So, what next?

Hmm, I don't know

Ok, so what I am going to write about here is about my past life as a teacher, which in many ways was not the original intention or focus for my Substack, but at the same time, this post is also not about teaching. Bear with me…

Since I made the decision to leave my teaching job, I have often been asked, why?

The long answer to the question is something that I am still trying to figure out, but the short answer is that I was unhappy.

I was by no means unhappy for the entire 16 years (17 - if you count my teacher training). I absolutely loved most of the time spent doing the actual job of teaching, with the richest experiences coming from working directly with students in the classroom. I worked hard to develop my craft and for many years, I believed that saying ‘yes’ to as much as possible was the only way to see this hard work bear fruit (what the ‘fruit’ was here, I am not entirely sure, but with a little reflection it probably relates to what I perceived as success). I moved schools a few times due to opportunities that were presented and said yes to additional responsibilities in different capacities. And then before I knew it, I was nearly 40.

It wasn’t as though I reached 40, and then thought, I must quit, I’ve been doing this for too long, but I found myself growing more frustrated with various aspects of the job. These frustrations can be boiled down into two main areas: admin (a great deal of which felt unnecessary/repetitive) and what felt like an ever-increasing pace.

And then things did boil over. COVID hit. Teaching during this time was an eye-opening experience in many ways, but for me, one of the biggest takeaways was that I enjoyed the greater flexibility that working remotely provided. The reduction in meetings alone helped remind me of some of the joy I felt about the job in the first place - I had more time to spend doing parts of the job that felt more worthwhile. But, I also questioned why there were so many meetings before COVID. So, upon return to in-person teaching, my earlier frustrations grew greater still, especially when I saw everything returning to the ‘old normal.’

I flirted with leaving teaching for many years before I did. Over this time, I sought private therapy, talked the ears off of loved ones, and even attended two different career courses. Regarding the latter, naively, I hoped that the coaches would just tell me what to do, with something along the lines of: you have these skills, this level of experience, here are some possible alternative careers for you, now go… I was stuck, and waiting for permission from someone else to help with my decision-making.

I recognise now that it was the fear that kept pulling me back. Who was I if I wasn’t a teacher?

It took some time before it dawned on me how much of my identity was wrapped up in being a teacher, and I believe that COVID had something to do with this realisation. When I was teaching online, I noticed more of my work habits, things that I had been doing for a long time, but just hadn’t paid a lot of attention to as I was wrapped up in the job. For example, when I wasn’t teaching, I would read books about teaching, follow educational news on social media, and I am sure to the annoyance of most of my friends, all I would talk (and moan) about was teaching. And perhaps the most insidious aspect of identifying so strongly with my teacher-self, was that I didn’t even realise when teaching had taken over so much of my life.

I hit a wall on several occasions over the 16-year period in terms of my health. There were times when I would regularly need the weekends to recover from the working week - I could barely get out of bed I was so exhausted. Meanwhile, my emotions could oscillate between rage one moment and deep sadness the next. Perversely, I did not see this as a problem. Instead, I would generally put my erratic mood swings down to a challenging time (such as exam season), other personal pressures, or, of course, my period. I would, in effect, diminish and repress what was a deeper issue. In turn, my confidence nosedived. I had developed some twisted logic in my mind about how quitting would mean that I was a failure because I had been doing it for so long.

As I write this, the fragments of a dream I had a couple of nights ago have returned to me. I was working in a school again, although the setting of the dream was nothing like I recall from reality. I am not sure what this tells me, as I don’t feel especially keen to return to the classroom, at least right now. But then again, the dream doesn’t really have to mean anything (sorry, Freud), however it does remind me of how much I learned during those years and hopefully, I can put those skills and experience to good use as I try to carve out a new path and a slightly different identity.  

If anything from this post resonates, I’d love to hear from you.