It has been about a year since my most recent, and first ever, post.  A lot has happened and, in the hopes of full transparency, I thought my second post should be an honest update.  Let me explain why I haven’t taught in about 7 months and do not plan on going back to my teaching job until next August, if at all.

To anyone in the field of education, I do not need to tell you that teaching is stressful and has become politicized in the last several years.  Nor do I intend to spend this post ranting and complaining.  Instead I want to explain why everyone’s platitudes were not enough.

If you teach, or are in education in general, how often have you heard any of the following: “It’s the same in every district, you know;” “At least it’s not just you;” “The next group of students are different.  We just need to wait it out.;” or “Just take the weekend (or week, or summer) to relax and come back fresh.”  If your experience has been anything like mine, you’ve heard all of these and more. 

These are not helpful statements and, as I went through the last school year, I found myself countering them in my mind.  Does it matter that it’s every district?  I want it to be different in this district and every district.  I know it’s not just me, but does that mean I need to put up with it?  We say this about the students every year.  We’re never right.  The weekend, vacation week, and/or summer isn’t enough.  

It got to the point where the platitudes were almost worse than all the other issues and I began to resent them and the implications behind them.  It didn’t feel ok to be miserable all the time just because we were all miserable.  I wanted to be done with the cycle of stress, of constantly feeling tired, of wanting to avoid contact with my colleagues whenever possible (to the point of taking the elevator if I heard someone coming down the stairs) just so I could skip out on everyone else’s negativity.

Negative and toxic work conditions are not any more unique to my experiences than any of my other complaints about scheduling, student behaviors, meeting schedules, standardized testing pressures, etc.  They were, however, the final nail in the coffin.  I began to realize that I had shut down to the point of no longer being a good teacher.  I hadn’t become a bad teacher, I was just no longer truly teaching.  I felt like I was homework and classwork help instead of teaching, a feeling that was not helped by a curriculum that emphasized independent and group work.

Finally I realized that while I was physically at work, and doing the bare minimum of my job, my mind and my heart were not.  I agonized over it for months, thinking that every weekend, every vacation week, maybe I would relax and come back refreshed.  After the vacation week in February I had my doubts that I would ever be refreshed enough to be a good teacher again.  I even had a dream where I quit, telling my administrator that I couldn’t keep being this tired all the time.  

In March I began to come to terms with the idea that I really should take more time since it was clear that a week, and I doubted even the summer, would be enough time for me to really overcome my burnout and my bitterness.  I talked to my union reps and, ultimately, to my supervisor and principal.  Thankfully they both told me to take the time I needed.  My principal told me I would be missed and would always have a place there.  My supervisor told me that she was proud of me for taking what I needed and to focus on me for the year.

While my thoughts about going back are complicated right now, and not  something that needs to be decided before April, I can say that all my thoughts about needing more time were correct.  It may not have been the right, or financially feasible, move for everyone, but it was exactly the right move for me.