Three years.
For three years I thought about changing careers almost every single day. For three years, I struggled with almost constant anxiety and at times, going days, weeks, or even months wondering if I’d ever be happy again. I would read posts about how hard it was to be a teacher and how teachers – even the best teachers – were opting to leave the profession and choose a different career. For three years, I wondered how much longer I could hold out before I became one of those statistics. That three years didn’t happen at the beginning of my career; no, that three years came after I had already made it through the first five years of being a full-time teacher. According to statistics, I should have been okay, but I wasn’t. For three years, I just wanted to quit.
A year later, I’m not one of those statistics. I didn’t quit. I still teach and I plan to continue teaching for years to come. You might think that after three years of earnestly considering other options, I might have found one. I could have found another job that wasn’t as draining. After all, almost anything would be better than dreading every coming day, just trying to survive, right?
I hope I never have to go through a period in my life as low as I was during those three years, but I am grateful for the lessons that I learned. The main thing I learned is that I love teaching. Yes, it’s hard. True, it’s not always the most rewarding or profitable career, but I believe that it’s the career that best fits my personality. As a teacher, I get to be creative and active. I get to problem solve and overcome challenges. I get to learn from and grow with some of the best human beings that I know. Teaching pushes me to get better every single day, and I’m a far better person now than I would be if I had given up and quit.
Through my journey of choosing to teach, I learned a lot of things about myself and my profession. There are a lot of things about teaching that we teachers can’t control, but a lot of time we can make it better. I’ve learned how to keep my job from overtaking my life. I’m still learning how to reduce or eliminate a lot of the stress and anxiety that my job can cause. I’ve realized that many of the things I didn’t think I could change are actually very much in my control, just not in the way I thought they should be. This blog isn’t about what makes teaching hard; it’s about what makes teaching worth it. I’m not going to talk about what’s wrong with education; I’m going to talk about how to make it right. And for all those things that are problems, we’re going to find solutions so that teachers can be happy doing something they’re passionate about.
For three years, I struggled. Because of those three years, I grew and I learned how to find balance and joy. I hope that by writing about what works for me, I can help someone else do the same. Teaching is hard, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. There are so many things that we can’t control about our jobs, but if we change what we can and focus on making it better, we can create a happy teaching life.