Mindset & Motivation | Feb 17, 2014
There is still hope for you in this profession: a message for disheartened teachers
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
There is still hope for you in this profession: a message for disheartened teachers
By Angela Watson
I know that so many of you are frustrated, tired, and worn down. You’re tired of testing your students to death, of not having support from your administration or parents, and trying to understand curriculum and teacher evaluation systems that seem designed to trap and fail you.
This breaks my heart. My friends, I’m begging you today: please don’t judge the profession or your effectiveness as an educator based on a lousy teaching placement.
Teacher morale is not in the gutter in every school.
There are supportive administrators out there and parents who will have your back.
There are schools where you are allowed to teach and not just test, where kids are allowed to be kids and not just data-processing robots.
There are places out there where you CAN love teaching again.
I’m not saying those schools are easy to find, or that you can saunter in and demand a job. I know this is complicated stuff and I can’t fix a tough job market. I’m simply encouraging you not to give up on a career you once loved because you have a particularly challenging group of students or a misguided, micromanaging superintendent.
Don’t blame yourself or question your abilities as a teacher.
Don’t blame the entire teaching profession and lose faith that this can be one of the most fun and rewarding jobs on the planet.
Sometimes the problem is not YOU. And it’s not teaching, in general. It’s your particular placement.
I know firsthand the power of changing teaching positions. After just three years of teaching PreK, I was certain I was burned out and not meant to be a teacher anymore. Then I moved up four grade levels, and my passion was completely renewed. There was nothing wrong with the teaching placement itself, it just wasn’t right for me anymore. I needed a change.
Later, I relocated and ended up at a school where the working conditions were so depressing, I came home and cried every night. This time, the problem was the school, so I transferred to a nearby district as soon as I could find an opening, and once again, I loved my job. Eventually another principal was assigned to the school and made my life miserable. I suffered for two years before finding another position—and all that enthusiasm for my work came rushing back once again.
The message here is not that you can run from all the problems in education, or that it’s simple to find the right job for you. What I want you to understand is this:
The right school and grade level make all the difference in the world. You can love your work, and you can make a difference. Don’t give up your dream just because you don’t love your placement, or people in positions of power have lost sight of what matters.
Once a month, I’m going to feature an interview with a teacher who still loves his or her job and is excited to go to school each morning. Believe it or not, I’ve got dozens of teachers who are willing to share their stories. Some of them are in their ideal teaching placements, and others have simply learned to adjust and make the best of what they’ve got.
These educators are going to tell us how they keep from getting overwhelmed by their students’ needs and prevent the demands of the school system from weighing on them, their advice for balancing work and their families/personal life, and practices or mindset shifts they recommend that other teachers try in order to increase their sense of motivation, purpose, and enthusiasm.
If you are a teacher who’s found a teaching position you love, please, share your story with us and spread the message that teaching can still be a great job. Tell us in the comments, or email me and I’ll send you the interview questions and feature your story in a future post.
And if you are a discouraged teacher, please, hang in there. Hold onto your vision and keep trying to make it work. There is hope for you in this profession.
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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Thank you for this. I’m in my third year teaching and am miserable.
I’m so sorry to hear that. Anything I can do to help support you?
I teach in a school that has 99%low income students. There are a lot of challenges that come a long with that. I have been told we don’t have problems at xyz. We do not have fights at xyz. You call administration for assistance and they never come. I have called when a student was trying g to stab another student with scissors and been hung up on. Amazingly, I am considered by admin to be one of the best at classroom management. They send teachers to observe me when they are struggling. My point here is I am not one that calls the office frequently so if I do, I REALLY need help. To make matters worse, our state “grades” schools in numerous ways and one is teacher retention. Our principal is known to sabotage teachers trying to leave. I want out but have no idea how to get out. She watches everyone and everything. She holds paperwork, she talks down employees, she’ll take a teacher with great observations and suddenly that teacher can do nothing right. This is something every principal can view when interviewing. We are required to “anonymously” rate our principal and vice principal. However, they write down our anonymous logins. A few people that have tried to end around her with the board have been written up and suddenly find themselves on a professional development plan. Our children are not even allowed recess. We need help and we have no idea how to get it.
I can’t read this and not respond! I am a certified special education teacher that had my masters in counseling before I started teaching. I worked for 11 years. Burn out in teaching is such a tragedy! The average amount of years a special education teacher works before they quit is 5 years. I am now a counselor working to get my clinical license and counseling children in the public school district. I have seen administrator’s drive a coworker to a nervous breakdown, an administrator who would write up teachers for disagreeing with them in faculty meetings and then tell them that if they told anyone they would be fired, and many other events that are too many to list. Now that I am working in schools as a counselor and not a teacher, I see things through a different lens. I see administrators, teachers, and parents that have obvious mental health conditions which means working with them is extremely difficult.
I read April’s story and it was almost like I was reading what happened to me with administrators at one of the schools I worked at. During that time I was able to attend a professional development conference that changed my life. The subject was working with people who have personality disorders. As I sat listening to the presenter describe what a person with Sociopath Personality Disorder does in the workplace, I realized it was exactly like one of my administrators. This type of person you can never disagree with, no matter how insignificant, or you are on their bad list and can’t ever get off, no matter what you do. The presenter described what meetings with a person like this would look like and I sat riveted because that was my administrator! I’ll never forget the advice the presenter gave about this type of person: “You have to be able to fly under their radar or leave. And if you think you can go over that person’s head to their administrator for help, think again. The person above them is probably just like your coworker because they chose that person, and likely have many of the same characteristics themselves.” I knew that he was right, and I left. Being in a situation like April describes is torment every day to get up and go to work. But I found that no matter how bad things got, I always had the students to cheer me up and give me meaning.
Honestly, it sounds to me April, like you and the faculty are getting emotionally abused, which is far too common in the workplace today. Sometimes it helps to label something for what it really is because then you can start to heal. Some of the effects of abuse are feeling guilty, loss of self esteem, sense of shame. It might help to look up some of the effects of emotional/verbal abuse to help guide your way. My heart is with you! Make sure you reward yourself (every day if you have to) for finishing the day. That will help a little and be very kind to yourself because work takes all your reserves out of you, and you need to help build them back up by being extra good to yourself. Hope this was helpful! Much love!
Dear Angela,
I read your post and decided that I needed to respond. This is my 30th year of teaching. In all those years I have dealt with most of the issues everyone has mentioned. I know the frustration and disheartening things that we go through. Today I was feeling out of sorts because listening to how so many of us in the teaching profession feel right now is sad. Me included. When I had been teaching for 25 years I decided to go back and get my MA. What an eye opener! It was hard work but it rejuvenated me! I was excited to learn new things and to find ways to make my teaching better. I had always wanted to be a teacher-never had I even considered another profession. For all those fellow teachers out there who are frustrated, Angela is so right! A change, any kind of change, although it is hard, can be good. Going back to school made me realize that new things can make us better. Now that I am nearing retirement and thinking about what the next phase of my life will hold is strange. I had certain expectations about my life. But life threw me a curve ball 5 years ago when my husband died suddenly and I was left alone with three children of my own. We have to choose how we want our lives to go. Don’t wait!! Make a change today so that you can live every day as though it were your last. I’m not perfect and I get discouraged too. But then I go to the blogging world and see and read about all the awesome things so many other teachers all over the world are doing and it inspires me. Students notice when we are inspired about our jobs. They know if you really want to be there or not. Find a way to make each day joyous for yourself and you will continue to inspire your students to learn from you.
I teach high school science. I have been teaching for 10 years. The first few years I LOVED it and would do anything for my kids. I stayed late every day if I needed to. Now, I have 2 small children and I am a little burned out right now. I still love my job and even though a part of me would love to stay home with my children, I am just not SAHM material. I wrote a blog post about it on my blog!
I teach at an inner city school with a high teacher and admin turnover rate. We don’t get the best quality teachers because our school is mostly high poverty children. I love my children and would never leave because I would feel like I was abandoning them. As far as admin goes, my motto is “I was here before you got here and I will be here after you are gone”. Some years are tougher than others with admin, but I try and focus on the kids and not the admin. I am a pretty good teacher so I usually just fly under the radar and don’t get bothered too much! Hopefully I can refresh myself over the summer and be ready for next year. I am moving back to Biology next year and I am so excited because I have been teaching Earth Science for the past 5 years, which isn’t my favorite. I’m hoping that will help me recharge and be enthusiastic again!