I want to begin with this caveat: if you are thinking about leaving your career in teaching, then this blog is for you. I will not coerce you into leaving. That is your choice to make. I want to use this blog to give you information so you can make a better decision. If you want to leave but feel stuck in a dead-end job and think you don’t have skills outside of teaching, I am here to offer you hope. You have a LOT of skills that can be transformed into other careers outside of a traditional classroom. IF you want to take time away from teaching and can afford it, I suggest taking an unpaid sabbatical. I had considered that at some point, but I didn’t want to give up my paycheck. That almighty dollar.
In this section I will be giving information about how to transition from teaching in a classroom to a different career. I am a former elementary teacher that left when my health dictated it. Even before that, I wanted to leave teaching but I didn’t know how. I felt stuck in a teaching career that was as stagnant as pond water. The only way you move up the ladder is to become a principal or a director of something. I wanted neither. While I spent a year not working at all so I could concentrate on my health, I learned a lot of valuable information that I want to share with you. So, if you are thinking about getting out of teaching, follow along. You are on the right path. I want to see you succeed and not feel as lost as I did. After I gained my health back, I was able to land a full time job. I now work at a local university as the Educational Resource Coordinator/Accessibility Specialist. My salary is almost what I made teaching but it’s only 40 hours a week. I get my weekends back. I get my evenings back. I have time on my hands to work on hobbies or writing blogs. I don’t come home exhausted, or mad, or in a fight or flight mode.
Like I said earlier, I knew I wanted out of teaching long before my health deteriorated due to high levels of stress, but I had no clue how to do that or what that even looked like. First let me begin by giving you 5 signs that you are ready to leave the classroom.
- You are constantly stressed. I use to leave the school and I drove WAY past the speed limit to get home. I would tell myself to slow down, that no one was chasing me to go back to the building. We have become so used to being stressed, we don’t realize that it’s NOT normal. All jobs have stressful days, but that’s it. It a few days here and there. Teaching is ranked as one of the most stressful jobs. If you are dealing with massive stress, if you have to take an anti-depressant to get through each day, if your blood pressure is through the roof, if your hair starts falling out (I lost it all) due to stress, that’s a sign it’s time to leave.
- You dread going into work. I would sit in the parking lot debating whether to go inside or not. I thought about just running away but I was too responsible of a person to do that. I thought about calling in sick (sick of teaching) but then I would have to make DETAILED lesson plans which took HOURS! Then I would give myself a pep talk and face another day. You need a career that respects you, your time, your worth, and your family. You deserve better.
- Work-life balance is a joke! I know I’m not alone when I say that I spent over 60 hours a week doing teacher stuff. All the demands and pressures were too much. I was barely keeping my head above water. If I didn’t work that many hours in a week, then everything suffered. Don’t even mention the holiday breaks and summer breaks. Ha! Those were used to try to catch up, which rarely happened. If you’re tired of teaching taking up all or at least most of your free time that you could be spending with your family, friends, hobbies, Netflix binge-watching and you feel mad about losing that time, that’s a sign it’s time to find a job/career that leaves you feeling like you are cared for.
- Feeling worthless. I used to feel the same way. I’d think to myself “I’m JUST a teacher”. I have no other skills. My degree is useless. Parents question my ability to teach. Students don’t treat me with respect. Administration is bearing down with all kinds of requirements and expectations. You DO have value as a person. You DO have skills that will transfer into a different career/job (more on that in another blog-coming soon). You have experience as a teacher that will gives you bonus points in dealing with problems, humanity, and anything else that comes your way. You have a unique perspective on life.
- You have health issues. About the 8th year of teaching at my past school, I felt the nudge from God that I should be doing something else instead of teaching. But I ignored it. My doctor prescribed one anti-depressant, “happy pills” as I call them. I told myself then, if I have to take “happy pills” in order to do my job, then it was time to quit. But I didn’t. Then I experienced swollen lymph nodes for 6 months that no one could diagnose except that maybe I had mono. I was horribly tired. All. The. Time. Then my hair began to thin. It took less and less time to style it every morning. At some point, I realized it was falling out at an alarming rate. I went to see my hairdresser. She told me to get to a doctor quick. I did. I was given a second “happy pill” to go along with the first one. My blood pressure was through the roof. I asked my doctor to fill out FMLA papers. She didn’t hesitate. Best decision I ever made. I took FMLA from February to June 1 when my contract expired. Then I quit. WHAT A RELIEF! I was FREE at last!
Leaving teaching does not mean you are a failure. It means you recognize that there is a better way of life. It means taking care of yourself so you can be there for others. Don’t be afraid to take care of YOU first. There are many other careers/jobs out there that you are qualified to do. I’ll go into more depth on those opportunities later. Take care.
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My Story
I don’t even know where to begin on my story of leaving the teaching profession. Some would say to start at the beginning, not sure when that took place to be quite honest. Here goes.
In my early 50’s, I knew there was NO WAY I was going to keep teaching until I was 65. Then Covid hit. Of course, no one knew what to do. That first spring was really kind of cool. No one knew how to teach online, and some people didn’t have quick internet service, including teachers. We did the best we could.
In May of 2020, I had been outside planting flowers. I felt so tired. When I went inside to take a shower, that’s when I noticed the swollen lymph nodes in my neck. Ah, there’s the culprit. That was NOT a sign of Covid, thank heavens. I went to an urgent care, and they gave me the pink bubblegum medicine. Then I went back in June and got a stronger antibiotic. In July, I went to my primary care physician. She put me on a third antibiotic. You need to realize that I felt tired all summer long and school was about to start again at the end of July. In September of 2020, I went to a specialist. He did a bunch of bloodwork. He thought I had the Epstein-Barr virus (mono) but he wanted me to get a biopsy of a lymph node to rule out lymphoma.
I had no clue how a woman my age could have mono. I had convinced myself that I had cancer and this was it. I had meltdowns daily. I had the biopsy. The guy who did it hit a nerve. My arm jerked. I was told that before the procedure that I was not to eat or drink after midnight, so I had not had any breakfast. By the time I got to the waiting room to find Bruce, I was not well. The room was starting to spin. He found some gluten free food and helped me to the car.
I continued to be exhausted and now I had the pain from the nerve that was hit. It was on my left side. I’m left-handed. I was so freaked out over the whole ordeal, it never dawned on me to tell them that I was left-handed.
I continued to teach because we were short on subs. There I was day after day, exhausted and in horrible pain. I took Tylenol and Aleve like they were candy. I had to wait two weeks until I got the results of my biopsy. Two more weeks of daily meltdowns. At last, the day had come, it was time for my appointment with my oncologist. I was a wreck! Trena Phillips called me while I was in the waiting room and prayed over me. I loved that! Thank you, Trena! You have NO idea how comforting it was to me.
Went I went back to exam room, the nurse took my blood pressure, and it was high. I was so upset. Guess what? It was NEGATIVE. The doctor showed me the results himself. I couldn’t believe it. But here’s the thing, i still felt like crap. I still hurt from the nerve being hit during the biopsy. I really didn’t feel relieved. I didn’t celebrate. Back to school of course. It will be several years after this incident that I find out that stress had caused my body to become inflamed and that was causing the swollen lymph nodes for 6 months. They gradually decreased and I started to feel some better physically.
That fall, Covid was still a thing to be reckoned with. Everyone was unsure how to go forward with teaching. We were in school for a few days, then out for 2 weeks. In the building, out of the building. That continued until the teachers told the school board to either keep us in or keep us out. Going back and forth was hard for everyone, teachers, students, and parents. It was a lot of work to make lessons online and then be back in the building trying to catch everyone up.
Of course, there was the news freaking everyone out, including me. I have autoimmune issues. The news reported that anyone like that was a real risk to getting Covid and not recovering. Great. Put me in a classroom of 25 kids, mask up (at that point no one knew if the masks actually worked) and keep teaching. Then one of my students got Covid. Freaked. Me. Out. Of course, that child got better and came back. Others started getting sick. I realized, not every kid was really home sick. Some were faking it. They got to miss school with no penalty.
Parents would call wanting to know if their child could do extra credit to raise their grade from an F. No, if your child would have been on the Google Meet lessons that I did for 4 hours EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL DAY, then they wouldn’t be behind and missing assignments. Then came the state testing and our kids were not prepared for that. By the time we got the scores of the standardized tests, the kids were already at the next grade level.
It all became too much. Too much from the administration, too much from the parents, too much from the students. Too much grading. Too much time looking for lessons for those who were behind and for the gifted who were bored. Too much worrying about if I was going to get Covid and die. I was exhausted and irritable. I was miserable and didn’t know how to get out. I didn’t know what to do next if I did leave teaching. I’m JUST an elementary school teacher. That’s all I know how to do. I’m stuck in a job that I no longer like. I’m stuck in a job that is detrimental to my health and personal well-being. I’m stuck!
Fall of 2021, I began noticing my hair was falling out quite a bit. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it. I was too busy and too stressed and too tired to deal with it. I would sit in my car in the school parking lot and will myself to go in. I gave myself pep talks; I prayed. I really wanted to turn around and go back home and never teach again. I couldn’t do it. I had a really good work ethic. Unfortunately. Every evening, I would get in my car and I would zoom home. By zoom, I mean I was speeding. Big time. On Highway 160. I drove as if monsters were chasing me. I had to continually tell myself that they weren’t chasing me and that I could slow down. This happened every blasted day.
By the end of January of 2022, I realized I was losing a LOT of hair and losing it FAST. I looked like a chemo patient. I began to develop bald spots. I bought myself a wig. I went to the doctor, and she immediately put me on FMLA until the end of the school year. I was too scared to tell anyone that I was leaving for good. I was afraid of losing my job and my sick pay if people knew I wasn’t planning on coming back in the fall. I was fortunate enough to have enough sick days to get paid until the end of the school year. My hair continued to fall out.
I spent the next 2 years recovering and healing. I visited the Cleveland Clinic because a rheumatologist thought I had a rare autoimmune disease. If that were the case, I would feel more confident if someone else were treating it. Guess what? I don’t have it. Cleveland proved him wrong. I do see a holistic doctor and she has done wonders for my health. I still haven’t grown my hair back and I am doubtful that it ever will but it’s ok. There are advantages to not having hair!
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do next career/job wise. I took a part-time job at a food pantry just to give me a little something to do and a little bit of income. It worked for me at that point. As I continued to improve, I knew there was something else I should be doing. I had taken a course in instructional design, I began a course in photography. I looked into going back to school to become a psychologist. I thought of becoming a massage therapist. I wanted to become a life/career coach.
There are a lot of things that teacher skills can transfer into in the corporate world. More on that in my next blog.
Until then…