{"id":2036,"date":"2016-01-24T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecornerstone.wpengine.com\/?post_type=podcasts&p=2036"},"modified":"2024-08-13T02:15:26","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T07:15:26","slug":"quitting-twice","status":"publish","type":"podcasts","link":"https:\/\/truthforteachers.com\/truth-for-teachers-podcast\/quitting-twice\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things I learned from quitting my teaching job twice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of you right now are barely making it through this year, and are so dreading the return to school the following morning that you can\u2019t even enjoy your evenings. The idea of going back to That Place just makes you sick to your stomach. You want to quit more than anything but have no idea what the alternative would be.\u00a0I get it. I have been in your shoes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Others of you still love teaching, but you\u2019re feeling an itch to do something different. You want to make a greater impact for kids, or you want a more flexible schedule, or just feel like there\u2019s something more out there for you.\u00a0I\u2019ve been in that position, too.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You see, I\u2019ve quit teaching twice: once because the school environment was so toxic that I hated my job, and once because I wanted to shift into a different role in education.<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ll share both of those stories today with you and share five things I learned that might be helpful to you, if you\u2019re thinking about quitting for either reason.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why I quit my teaching job in the middle of the school year<\/h2>\n

It\u00a0was just over 10 years ago that\u00a0I quit my teaching job mid-year, during my sixth year of teaching, and it was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. My administrators were blindsided by the decision\u2013after all, I was an experienced teacher with multiple years in urban schools, and I had a good handle on my classroom. My students were learning, and their benchmark test scores showed strong gains. The kids liked me, their parents liked me.<\/p>\n

Things seemed to be fine. But what people didn\u2019t know was that it took EVERYTHING out of me to keep it that way.<\/p>\n

I had just moved to the state and had no idea what to expect in my new school. I was disappointed to learn that most of my second graders were reading on a late kindergarten level, and the pressure to get them up to speed was weighing heavily on me. We had no windows in our classroom\u00a0and were not allowed to have recess or any break at all during the day (per district mandate), so I was stuck in a tiny, dark classroom with a large class of energetic seven-year-olds and zero outlet for all their energy.<\/p>\n

Beyond our four walls, the school\u2019s atmosphere was in total chaos. We couldn\u2019t send students to the bathroom alone, as there had been instances of both girls and boys being raped there by other students. One of my kids found a knife on the ground on our way to lunch. An off-duty police officer and a drill sergeant were hired to help control the students in the cafeteria: one of them would bend over and scream in the children\u2019s faces while the other marched up and down the center aisle, yelling into a microphone as the kids threw food around his head.<\/p>\n

Not exactly a fun working and learning environment.<\/p>\n

Things were quite a bit calmer in my classroom, but student behavior still posed a huge problem. Getting students to respond appropriately to even the smallest request took Herculean, first-day-of-school efforts from me. It was like the movie Groundhog Day. We practiced the same basic routines and procedures over and over, and three-quarters of the class just wasn\u2019t internalizing anything. I was managing the classroom, I was maintaining some sense of order, but I wasn\u2019t teaching.<\/p>\n

I wanted to have deep conversations with my students about current events.<\/p>\n

I wanted to delve into books with them and watch their eyes light up when they made connections between the text and their own lives.<\/p>\n

I wanted to see them develop a sense of curiosity and wonder about the world through investigations in science.<\/p>\n

I wanted to teach.<\/em><\/p>\n

But by the second quarter of the school year, the kids still weren\u2019t anywhere near ready for those things. And so I was still spending the entire day disciplining students and teaching them basic work habits and socio-emotional skills, alone and without support in a chaotic, unsafe school where neither their needs nor mine were being met.<\/p>\n

I hit a breaking point where I realized my job was not worth the energy expenditure I had to put out every day. I realized that I was up against too many obstacles, and most of them were insurmountable. Things were not going to improve significantly and I was going to go home exhausted every day because the school culture was so toxic.<\/p>\n

And yet the guilt I felt over even thinking about quitting was indescribable.\u00a0Was I really willing to abandon such a needy group of children in the middle of the year? What kind of person would give up on those kids and look for an easier job just so her own life could be more comfortable?<\/em><\/p>\n

I felt selfish. I felt like a hypocrite. I felt like a failure as a teacher.<\/p>\n

My principal was absolutely furious at me for putting her in such a difficult situation. But even worse was the unexpected reaction of my students. I thought they\u2019d be devastated, but most of the kids barely blinked when I told them Friday would be my last day. Part of their nonchalance was because of their young age, but I realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that they were so used to losing teachers and other important adults in their lives on just a moment\u2019s notice that this was par for the course.<\/p>\n

I got hugs and letters and a few tears on the last day, but the majority of the class was so wrapped up in their own issues that they weren\u2019t even thinking about me. Five minutes before the final bell rang, two of my toughest kids got into a physical altercation over an eraser one of them had thrown, and I was so busy dealing with them and school security that there was no opportunity to have wistful goodbyes. My time at that school ended just as chaotically as it had started.<\/p>\n

My decision to quit in the middle of the year would have been much tougher if I\u2019d decided to leave the field altogether. I knew that I wasn\u2019t done with teaching, and within a day of making my decision, I had an interview in a neighboring county and was hired on the spot.<\/p>\n

I realize that\u2019s not the norm. But maybe you can relate to this part:\u00a0the hope that in a different school, the love of teaching would return.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can tell you without a doubt that it did. My new school had its problems, of course, but I felt safe there. My students were safe. And I was able to really teach, again.<\/p>\n

I stayed in the classroom for another five years and even moved back to another urban high poverty school for the last two years of my time as a teacher. Urban teaching is where my heart has always been and will always be. If you have the right leadership and school culture, as I did in those final two years in the classroom, the quality of teaching and learning can be exceptional and they can be fantastic places to work.<\/p>\n

\"winners-quit-all-the-time-motivation-600x600\"<\/p>\n\u201cWinners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.\u201d --Seth Godin. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

Why I left the classroom to become an instructional coach<\/h2>\n

It was right when I had moved to that last school that I published my first book for teachers,\u00a0The Cornerstone: Classroom Management That Makes Teaching More Effective, Efficient, and Enjoyable<\/a>. I had been sharing ideas on my website for years and my readers encouraged me to compile everything together and write a book. So, I did, and then I started getting professional development requests on the book.<\/p>\n

I remember the first PD I did for a charter school locally in Fort Lauderdale. I spent the morning doing a workshop and the afternoon meeting with individual teachers in their classrooms, coaching them and helping them apply what I\u2019d shared in the PD to their unique teaching situations. One new teacher I sat with just poured her heart out to me, and actually cried, because she was so grateful to have someone who cared and understood her situation.<\/p>\n

And that was the day I was absolutely hooked on coaching and mentoring teachers.<\/em><\/p>\n

I knew in my heart that for at least a time, I wanted to focus on teaching teachers instead of kids. It was a brand new challenge that excited me in a way that teaching children hadn\u2019t done for a while, to be perfectly honest, and it was rewarding in a completely different way.<\/p>\n

I had been impacting 25 kids a year in my classroom, but just with this one PD day, I was impacting an entire school full of kids AND changing how their teachers taught every class in the future. I knew — both from the reaction of the teachers I\u2019d taught and also from the uninspiring PD experiences I\u2019d had myself — that the need for instructional coaches who really know and understand teachers is incredibly great. Teachers need someone in their corner, and I wanted to do that beyond just through my website.<\/p>\n

I wanted to make supporting teachers my #1 job.<\/p>\n

I stayed in the classroom one more year while I planned my next steps and also got married to my husband who was living and working in New York. I moved from Florida to New York to be with him and took on a part-time instructional coach role in the city. I was blessed with the opportunity to not only create change in education on a larger scale but to encourage and inspire my fellow teachers who were so very tired and discouraged.\u00a0And\u00a0<\/em>make more money.\u00a0And<\/em>\u00a0have a more flexible schedule. So as bittersweet and scary as it was to leave the classroom, I truly have never looked back.<\/p>\n

As much as I miss the kids, I know there is absolutely no way I could be doing what I\u2019m doing right now with coaching teachers in\u00a0The 40-Hour Teacher Workweek Club<\/a>\u00a0and supporting teachers through my blog, podcast, books, PD, and school-based work and speaking if I were still in the classroom.<\/p>\n

Some people manage to do it all, \u00a0but there\u2019s no way that I personally could have done everything well — my family life and health would have suffered, and my students would have suffered because they wouldn\u2019t have been my #1 work priority anymore. I knew it was the right time for me to move on to a role as an instructional coach and educational consultant, and once again, I have peace about my decisions to quit my teaching job.<\/p>\n

Want to listen instead of read?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Listen to season 3 episode 4 below,
\n<\/strong>or subscribe in your podcast app.<\/strong><\/h3>\n