"What's Next?"

I have dreamt about my kids the past few nights, and since I finally have a chance to stop and think, I figured it was time to talk about them.

I realized when my outstanding friend Jen (TFA Institute partner, outstanding LGBTQ teen advocate in SF) shot me a frantic text of “OH MY GOD YOU’RE NOT TEACHING ANYMORE?!?!” that I hadn’t written what I was doing or why I was doing it. I’ve gone over the decision so many times to so many people that writing about it feels redundant and strange, but I still think it’s important to get my thoughts down on (proverbial) paper.

Long-story-short: I’m tired. I was also starting to feel jaded about education. While I loved, loved, loved many of my fellow teachers (including a few that are staying to teach), the overall, every-day necessities of being a full-time teacher started to wear on me. This, however, was really difficult to admit to myself. I can show you essays I wrote in high school and college where I said that my lifetime goal was to be a great high school teacher. To realize that maybe, just maybe, that’s not really what I’m meant to be was both really humbling and terrifying.

Teaching is an incredibly challenging, but INCREDIBLY rewarding and worthwhile profession. I cannot stress this enough. If you have the personality, the drive to really perfect this craft, it can be such a beautiful thing. A few of the teachers at my school really mastered this, and watching them teach was always a fantastic and awe-inspiring experience. It’s the “little” things: handling bad behavior before it starts, the challenge of scaffolding for both lower-level students and high-achievers, and the ability to motivate kids that leave the rest of us baffled, that put them at a caliber above the rest. These teachers can and absolutely do exist at my school and other places in America and are a credit to education and the profession; the larger part of the problem is that the system itself is broken.

There are certainly larger issues that have pushed me (temporarily) out of teaching— a failing educational system in California and the nation, the need for large-scale and systematic change, a frustrating lack of efficiency in my administration— that I simply won’t delve into here. As far as systematic change, there are people out there that are much smarter than me and write much more eloquently about possible solutions. As far as my school, I don’t know who my readership is (if it exists at all), and to put my school on blast in detail in such a public forum seems neither fair nor moral to me. 

What also pushed me (temporarily) out of education are smaller things within myself that I don’t think I really realized had changed. Six years ago, “extrovert” or “gregarious” would have been common words to describe me. I wanted to be the life of the party. You could not get me to shut up, and I definitely had an all-eyes-on-me kind of attitude. Time, maturity, and some difficult experiences in college led me to become a bit of an introvert. I can certainly put on the affectations of the person I once was, but at this point in my life, I certainly enjoy my solitude. I need to take breaks from parties to have alone time (something my boyfriend very graciously and patiently allows me). I live by myself. I just don’t trust people the way I once did, and I hate, hate, hate the feeling that people are staring at me. It makes me feel anxious and nauseous.

Thusly, a profession that requires you to lead and be watched by at least thirty people for six to eight hours of the day is an incredibly stressful one. To be fair, the said-fantastic teachers I have mentioned certainly helped and pushed me to try and create a less teacher-focused classroom, and the style teaching I think I want to study (Inquiry Based Learning) puts much more onus on the students. Still, having that much focus put on me by so many people became, in all honestly, very daunting. It often made me anxious, or want to be alone. I didn’t enjoy teaching nearly as much as I thought I would, and, at 23, I think I owe it to myself to find a job I really love while I still can.

In addition to that, I honestly question whether I am giving or selfless enough to be as good at the profession as I want to be. Being a great teacher certainly requires the ability to execute and “perform” a lesson, which I think I can do. It also requires a capacity to care about students and want to build relationships with them, which I also think I have. It requires a love and passion for the importance of education, which I not only truly believe in, but have witness first-hand for myself and my family.

However, it also requires a ton of outside preparation. Lesson planning (and re-planning), improving your game, watching other teachers— these are just a FEW of the things necessary to really becoming an outstanding teacher. I knew this on some level when I started, however there’s no real way to know how much or how it affects you as a person until you do it. I occasionally felt frustration or anxiety when I had to give up time with friends, family, my boyfriend or even myself to improve my teaching.

Is this petty, selfish, and immature? Absolutely.

Did that mean that those feelings weren’t real and didn’t affect my performance as a teacher, despite my desire to make them disappear? Sadly, no.

I truly think that great teachers jump in with both feet, and have a willingness to succeed that many lack. I think, deep down, I have this, but I don’t know that I’ve truly found it or cultivated it yet. Because of this, there are times that I was adequate as a teacher, but I certainly wasn’t phenomenal, which is the minimum of what my students deserved. Students deserve the best, and I simply wasn’t and am not at a place to give them that right now. There are just other things I want to do: working on my masters reminded me of how much I love the quiet and empowering solitude of research and analyzation. I miss that. I also still really, really want my PhD (probably now in education), and having those outside dreams made it difficult for me to completely give myself up to a profession (teaching) that I think deserves someone’s full heart.

So, I made the heartbreaking decision to leave my school. While I was really excited about it at first (kind of selfishly so), my struggle with the decision became heart-wrenching and difficult at the end of the year. My advisory are going to be seniors next this (eep!) year, and there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to hand them their hard-earned diplomas when they cross the stage next June.

Still, I know that if I stayed, there-but-hating-it, I would not be an effective teacher. I wouldn’t be happy, passionate, or excited, but probably angry, checked-out and bitter. My students deserve more than that. Fortunately, I was able to pass them off to one of the said-fantastic teachers who had a senior advisory last year. He will, I have no doubt, effectively get them through the college application process. All the while, I can smile (a bit sadly) from the sidelines, writing them letters of recommendation, updating them about my life, and encouraging them, while being able to maintain and focus on the parts of myself that need improvement and growth.

Next year’s plans? I’m working at an industrial supply corporation as a manager. I know, a HUGE 180 degree turn.

Reasons? Work-life balance so that I can re-find and reclaim myself and study for the GRE. Also, the challenge and excitement of doing something completely new and scary. Also, hoping to expand my horizons.

I could probably wax poetic about this for years, but in case I didn’t mention, I’m currently in Kona, HI with my family on our first family vacation in years, and it’s time for our sunset walk.

So, with “clear eyes and a full heart” (I’ve never actually watched FNL, sorry Brian), I go off.