I’m Leaving the Classroom: 5 Things That Drove Me Away

Like most teachers, I loved when I started. I had a passion for reaching the next generation of thinkers. Over time, things changed.

After working for thirteen years in education, I witnessed things changing for the worse. Every year, things got more challenging and further from what education should be.

But these five things lead to me burning out and running far away from education.

How we think about teachers and public education in this country blows my mind. For years, I’ve heard that teachers are lazy or they get summers off, so they don’t deserve to get raises.

I wonder if people feel negatively toward education because of their experiences with public education. One bad experience can ruin things for some, and then it gets passed down. Regardless, teachers touch every part of society. They should be celebrated and respected.

During the pandemic, parents treated teachers like heroes. Then as they were forced to return to the classroom and the teachers worried about themselves, they became a villain again.

This year, politics are coming into the classroom. Politicians are moving to weaponize the way teachers are controlling the classroom. Governments are stepping in and controlling what books can be allowed. As a parent, I get not wanting to let my child read something I disapprove of. However, that should be an expectation between parent and student, not a political pillar.

Everyone pulls at teachers. The district comes in and tries to bring some new system or learning strategy. They expect teachers to pick it up and learn it in a week —when we all know it will be gone in a year or two— they also expect the teachers to bear the brunt of figuring out how this actually works in a classroom. Students want teachers to give them an easy pass. They don’t care about their education anymore. And parents want teachers to parent students.

I have many stories from every side of the coin where I have been asked to do something I shouldn’t or blamed for something so simple and innocent, yet the students responsible never get the same expectation.

I’ve spent the majority of my teaching years as a tennis coach. While in season, my workload expands to about 70 hours a week. I would be out of the classroom for 20 or more days in the spring with competitions. It was never a break because I had to make PowerPoints that students could review themselves, leave lesson plans for the subs, and find ways to keep students accountable.

A few years ago, the school moved me into Creative Writing, an elective class I wanted to teach. They combined that with a remedial English class. Twenty-four juniors and seniors who had failed the state test (the dreaded STAAR) multiple times composed that class.

I worked with those kids. I taught them how to really write. One kid even told me that he never read a book until my class, and after, he found himself addicted.

Once the STAAR test scores returned, 85% of the kids passed the test! The ones that didn’t pass still improved their test scores, so they only failed by a few points. The school awarded me the Teacher of the Month. I felt seen. My work (on top of my other responsibilities) had paid off.

That summer, I received job offers to coach at other schools, some even paying more. I didn’t know how long it would take at a new school to get myself into a position to teach a creative writing class again, so I turned them all down and stayed with the school that had shown me love. Then I showed up to school and found out the school had stripped me of my creative writing class and not told me. Instead of allowing me to stay in the course, I wanted to teach, they kept the remedial course and added more.

They stripped me of my desire to keep working hard before the year even started. If I did my best and proved valuable at something, they would keep me there and not care about what I wanted.

Luckily I fought for myself the following year and got my creative writing class back. Every year after, I had to fight to keep it, go so far as to get more job offers, and have numerous talks with principals. I was told I was the person on campus that should teach the creative class; however, I was too important in a core class. They didn’t want to put me in an elective course even though it was my passion, and I was gone so much.

So all the work I did to make myself valuable ended up making me get more demanding assignments instead of the ones I felt passionate about.

I’m Leaving the Classroom: 5 Things That Drove Me Away 3

The emotional blackmail during the back-to-school rush and every faculty meeting started to drive me crazy.

Every year when we return, instead of returning to news of raises or other good news, we would return to emotional blackmail. So many times, we had videos or speakers telling us to remember we don’t do this for the money. We need to remember why we teach. Remember your why.

So a couple of things about this. Number one, my district, a pretty large district in a large suburb, would wait to discuss teacher raises until after the new school year started. That way, the teachers wouldn’t know if they could go to another district that paid more money until they committed to the year.

That district made it seem like they were doing teachers a favor by letting them teach there, and they should be happy to be there.

This strategy worked for a while, but I knew what I would be getting after a few years. I would get maybe a 2% salary increase. We would get a more significant salary jump after five years of service, so our district would brag about the boost they gave some teachers when they hit that five-year mark on top of a salary increase. But that was never enough. So while the raise was 2% across the board, they would brag about some teachers getting much more than that because they hit those five-year jumps.

Part two is the emotional plea to remember why you do this. I believe that teachers are a special breed. I’ve come across a few teachers that got into education for the wrong reasons, and they didn’t last long, but for the most part, teachers know why they teach. They do it as a service to others. To make us sit there and say, remember your why, is emotional blackmail at best.

Why should you look outside of your profession to a career that might treat you better, or at the least, treat you like a person and not a cog? They try to use this to keep you there and distract you from the fact that you are overworked, preyed upon, and everyone wants a piece of you.

And that’s the thing. Everyone pulls at you. Everyone needs something from you. Students, parents, and admin all pull at you. It’s too much for anyone to handle. But if you remember why you are doing this, you should be happy.

I’m Leaving the Classroom: 5 Things That Drove Me Away 4

Teaching is a sham profession. I don’t think it was supposed to be a profession. Teaching took on a different role as it became something people needed and paid for. However, I’m pretty sure that teaching contracts evolved so that employers can keep control over teachers.

One of the stipulations in a teacher contract is “Other duties as assigned.” The language here means that the administration can pour anything and everything they want on a teacher, and they have to do it, or they will lose their jobs. Extra duties get assigned yearly, usually on top of those assigned the year before. Teachers were strong-armed into sponsoring clubs “for the good of the students.” That goes on top of the already heavy workload of planning, grading, revising lessons, and creating supplemental supplies.

As a coach, not only did I get the extra duties, but during my season (all year for tennis), I would be working 60-80 hours a week for an extra $7000 per year. That breaks down to pennies for the extra time I put in for the sport.

In my 13 years of teaching, my coaching stipend only increased twice. I tried to get data about other sports, stipends from other schools, and the data like the fact that we had TWO state championships to raise my stipend. I was told that our district paid a comparable stipend. One year, in a plea to the people in power, I got called in and chastised for asking.

Both of my parents were teachers growing up. I didn’t know any better about how the business world worked. After finding my wife and seeing how she would get substantial performance-based raises, I realized how much teachers take advantage of. I left for work hours before she did and got home after her, and she would continue to get raises and increase the gap between our pay.

All of these are part of the reason why I’m leaving the classroom, but they aren’t the thing that finally made me say “enough.”

I’m not setting out here to blame anyone for anything. I genuinely believe that everyone involved has tried their best, but all of it led to my burnout and ultimate decision to leave teaching.

But my catalyst for change came when I went to my principal in December. My wife and I discovered that we would be blessed with our second child at the end of the school year. I had decided to get out of coaching to reclaim time at home with my family. When I approached the subject, I told my principal I wanted out of coaching and was slightly burned out of teaching. I asked if it would be possible to be considered for the open instructional coach position, and if not, I would happily stay in the classroom. I needed a job to support my growing family, after all.

She told me that I wouldn’t be considered for it, that I wouldn’t be teaching creative writing even if I stayed doing what I was doing, and that she couldn’t promise me a spot just teaching. She suggested I start applying for other jobs.

I don’t think she meant any of it with venom. She seemed happy about the pending child, and her tone was positive, but her words didn’t match. This was the same woman that told me two years ago that I was too valuable in a core English class to teach an elective. Now, she told me I wasn’t welcome at the place where I had worked my ass off for twelve years.

I sat on that information for a while. Then I got emails the next month asking me to resign so they could hire a new tennis coach, saying it was the best thing for the school.

Nobody said anything about what was best for my family or me. And that caused me to decide to leave education. Not once, when other English teachers resigned, did anyone ask me if I wanted to take their spots. If I didn’t coach, I was nothing to the school.

I felt demoralized about what I had done with myself for the past 13 years.

I’m trying to figure out what’s next after leaving the classroom. I started this blog after they took the Creative Writing class from me for the first time. I saw writing as a way forward. I thought it would allow me to be at home with my kids during the day and still provide income. Unless you count the pennies I make from it daily, that isn’t happening.

After the tennis season ended, I worked on getting a few writing jobs. I started with a website called MakeUseOf.com. You can see my articles already published here. I have some other writing and tennis-related gigs ready to go as soon as I end my paternity leave.

I will give it a go as a freelance writer and see what I can do in this world. I’m also going to try to commit to writing more fiction so maybe one day, I’ll have a book that everyone loves and spreads like wildfire.

So stay tuned as I continue to write and figure out this freelance writing thing. And if you’re looking for a writer, hit me up.

Also, check out how I would improve education in Texas.

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