How to know when to leave a teaching job
I Quit Teaching & Here's What I Learned
Timecodes:
[Music]
here's a little introduction for those
of you who are new hi i'm michelle i'm
currently almost 29 years old and i was
born and raised in maryland i've wanted
to be a teacher for as long as i can
remember but we will come back to that i
love to travel eat food work out eat
some more food
and i am highly competitive i taught
second grade for three years on the
eastern shore of maryland before moving
to the western shore not too far from dc
where i taught fourth grade for four
years at the end of the
2020-2021 school year i quit my teaching
job and moved to austin texas where i
currently live with my husband our two
cats luna and zora and our australian
cattle dog ember for majority of my
seven years as a teacher i documented my
experience online through social media i
created weekly vlogs on youtube where i
showed a realistic view of what my life
was like behind the scenes shared tips
and strategies to help support other
teachers and creative resources to make
their lives a little bit easier so you
might be wondering how does someone so
passionate about teaching
walk away from the classroom i
completely understand how this might be
confusing so let me explain my desire to
be a teacher started when i was in
elementary school myself i actually
struggled academically early on reading
did not come easy for me and school
wasn't really my favorite place until i
got into second grade i had the coolest
teacher his name was mr peelin and he
taught me to not only love school and
love learning but he inspired me to
become a teacher myself from that moment
on i would hold school for all the
neighborhood kids on my front porch
complete with a whiteboard and
worksheets i found online as homework as
i grew up my passion for pursuing a
career as a teacher never diminished
despite having many people in my life
try to persuade me otherwise
if you've ever been a teacher or even
thought about becoming a teacher and
told people you know exactly what i'm
talking about you're told the pay isn't
great and it's hard work and you're
almost led to believe that you're
capable of more as if teaching isn't an
honorable profession but when you are so
drawn to something and are so passionate
about that choice it doesn't matter what
people tell you you're still gonna
follow your heart and that's exactly
what i did when i was in college earning
my bachelor's degree i started to dive
deeper and deeper into the realm of
education and began dedicating more and
more time to it i ran the education club
at my college and volunteered my time
after classes and my internship to tutor
kids at a nearby church and i was happy
doing all of those things because they
brought me closer to my goal which was
to become a great teacher i ended up
graduating and getting my first teaching
job at the age of 20. so i was young but
i also had all the time in the world to
dedicate to my job because i was so
young i quickly became the teacher who
spent every waking moment thinking about
teaching and working on things for my
classroom and lesson planning and
giving all of myself to the profession
at some point i was even dreaming about
teaching
at the time i truly believed being able
to pour all of my time and all of my
energy into my biggest passion which was
teaching was making me happy
during the summer before my third year
of teaching i started a youtube channel
and began sharing my passion and ideas
with the online teaching community
honestly a lot of my motivation was just
giving my friends and family a break
from hearing me talk about teaching all
the time but youtube became an outlet
and allowed me to connect with people
that had similar interests which i
desperately needed at the time but what
i didn't realize was that everything has
a cost
trying to record videos edit them and
post them week after week on top of
pouring so much of myself into my job as
a teacher was exhausting plus there were
all the little tasks behind the scenes
that i had no idea about like responding
to comments and answering emails and
going to the store at 11 pm at night to
get an external hard drive because you
ran out of space on your computer while
editing
because that definitely happened more
than once
i found myself pulling all-nighters and
isolating myself from my family and
friends in order to get it all done
because i felt this immense pressure to
continue providing for others
i felt obligated to devote all my time
and energy to teaching because my
students deserved it but i also felt
obligated to devote more time and energy
to sharing with other teachers because i
knew how hard the job was and my ability
to make it just a little bit easier for
someone else was fulfilling but i began
to realize that the more of myself i
gave the more i was asked to give and
the more i was expected to give now as a
competitive person i saw this as a
challenge for the longest time i thought
if anyone could do it i could and i was
determined to prove that i could balance
being pulled in so many different
directions
and i did for a while at the risk of
sounding vain i will say i was a great
teacher
was i the best no
but i was constantly learning and
growing and improving
and i know i made an impact on top of
that i managed to build
a business on the side and experience so
many accomplishments that came with that
i surpassed half a million youtube
subscribers i started a podcast i was
featured on the today show twice
i wrote a book i earned a masters of
education and from the outside it
probably appeared as though i was
thriving
but underneath all of that i was
sacrificing my happiness somewhere along
the way
i stopped listening to my heart and
started listening to all the other
voices asking me to give them what they
wanted
i think deep down i knew
i could only sustain that level of
selflessness for so long
i finally reached my breaking point at
the height of the pandemic prior to when
school shut down in march of 2020 i had
already been sharing technology tips on
my channel so when suddenly everyone had
to pivot and begin teaching virtually
i became a resource and during a time
when everything felt out of my control
it was so confusing being able to
support teachers with technology
made sense and was a breath of fresh air
i felt like i could actually do
something to help when i felt helpless
otherwise and that was an incredible
feeling but it also forced me to stretch
myself so thin
that i had no choice but to eventually
break i was navigating hybrid teaching
where i had to teach half my class in
person and have my class online at the
same time and i was just as confused and
overwhelmed as every other teacher but
on top of that when i would leave the
classroom each day i was bombarded with
requests from teachers and would spend
several more hours trying to help
support them i started to realize that i
was creating my own problem by trying to
juggle all these responsibilities and
just like i was trying to solve everyone
else's problem i had to do the same for
myself ultimately the universe operates
on a system of give and take i had given
up my happiness in order to take on all
these roles and responsibilities so in
order to get it back i would have to
give up something else
so in the spring of 2021 when my husband
and i decided to move to austin
i made the choice to let go of teaching
at least in the traditional sense
i resigned from my teaching job at the
end of the school year and
said goodbye to my role as a classroom
teacher this was by far
one of the most difficult decisions i
have ever made but i can now say a year
later it was the best decision i ever
made stepping away from the classrooms
somehow taught me more than the seven
years i spent teaching inside of it i
think the biggest lesson i've learned is
that
meeting other people's expectations
isn't worth sacrificing your own
happiness you will never be enough for
the wrong person and you will constantly
be exposed to the opinions of others but
you can't let those outside opinions
control your choices when i was in the
classroom i never felt like i was doing
enough because i would compare myself to
other teachers even though i never knew
their full story
and when i was sharing with the teaching
community online i would constantly
receive
approval and disapproval for what i was
doing and i knew that would only amplify
once i decided to leave the classroom in
the past year i've received praise for
leaving and prioritizing my happiness
but
i've also been scolded by people who
think it's selfish and ultimately
neither of those opinions matter because
those people are not the ones living
with the decision i am and i am so happy
with my choice
i've always heard the sentiment you
can't make everyone happy and i knew it
was true but that didn't stop me from
trying
i tried for years to be everything for
everyone else
and even when it seemed like it was
working
it wasn't because in order to make
everyone else happy i was neglecting
myself i've realized that you don't have
to fit into this mold that everyone else
wants to put you in i'm not in the
classroom anymore but i do still
consider myself a teacher my title has
changed but i can still use my
experience and knowledge to help other
people and at the end of the day that's
what teaching is
in fact i feel like my capabilities to
help support others are so much higher
now because
i'm not burning the candle at both ends
and i know that not everyone wants to
learn from someone who's not currently
in the classroom and that's okay because
i'm no longer trying to be everything
for everyone i just want to be
something
for someone i know i have the power to
help at least one person and that's
enough for me that makes me happy
honestly i think it's unfair unrealistic
and unsustainable
to expect teachers who are already
performing an incredibly demanding job
to also be responsible for providing
professional development for the
teaching community on top of that that's
like asking an athlete to play in a game
while simultaneously coaching the rest
of the team
we wonder why so many teachers are
experiencing burnout yet we continue to
pile responsibilities and expectations
on their plate and we make them feel
inferior any time they try to remove
something from it so on to the number
one question i still get on a daily
basis are you going back to the
classroom as you might expect the answer
is complicated
right now
i love teaching teachers i love getting
to travel and meet new teachers across
the country i love getting to present
workshops and professional development
for them
and i love getting to create resources
to make their life easier without
sacrificing my own happiness and
personal well-being to do it but if this
transition has taught me anything it's
that people change and evolve over time
and that's part of life you're not
supposed to be the same person at 30
that you were at 20 and your passions
are allowed to shift i'm not the same
person i was when i started teaching at
the age of 20 or even the same person i
was last year when i left teaching just
like you i'm constantly changing and
growing and becoming a better version of
myself i don't know exactly where i'll
be a year from now or five years from
now or
ten years from now
i don't know what job i'll be doing or
if i'll be back in the classroom or if
i'll be doing something else entirely
and that's what's so exciting about life
you get to figure it out along the way
your path doesn't have to be set in
stone and you're allowed to explore
different versions of yourself
the only thing i know for sure is that
whatever i'm doing
i will make sure it's something that
makes me happy
and i hope the same is true for you
wake up
[Music]
wake up
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