I wrote this blog to explain to other teachers who might be looking to follow in my footsteps why it can be hard to leave and how I managed to finally do it. I hoped to capitalize on the momentum of an earlier blog about education to drive traffic to my website. I have a 5x increase in traffic after posting.

I wanted those who might be searching for why it is so difficult to leave education to know that they aren't alone. I also wanted others to know the plight that teachers are going through.

Throughout the blog, I try to make the point that leaving the teaching profession is difficult because of the time and money, but that it is possible to save and leave. Hopefully, this can bring about some change to the profession or at least give a teacher trying to leave some confidence to actually leave.

While I didn't have to pitch the idea, I have been looking to find different ways to articulate things many teachers are going through. I did some keyword research to find long-tail keywords to include in the article.

Next, I crafted an outline that I thought would go against expectations by not talking about the students first. After solidifying the outline, I began to research other websites I could link to with accurate and current statistics that would help bolster my opinions. Finally, I sat down to write the draft.

I edited the draft for content, grammar, and flow before publishing it and promoting it on social media. I planned posts and times for success.

While it is still early days, I did get an increase in views by 5x the traffic on day one that I usually get on an article. I will update after some time to see if the article has longevity.

I thought about how to leave the teaching profession for a long time before I did it. When the administration treated me more like a cog than a professional, I thought about quitting teaching and not looking back. I even went to get a job outside of education one summer to test it out. Unfortunately, a terrible boss scared me back to teaching.

So many teachers feel that way. They want to leave, yet they feel like they can’t. Yet, the system in place keeps them locked in a system that doesn’t afford them chances to grow or look for a new path.

Here’s why it took me so long to leave the teaching profession.

Many would think that teachers stay for the students. The parental-like love of students keeps so many teachers stuck doing things they don’t want to do, like staying in a profession that doesn’t treat you well. For me, though, the stability kept me in my classroom.

For the longest time, I never felt like I could leave the teaching profession until I found the next thing that would bring in a paycheck and give structure to my life. I don’t recommend anyone jumping into the abyss of the unknown without some support.

I stayed because I needed money. As my family grew, I stayed to help provide a good life for them. I’m lucky to have a loving wife who wants more for me and makes enough money to support us while I look for something else. Not every teacher has that.

Of course, teachers could try to save enough money to think about quitting teaching, but most teachers’ lack of quality pay keeps them locked into those yearly contracts. It isn’t easy to save enough money to take a leap when you already have to get extra jobs to provide enough to survive.

Teaching offers stability. Trying to change your career after years in the classroom can rock that stability. Still, many find the working conditions and professional respect vanishing quickly. It became apparent things wouldn’t be changing anytime soon and that my heart had moved on to something else.

Why It's Difficult Trying to Leave the Teaching Profession 3

I went to college, got my degree, and did all the teacher training to help make me a teacher. I never thought more schooling would benefit me much since having a master’s or doctorate only offered a thousand-dollar increase in salary per year. I didn’t see the reward for getting more education.

Read the rest at my blog JSwordsmith.com