Teaching Tips & Tricks | Nov 22, 2012
Why I quit my teaching job mid-year (no, it wasn’t the testing)
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Why I quit my teaching job mid-year (no, it wasn’t the testing)
By Angela Watson
I wanted to write a post for those of you who are barely making it, and are so dreading the return to school the following morning that you can’t even enjoy your evenings off. The idea of going back to that place just makes you sick to your stomach. I get it. I have been in your shoes. And I’ll share with you what happened when I quit my teaching position at exactly this point in the school year almost ten years ago.
What my teaching situation was like
Quitting was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. My administrators were blindsided by the decision–after 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. Things seemed to be fine. But what people didn’t know was that it took EVERYTHING out of me to keep it that way.
Things seemed to be fine. But what people didn’t know was that it took EVERYTHING out of me to keep it that way.
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, and 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.
Beyond our four walls, the school’s atmosphere was in total chaos. We couldn’t 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 sargeant were hired to help control the students in the cafeteria: one of them would bend over and scream in the children’s faces while the other marched up and down the center aisle, yelling into a microphone as the kids threw food around his head.
Not exactly a fun working and learning environment.
Things were quite a bit calmer in my classroom, but student behaviors 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’t internalizing anything.
My breaking point
I remember the exact breaking point. I hadn’t used our social studies books yet that year, but there was a particular passage I wanted the kids to check out as an intro to our activity. I said to the class, “Okay, when you hear the magic signal, you’re going to take out your social studies books and turn to page 35.” At the mention of the word social studies, one student burst into tears and crawled under desk so he could bang his head against the floor. (Later I learned this was a reaction to social studies he’d begun having in first grade and his previous teacher had no idea why.) Another boy murmured something under his breath, causing all the children in his vicinity to say, “Awwww…Andre called you the B word!”
Simultaneously, another child took out his social studies book but accidentally dropped it on the floor, causing the children around him to laugh. “What you laughing at, punk? Shut the F up!” and then punched the kid nearest him in the arm. The child who was punched did the same thing right back. The two of them sat there glaring at each other, and the children around them were either frozen in anticipation or egging them on to a fight.
Almost every child in the classroom was now either disrupting the lesson or distracted by the disrupters. One child had her hand up asking to go the bathroom. Another had his hand up and was pointing at the child next to him, who was gleefully ripping out pages of the social studies book. Yet another child was tapping me on my arm and asking me to repeat the page number.
As I took a deep breath and made a decision about which fire to put out first, I heard a scuffle outside the door and a voice come over the intercom. “Lockdown, code 3. Lockdown, code 3.” That meant the police were pursuing a suspect in the neighborhood, and I had to cover the small window on our door and move the class away from it.
I wanted to teach…and THAT wasn’t teaching
It was in that moment that I knew my job was not worth the energy expenditure I had to put out everyday. 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 for the entire year.
I was managing the classroom, I was maintaining some sense of order, but I wasn’t teaching.
It wasn’t that I was incapable of handling it. That day, I could have had the class back on task within a minute or two after all those interruptions. But those things happened all day long, every day. I was managing the classroom, I was maintaining some sense of order, but I wasn’t teaching.
I wanted to have deep conversations with my students about current events.
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.
I wanted to see them develop a sense of curiosity and wonder about the world through investigations in science.
I wanted to teach.
But after seven weeks of school–almost the entire first quarter–the kids still weren’t 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.
The worst part? All teachers who were new to the district were required to stay in the same school for THREE YEARS. Sticking it out until June wouldn’t have done me any good, because I would have had no choice but to return to the same situation again in the fall. And again the following fall. I was trapped in that level of stress for another two and a half years, and the thought of going in for even one more day after the long weekend passed was enough to make me physically ill.
And yet the guilt I felt over even thinking about quitting was indescribable.
Making the decision to quit my teaching job
Was I really willing to abandon such a needy group of children in the middle of the school 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?
I felt selfish. I felt like a hypocrite. I felt like a failure as a teacher.
But I had to do it.
My principal was shocked and furious, vowing that I’d never work in the district again (Not for a million dollars, lady!, I wanted to yell.)
Even worse was the unexpected reaction of my students. I thought they’d 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’s notice that this was par for the course.
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’t even thinking about me. Five minutes before the final bell rang, two of my toughest kids got in 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.
What happened after I quit my teaching job: a fresh start in a new school
My decision to quit in the middle of the year would have been much tougher if I’d had to leave the field altogether. I know that’s the situation for many of you who are reading this post and unable to find other teaching jobs. I quit in a year when there were far more teaching positions then qualified teachers. You’re going to groan when I tell you that within a day of making my decision, I had an interview in a neighboring county and was hired on the spot.
But maybe you can relate to this part: the hope that in a different school, the love of teaching would return.
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. I stayed in the classroom for another five years (and probably would have stayed longer, except I got married, moved to New York, and started doing instructional coaching). I even chose to spend my last two years as a classroom teacher in another inner city school.
Urban teaching is where my heart has always been, and will always be. I know that it doesn’t have to be a nightmare. These days I work with teachers in some of the toughest areas of Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx, and I see the amazing things they’re able to do. The quality of teaching and learning in many high-poverty schools is truly exceptional and they can be fantastic places to work.
5 things to know if you’re thinking about quitting YOUR teaching job
There’s no clear-cut moral to this story, I suppose. I’m hoping it’s helpful just to know you’re not the only one and someone else has been through this.
But there are a few other things I want you to know if you feel like quitting teaching right now or are still feeling tremendous guilt about having quit:
1) It’s not your imagination–teaching IS getting harder.
Our students are coming to school with more and more problems, and the bar for achievement is continually being raised.
2) Sometimes, the school year does not get easier with time, and that’s not necessarily your fault.
Usually I’ve found that teaching becomes less stressful as the year progresses because students get the routines and make more and more academic progress. Occasionally, though, this was not true for me and it’s not true for other teachers I know. Sometimes the class is just a really difficult one and your stress level won’t improve until the following year when you have a different group. That’s very normal.
3) You are not a bad teacher just because your job feels too hard.
Even the best teachers get put in situations that are physically and mentally exhausting. Feeling like you want to quit does not mean that you were not cut out for the job, or are a bad person. The position you’re in just may not be the best one for you, or you may just be having an exceptionally tough year.
4) Quitting does not equal failure.
I struggled with the decision to quit long after I’d left the job, because I felt like I had abandoned the kids who needed me the most. I had to remind myself over and over: It’s not that I couldn’t do the job, it’s that I chose not to for my own mental well-being and physical health. I was not a failure, I was successful in taking care of myself. I have many other responsibilities in life in addition to being a teacher, and I was not willing to let all those other areas fall apart because of my job.
5) There are lots of ways to use your talents and gifts to help children.
Many teachers who quit still have a deep desire to work with children and make a difference in their lives. There are many, many ways to do that. Your career as an educator does not have to be over simply because you don’t want to stay where you’re at.
Is quitting really the answer?
Now, to be clear: I’m not telling you to quit your job. Quitting is not always the right decision: in fact, there were plenty of other low points in my teaching career in which I wanted to walk away but didn’t. During those times, I found that I was frustrated in the moment, but I knew in my heart that things WOULD get better, that an overbearing principal would transfer to another school (he did), that the transition to a new curriculum would be for the best (it was), or that I could make it through just a few more months with an exasperating parent or student (I did.) One of the best things about teaching is that every fall is a new start. Sometimes the best thing to do is hold on until then.
But for those of you who have emailed asking me whether to quit your job or teach on (and there have been hundreds of those emails over the years), I continue to say: do what you know is best for yourself.
If you’re not sure, keep teaching. Hang in there as long as you can.
Read Awakened: Change Your Mindset to Transform Your Teaching and learn how to perceive stress differently.
Read Unshakeable: 20 Ways to Enjoy Teaching Every Day…No Matter What and get ideas for infusing your day with meaning, purpose, and joy.
Join The 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club and get productivity hacks to help you achieve balance.
If and when you hit that breaking point–your gut feeling is to go, and the reasons to leave truly outweigh the reasons to stay–you’ll know, and you shouldn’t ignore that realization if you can find another option.
You will hear many voices within the school system telling you to prioritize your work (or more accurately, your students’ test scores) but it will be far less often that you hear the message to prioritize your health and well-being. I’m telling you that today.
It might mean finding another job, or it might mean staying and developing different coping strategies for stress, but my advice is to do whatever it takes to avoid complete burn out. I think as teachers we owe that to ourselves.
I’d love to read your stories on this topic. Have you ever quit mid-year? Are you thinking about doing it? What advice would you give teachers who are in that position?
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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Thank you Angela for sharing your story and everyone else too!
I too quit a teaching position. I quit three weeks into the school year, so about a month ago from now. This was my first job out of college and I was so excited. To my great dismay, things did not turn out how I had hoped.
I left because I had no experience in the classroom and was overwhelmed by all the tasks I had to complete. Upon graduation, I joined an alternative route program, much like Caesar’s, where I had five weeks of training. Looking back, it was in an unrealistic environment compared to that of my independent placement school in the fall. While I trained at a summer school, I had four co-teachers, an experienced teacher in my classroom monitoring at all times, and an additional coach to guide me. Here I myself only taught for a 30 minute period and another 45 minutes with a small group.
I started at my placement school a month later. Here I was by myself, with 22 bilingual second graders, from 8:05 to 3:45, and in charge of five subjects. Additionally, I had four students who demanded my attention at all times because they constantly struggled to stay still, remain quiet, remain in their seats, and keep their hands to themselves.
I had no idea as to what I was doing. Keeping my students safe became my priority after realizing some of my students could not control their behavior and often hit others or put themselves in unsafe situations like climbing my shelves close to my windows. Not only did I not know how to teach but within the environment of my classroom, I could not teach.
While I was “teaching”, I was in the school with my kids until 3:45pm and then remained there until about 7, sometimes 8. Then, I went home and fell asleep from exhaustion. I then woke up at 3am to plan for the day that would start within hours. Because my school was undergoing a lot of changes this year, the teachers had very few days before school started to prepare our classroom and lesson plan. So, I was living day by day.
It was not long before my health began to deteriorate. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. After the second week, I began to have great anxiety and panic attacks. Every day I woke up and had so much nausea I could not eat breakfast. During my lunch, I was usually busy so I did not have time to eat either. After crying one day, I cried every day after that. I had never experienced something so suffocating.
I had additional pressure from a graduate program I was required to complete to obtain my official teaching certificate. I began to fall behind on this work because of all the tasks I believed were more important for my class.
Regardless, my efforts in my classroom were fruitless. By my third week with my students, I was still on the first week of curriculum. My students’ parents also began to complain about the lack of homework. Since I struggled to prepare work for my students to do throughout the day and prepare lessons they could understand, I often failed to give homework.
So, I decided to leave. I couldn’t spend another day seeing my students gazing into outer space or building a collection of paper airplanes any longer. I was afraid of delaying their learning any longer and I was afraid that someone would get physically hurt because I did not have the classroom management skills to help my four students who needed it most. I was not ready to be their teacher and I knew I could not provide them with what they needed. Also, I had no idea as to how to teach, let alone teach children whose native language was not English. Being able to speak Spanish and English, I thought I was going to be capable, but I wasn’t. I quickly realized that teaching bilingual children requires a set of very special skills because they need specific tools and strategies to help them understand and learn.
Talking and laughing with my students was the best part of those three weeks. I love children and I really cared about my students. I dreamt of making my classroom a place where my students would love to be present in and had so many ideas as to how to celebrate our successes, birthdays and holidays. I wanted to help my students who had behavioral problems learn ways to reduce their stress and prevent their triggers. I wished to help my students who couldn’t read in either language do so and push the others who could further.
Being a person whose life has always been about serving others, my decision to leave was very difficult. I have always worked extremely hard in my life and have never quit from anything. So making this decision a month ago is one I will never forget. I left my students with substitutes because I could not deal with the anxiety and panic I felt every day. I went in on a Monday morning and handed in my resignation letter. I had already arranged for a substitute to cover my class that day because I felt so unstable. I collected my few belongings and brought in some classroom supplies I still had unopened in my house. I asked for the attention of my students and told them that I was going to leave that morning. They, like others from former posts, were quiet. I gave them hugs good-bye and told them it was not their fault but mine and that I needed to go back to my “teaching school” to learn how to be a better teacher before I taught again. I told them they would get a teacher who had a lot more experience and who would be able to teach them so much more. I spent a few minutes with them, telling each one that I believed they could achieve so much and was counting on them to do so. Tears and all, my time with my kids was over.
I’m crying as I write this because the whole experience still hurts a lot. I wish I had never stepped into that classroom because then my students would not have lost their teacher. I know I brought great disappointment and frustration to my students’ parents as well especially because I did have an overall good relationship with them. I was only able to speak with a few that morning and explain my decision.
I know my experience is very different from that of teachers who have taught for many years. Nonetheless, the guilt and sadness veteran teachers talk about after leaving is very real and painful for me too. I believe I am still suffering from depression today because of my decision to leave my second graders behind, and my inability to remain in the classroom for them.
However, at the time, it was continue with my panic attacks and inability to teach my students or leave.
So, reading Angela’s article and the stories in the comments have made me feel a little better. (Yes, I have read all of them.) They make me feel like I am not crazy for what I did. I loved my students, regardless of what anyone believes, but I couldn’t handle the pressure of what was expected and what my students truly needed. So instead of coasting the rest of the year, I left. I didn’t want the money if I knew I was acting more of a babysitter than a teacher.
I know I have a long road ahead of me to recover from this experience. My confidence and what I think of myself has been seriously damaged. However, knowing I am not alone and others have gone through this as well, in their own situations, makes me feel like there is some hope. For others who are struggling with the decision to leave, know that the road you choose when you leave is very difficult too. However, I hear it gets better and I wish you all the best as you decide what is best in your circumstances.
Great posts everyone! I am a 2nd year P.E. teacher/coach for a rural school district teaching both elementary and high school students seeing about 190 students per day and have subbed 1.5 year in a metro area before my position. I am newlywed since July and live 3 hours away from my wife living with my parents who are very supportive, which this is our 2nd year being apart while she is finishing up nursing school and is very difficult to be away from her and our close friends. I am struggling dealing with disrespectful students after having many talks about character, little support from administration and putting more focus on coaching than my actual teaching. My health is not very good after being sick twice already and still sick the last 7 weeks. I am angry and frustrated on how trying to teaching these students.
Even being a PE teacher, you think you would enjoy teaching, but I do more managing behavior, emailing parents, and constantly reminding students of expectations, but no change has happened and little teaching happened. The younger students really like me, but will not work in class for me. The staff is not very friendly and the community is not very supportive to the staff. I want to resign mid-year to be with my wife, to regain my health, have a chance to be hired again somewhere else next year, and enjoy life again. It is very hard and knowing that after Xmas break I will still have 5 months to push through. I do not want to disappoint my students, my parents, staff, or my wife, but life is short and so is my overall well-being. I have experience working many other part-time jobs in college, but don’t want to be pressure on my wife financially once she gets a job.
Would like to hear some advice from everyone on my situation!
I quit. I didn’t even have a problem with my job. I believe my principal started “bullying” me when I opened my mouth about simple and mundane issues at staff meetings. Pretty ridiculous. I was ambushed one Friday, the day after BTSN, and was told I spoke to slowly at BTSN, and was I on drugs?!? Being around the other stressed, competitive, robotic teachers was enough. Now this? I quit on the spot. I had to SAVE myself and my family. I feel guilt every day for leaving. I still can’t understand why the relationship with my principal went so sour. Thank you for your post. I AM a teacher…a good one, too. I need to put time and space between what happened, but I do believe education is in trouble. Thank you,
Jen Madrid
Thank you for this post. After teaching as an adjunct at community colleges for 3 years where I was paid little but lived in hope of securing a HS or MS or college FT position, I’m leaving just before Thanksgiving. As you and others here have attested, it is a very difficult decision. I started looking to return to work in other fields over the summer, but when nothing turned up, I went back to teaching. Now that I’ve had this offer for a job I really want [that will help me pay back my student loan and share the other costs that my husband has had to shoulder since I went back to school to become a teacher] I’m of two minds. I’m so happy to be able to return to work that I enjoy and to the security of being paid year-round. However, I’ll miss the students. I’ll miss that spark I’ve seen when a student understood something (maybe for the first time). Knowing that others have done it and found other ways to still make a difference in the lives of others encourages me very much. Thank you all for sharing you experiences.
What a powerful post. Thank you so much for having the courage to share that. So many teachers identify with that story.