Everything was perfect. I put up bulletin boards. I arranged desks and tables and posters. And most of the items I set up, I paid for out of my own pocket. Some of the things I set up were irreplaceable. I started working on setting up my second and third rooms.

You can probably imagine how I felt when I was told I needed to move rooms AGAIN after I had already set up my classroom at the first school. This was incredibly disrespectful of my time and effort. Especially knowing I already had so much on my plate. And the biggest slap in the face? They wanted me to move BACK into the room they moved me out of in the first place. I put my foot down. I didn’t have time. There was zero chance in hell I was tearing down everything I had already done and setting up a FOURTH classroom.

Extra Travel But No Extra Pay

Another thing that bothered me about my 2nd year of teaching is that I was receiving the same amount of travel pay as my first year despite having three schools instead of two. I even talked to the union about it and there wasn’t anything they could do. So it was more work for less pay. It pretty much showed me that my time and added stress also wasn’t valued.

My Third Year Teaching

In my third year teaching, I was FINALLY at one school instead of three. I finally felt like I had more of a home base, a routine, and like I could bond more with my coworkers. At my other two schools from the year before, I felt like hardly anyone knew me and I don’t feel there was any real form of community bond between me and others.

But, there were more issues this year than any other year it felt like, with both students and my supervisors.

Overcrowded Classes

This year in particular, my classes were huge! What’s frustrating about this is that I was only on a .8 contract. Most teachers have 5 classes and a prep period which is a 1.0 contract. I had 4 classes which means I had less pay this year, despite being in my 3rd year of teaching. But some of my classes had 30-35 students in them. I feel it was ridiculous that with such huge classes and high demand, they decided 4 class periods was all they could afford to pay me. So instead of pulling a few students from each class to fill a fifth class and have smaller class sizes across the board, they’d rather cram WAY too many students in each class and make it harder for everyone.

Larger classes means it’s hard to get everyone to stay on topic. It’s hard to keep everyone focused no matter how engaging your subject or your material is. And this doesn’t just mean it’s harder to teach, but it’s also harder for students to learn.

Also, I fought for years to try to get my school to open up my Spanish classes to 7th graders instead of just 8th graders. Every single time, they refused. It would have opened up another class for me to teach and it also would have given more options to 7th graders. Furthermore, all language development findings show that learning a second language earlier on is better for language retention. But I digress.

Threats Not Taken Seriously

My third year was when I had the most difficult day I think I ever had while teaching. I was teaching one of my most difficult classes of the day and I had a chatty and HIGHLY disrespectful student. So, because she was chatting, I moved her away from her friend. She kept talking and I took her aside and told her that I was giving her an infraction because this was an ongoing issue. She kept going. It became a detention.

This student then decided to pass notes instead of catching on that I wasn’t putting up with it. I remember I was teaching students how to make a visual aid. This involved using scissors to cut out the visual aid to glue into their notebooks. I had told students to be careful with the scissors and that “we don’t need anyone running and accidentally stabbing someone.”

The chatty student passed a note to her friend saying she wished she could stab me. I sent her to the office. I was sobbing and my supervisor told me to take the rest of the day off. It was the worst thing a student said about me.

I told the principal I wanted her removed from my class and his argument was that “it wasn’t technically a threat.” He didn’t take it seriously, nor were any of her behavior issues in my class taken seriously aside from the content of the note. We had a meeting with the student and the parents, but I don’t feel like anything was truly resolved. She was still just as disrespectful in class when she returned. I didn’t feel supported at all.

Maternity Leave… ish?

My third year was also when I found out I was pregnant. At first, my plan for the following school year was to stay home until after winter break and return in January. I shit you not, my supervisor said that I would be in charge of planning all lessons and grading etc. He also wanted me to try to find my own replacement substitute. Um, what?

I’m pretty sure that being on leave means I’m on leave. It means not doing work so that I could spend time bonding with my son. And how exactly am I supposed to plan lessons for students I’m not directly working with, or when I don’t know the school schedules ahead of time? And finding my own replacement? Isn’t that the district’s job? Like whaaaaat? It made no sense and was enraging. So I said fuck it and decided my husband and I could afford for me to take the whole year off. No planning, no grading, nothing. The point of maternity leave is that you AREN’T WORKING.

The Final Straw… or Straws.

Can I Just Enjoy My Mat Leave?

After I decided that I was taking the whole year off the following school year, I enjoyed my time home with my son. But, I was trying to decide what my plan was in terms of returning for the next school year. That was until my supervisor called in the middle of my maternity leave. He asked if I wanted to come back early because my replacement… was going on maternity leave.

I thought it was incredibly inconsiderate of my time and of my needs as a new parent to try to convince me to leave my child early to return to my position. I was going through postpartum depression, trying to figure out how to be a parent, and genuinely just wanted time to bond and could not handle teaching on top of it. Of course they may not have known what I was going through, but still. It felt very inconsiderate to even ask me to cut my own maternity leave short to replace my own replacement.

Then Covid Struck

About 7 months into my maternity leave, covid started becoming serious. This was the breaking point for me. I didn’t know what the future of teaching looked like. Around the time I resigned, the government told schools they were only taking a two week break. This then turned into a two to three month break which then turned into virtual learning. For my safety and the safety of my family plus for my own sanity, I sent in my letter of resignation. And I think what really stuck with me is that I never received a response from my supervisor.

I didn’t receive so much as an email telling me good luck, or a thank you, or anything. I worked there for three years. And I got nothing. That was fairly telling. It showed me that I was disposable. It showed me that despite all of the talk of the staff at that school being “a family” that a lot of people didn’t care that I was gone. And that hurt me.

Outside Factors

In addition to the stress of actually teaching and the experiences I had actually while teaching (which this post BARELY touches on), there was also the lack of community respect for teachers and the profession as a whole. There are people constantly saying things like “Teachers don’t deserve more pay,” “Teachers knew what they were signing up for,” “Must be nice to only work nine months out of the year,” etc.

I can honestly say that no, I didn’t realize that most nights I would be working until 10 pm. It’s safe to say that I wasn’t aware I would need to spend half of my summer “break” setting up. We weren’t told about the pointless meetings, the amount of time we needed to spend making phone calls to parents, the extracurricular activities we would be volun-told to do, etc. We weren’t prepared to consistently be treated by parents as if we don’t know anything despite holding degrees that say otherwise. Also, we were never prepared that we might need to die for our students in case of a school shooting.

Nobody can prepare you for the fact that you may walk into school one day and come out in a body bag. But that’s a conversation for another day. The point is that no, teachers aren’t prepared and often don’t know what they’re signing up for. And teachers are stressed the fuck out. Plain and simple. And between the burden of teaching itself and the lack of respect from parents, students, admin, and the community, I was fucking DONE.

I Won’t Go Back… And Neither Will Many Others

The point of this post is that we need to do better for our teachers. I know there are teachers out there who have been through worse than me. However, what I went through is enough for me to say “never again.” If we want public schooling to be an option for generations to come, then we need to start treating teachers as if they’re actually valued. Teachers need higher pay. They need better security to keep them and their students safe. They need parents to work with them instead of criticizing their every move. Teachers need parents to teach their kids to be respectful and work with them when they aren’t. And for God’s sake, stop thinking PTA lunches and pizza parties are the band-aid that’s going to keep teachers in schools.

Teaching should be a partnership between the school and families. Communication and work needs to happen from both sides and we need to be in this together. But lately, it’s seeming very one-sided with most of the burden falling on the shoulders of teachers. Teachers are blamed for EVERYTHING these days. I have seen SO many posts saying “teachers are failing kids. Why aren’t the kids learning?” or other similar sentiments. And it’s not the teachers’ faults. I can’t tell you when the disrespect toward teachers started both within families and the community at large, but I can tell you that teachers aren’t putting up with it anymore. And if you appreciate having somewhere to send your children during the day and not having to homeschool them or pay for private school, then something needs to change.

In Conclusion

Again, I didn’t write this post to throw anyone under the bus, but rather to highlight my experiences as a teacher. I won’t go back and you can’t make me. But also with all this being said, anyone who is still teaching in this climate, I commend you. You’re superheroes.

If you found this post to be interesting or insightful and want to read more like it, make sure you check out my other blog posts under the Fun and More or Parenting Ideas sections of Growing Up Garlicky or any of the posts featured down below. You can also feel free to subscribe to get alerts every time I post something new. Thanks everyone for reading!