Teaching: Dead-End Job: Part I
Wow…
Happy New Year. That was a long Teachbreak I took just there. I wouldn’t say it was relaxing. The holidays and family visiting isn’t relaxing. I’ve been working on a major Teachbad-related project and another non-Teachbad-related project which have both kept me unbloggish for a bit. Plus I have a job, kids, dog and a house that’s 115 years old.
But I’m back. And I missed you. I hope your heat shields maintained their integrity upon reentry into your classroom this week. I know it was rough, but, be honest: Was that horrible anticipation you put yourself through for most of the break really worth it? No. We both know it wasn’t. This is one of the great mysteries of teaching. Why do we allow this to happen?
Anyway, let’s get to the post. This is the second-to-last in a series exploring the fundamental shittiness of teaching. These are unambiguously negative things about teaching, no matter where you teach or how much you might tell yourself you love it. (Links to the whole series and the survey from whence the idea came can be found below.)
Teaching is a Dead End Job
There is no career path in teaching. Or, there is a path, but it is flat and circular. The teachers’ job is to do more or less the same thing with the same level of responsibility every single day until they die. There is no obvious professional progression or next step for the teacher except to go around the track again. You will never, ever be recognized or rewarded for your work with a larger than expected raise, a meaningful bonus or a promotion. You’ll take the Kudos! in the newsletter and walk away quietly, both grateful and emasculated.
If you want professional adventure, it’s up to you to start a new school club, become the assistant soccer coach or sniff butts on this or that powerless and irrelevant committee. But make no mistake; these things are not your job. Your job is to plan, teach and grade. Anything else is elective supplemental work you are doing for the extra money, because you enjoy it, or because your actual job makes you want to drink bleach.
Aside from taking the loop around again, the only other career move a teacher can make after reaching the point of not really wanting to teach anymore is to get out. You can try to stay in the field of education, hopefully leveraging your teaching experience to get the job you want. Or you may choose to leave teaching and education all together. I have known many people in each of these three boats; those who stay, those who leave but stay in education, and those who strike out for something completely different. Results have been mixed. All the boats are all leaky and fraught with peril. To be honest, I have been in all three and each one sank.
Staying Put: The Path of Least Resistance
Teaching is definitely one of those jobs that can slowly trap you over a period of years. The more you stay, the easier it can be to stay and the harder it is to leave. Nobody expects their first year or two of teaching to be easy. So when it sucks and you feel like almost everything is going to hell most of the time, you shake it off. Depression, anxiety, increased alcohol use, hair loss, night sweats, withdrawal from family and friends, weight gain/loss, erratic sleep, diarrhea, nicotine addiction, risky sexual behavior, bloat, nightmares, blurred vision, violent fantasies, short-term memory loss and dry-mouth are all common in the first two years of teaching. That’s the way it’s supposed to be and most teachers make it through. Then it generally gets better for those who stay on. Not a lot better, but enough to remain living. Still, hundreds of thousands of teachers leave teaching after their third, fourth and fifth years as well.
After the fifth year the exodus slows down. But why? After five years does everything click and teaching becomes awesome? Teaching was clearly the right choice. I am now comfortable in this job and I like this job well enough. I will continue being a teacher because it satisfies many important criteria I have for a job and a career. Many, many thousands of teachers come to this decision every year. They stay and they are happy.
However, in addition to the teachers who leave in the first five years, many thousands of teachers in their 6th or 11th or 20th year are not particularly happy to still be teaching. Maybe they changed their minds in the last few years or maybe they never really liked it in the first place but just kept waiting and hoping. Or, just maybe, the essence of the job itself has come to suck more in recent years. Either way, they keep thinking about getting out.
But if nothing acutely horrible is happening and there isn’t anything else obvious to do, it can be easy to just stay. You’ve made your peace and lowered your career expectations for yourself. You’ve developed calluses where you need them, and you make a little more money every year. You could just stay here for another year. Besides, looking for a new job takes a lot of work and it is a stressful, uncertain proposition. And most teachers probably don’t even know what kind of a job to look for. I thought I was going to be a teacher and that’s what I’ve been doing for a long time. What the hell do ex-teachers do?
You’ve achieved relative comfort after investing a great deal in it. And it’s not like you are looking at a clear choice of something better. It can be very easy to show up again in August. Every year that a teacher shows up again in August makes it more difficult to engineer a smooth transition out before next August. The inertia becomes like a weight with compound interest. The amount of energy needed to reach escape velocity increases every year. (Physics teachers…did that last part make any sense?)
But if you are committed to leaving, there is another leaky boat waiting for you at the dock. We’ll discuss this, the ferry out of the classroom, next time.
On an unrelated note, it occurred to me today that Kevin Bacon, Denis Leary and Bryan Adams might all be the same person.
Mr. Teachbad
You’ve been missed sorely Teachbad. I am fortunate to be a guitarist. My escape from music teaching was easy once I made up my mind to do it. I am still angry that I wasted 7 years of my life however.
Teaching people (kids and adults) one-on-one is actually fun. Sure I wish most students would practice more, but that is my biggest problem and I never feel like puking or wish I were dead upon arrival.
I taught until it finally almost killed me. 11th year. I am now disabled due primarily to the stress. I kept thinking if I tried just a little harder, it would get better. Then my health imploded. Now I can’t do shit.
Ah ha!!! You see? The health. My wife’s health also imploded. I was well on my way with weekly ailments of all kinds especially headaches, colds and stomach problems. Not to mention my ever expanding waistline. I was a mess and I was a real bitch to be around. Other than that, it was fantastic. Since I quit, I dropped 20 pounds (170 down to 150), revamped my diet and walk 5 miles a day. What a difference.
amen!
the only good part is I get STRS (California State Teacher’s Pension) disability half pay forever. But the catch is if I get better they can make me teach again
last add on – I really wish I finished law school instead of deciding to be a do gooder teacher. Then I would be a happy healthy shark today.
I wish I had gone for music performance like I wanted, but my parents refused to help pay for college unless I went for education. When you’re 17 it’s hard to see that far and I got scared and made a bad choice. Crap!
I left teaching after one year. That year was filled with horrible, horrible diarrhea.
How did you get disability? I’ve been on medical leave for stress. Our North Carolina Association of Educators doesn’t even cover that kind of disability because they expect it comes with the job. Input in my resignation aft 14 years. It just all piled up but I’d rather live in a box and smell like urine for the rest of my life than teach another day.
I am so glad you’re taking care of yourself. CJ and I left teaching and have never looked back. We started our own business, got healthy, and we’re happier than ever. I hope the same for you!
I made it two years, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore. Since I got a job where I’d done my student teaching, I was on my third year of teaching the same material — five classes the same, every single day. Between the boredom of reading the same material over and over again, and the stress of dealing with misbehaving kids and absurd expectations, I decided to get out before I was trapped. I figured if I couldn’t be happy there, where I liked the people I worked with and most of the kids, this wasn’t the job for me. Happy to say I’m in a great job now, making more than twice what I made teaching. It can be done. But here’s a hug and a pat on the back for those of you who do stick it out.
A hug? Yep, What job did u get that pays twice as much?
so glad you had the self esteem to bail…
I know this flies in the face of everything you are about Mr. Teachbad, but I did get a bonus this year. I do have a leadership role and am relatively happy with teaching. Sure there are days that suck and kids that suck, but at the end of the day I still feel good about what I’m doing. Maybe the truth is, as trite as it may sound, that not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. If you are doing this for thanks and recognition you should be doing something else. If you are doing it because kids are generally amusing and it’s nice to have a level of autonomy (yes, they can tell us to do this or that but when the door closes you can pretty much do what you want)hang in there!
Not anymore. New state laws for teacher evaluation places unreachable and unfunded mandates upon teachers. You can no longer just “close your door and do what you want.”
Yes, teaching being a dead-end job is reason #37 that I quit. Actually the technical term is resigned, but it feels better to say I QUIT!
I decided to go for something completely different: My own business. Though it has not worked out well so far, I am still 100 times happier than I was.
I’m not one to have regrets or think about them, but like CJ Renzi, I’m not happy to have wasted so many years teaching, including the years I spent in College taking education courses.
I do wish I chose a different career path. Then again, many people wish the same. It’s just when I think of all the other paths I could have taken, why in the world did I choose teaching???!!!! I question myself, asking if I’m insane. Then, I realize I’m not. Einstein’s definition (roughly) of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result each time. I knew the result would be the same each year, so I chose to leave. For that, I can say I’m not insane. Even the constant, little voice in my head agrees with me! :O) lol
I love this. Congrats for NOT do the same thing over and over expecting different results. I left too because I simply could not do it any longer. Almost all of my friends are teachers – really great teachers at that, but most of them are extremely unhappy about teaching.
It is possible to get out and enjoy life. I am finally doing it after 10 years of teaching. Of the fifteen years I have been married, I have enjoyed the last five the most. Coincidentally, those are the ones AFTER I left teaching.
I’m in my first year of teaching and already I can feel my health deteriorating. I sleep less because I’m stressed. I don’t exercise even when I have time because I’m so burned out. I smoke more. I drink more. I know that making healthier life choices would help me out, but I’m so stressed out that I don’t have the energy to actually put those habits into place.
My relationship with my boyfriend is rocky because I’m so exhausted all the time.
The school where I work is supportive. I enjoy the people I work with and a great majority of the students I teach. But dealing with the constant behavior management issues and the never ending demand from the classroom, administration, parents, and students has taken a toll on my mental sanity.
The stress is slowly driving me insane.
All I know is that next year, I’m going back to school to get my prerequisites to apply for pharmacy school. I hated college, but after going through this, school has got to be better than what I’m going through: constantly feeling stressed with very little breaks, constantly feeling exhausted, constantly feeling like I’m not doing enough, constantly feeling like I’m not doing a good job or I didn’t do something right.
Counting down the days till summer.
Good for you Blue!!!!!!! When you do go back to college to take the courses you need to get into pharmacy school, just keep thinking about how much teaching sucks. That will definitely help you get through more of the college grind.
Blue, you should definitely do it. I was part of the mid-year RIF of 2010 in DC, for reasons that had nothing to do with my exemplary school record, and decided to finish pre-reqs and take the PCAT for pharmacy school entrance. While I can’t say that pharmacy is the ultimate profession or field, I’m certain that it’s much better than the crap I faced every day while working in DCPS.
I’m one of those looking to get out of it all together. I’ve been teaching for eight years and just don’t care to deal with the constant disrespect and lack of job mobility anymore. I’m almost done with my MS in Communication and am actively pursing jobs in that field. I have two internships under my belt, one full-time completed during a summer, another completed part-time while I was working and going to school. Both were unpaid, of course.
I have yet to get an interview in my new field. I’m constantly being told that my resume looks great, I just need more experience in the field and have I thought about doing more unpaid internships? It’s very depressing.
Hey EX, you’ll find a way out somehow. Just keep looking and looking. Maybe try looking at Monster.com
Perhaps you can find a temporary lower-paying position which does not require much experience, then use that experience for something higher-paying. Either way, keep doing whatever you need to in order to get out of the horror that is teaching. Good luck!! :O)
I enjoyed this post even more than usual because it was so ME. I taught for 6 years in a public school (plus a few years before that at the college level and in private language schools overseas) and I had pretty well convinced myself that I liked teaching. And to be fair, I did like the kids (at least, some of them). There were definitely good things about teaching and I had some amazing students I’ll never forget and whom I still keep in touch with. I also had many colleagues I respected (and liked) a great deal, whom I hope to keep in touch with for a long time.
But the lack of a career path was probably the biggest push for me to get out of teaching. There was also the rest, the suckiness about teaching that is more “today” than inherent…the standardized testing mania; the incessant budget cuts (that mean in Florida you will NOT make slightly more each year–you will stay frozen or get pay cuts for years to come, not to mention have increasingly crowded classrooms); the hysterical lack of respect from almost everyone in a position of power, even if that power should NOT technically be over you and your career (e.g., politicians, reporters), but even more so from those who are supposed to be in power over you (e.g., school administration, district administration)…and all the problems caused by the above. The combination was enough to make me just want to get out, out, out. The lack of a career path would have made me want to leave eventually anyway because I am by nature ambitious. But the rest of the garbage made me NEED to get out IMMEDIATELY.
My advice (though you haven’t gotten into that “leaky boat” yet) to anyone fed up with it is to LEAVE. It may seem like there is nothing else you can do, but there IS. There are ALWAYS other options. With 2 degrees in French literature and no professional experience outside of teaching, there didn’t seem to be too many options for me…which is why I sort of despaired for a while of being able to leave without going back to school. Yet within 6 months of starting my job search, I landed a job in communications that pays WAY better, has career growth opportunities, and where I feel respected by my colleagues and my superiors. Oh, and did I mention it’s actually FUN and I don’t even mind going to work and I’m not constantly looking for opportunities to get out of work for a day? (As a teacher, I remember getting excited about jury duty, just because it meant I got to sleep an extra hour and NOT have to deal with rambunctious kids for a day.)
This is very long-winded–sorry–but I do want to encourage those who are sick of it to just start LOOKING TO GET OUT. If there is no obvious career choice outside of education, then start building your resume through volunteer work or community work or through your union (that is what I did). Leadership roles and projects you take on outside of the school can definitely help you get a non-education job…my work for my teachers union is exactly how I got the job I now have.
great advice…I wish I took it about a decade ago
Ideas for options outside of teaching? I love some parts of my job, but you have described the way it is perfectly. I have been teaching for about 15 years. The best part is being on the same schedule as my kids. I think of it as being a stay-at-home mom part time. But I know there’s an issue if I working for summers and holidays off. The lack of pay is the worst and being in FL too, guarantees no raise each year. I have no idea what else to do. The only other things I ever thought of doing were being a doctor (and I don’t think I can sign on for that much schooling at this point!) or being an editor (like of books and such). As you can see I am really knowledgeable about this career LOL!! Looking forward to reading the next posts and more comments.
@Forever Fourth Grade, it is tough finding something with Education as a background. However, it’s not impossible. It may take a long time or it may not. All you can do in the meantime is start applying everywhere and anywhere which seems reasonable. That’s what I’m doing right now. I started my own contracting business and it is very slow to start, as I knew it would be. In the meantime, I’m looking under Monster.com for anything that might interest me and does not have requirements which I definitely lack. I’m also looking (I’m in NY) under the NYC & NYS websites for city or state employment opportunities. In addition, I’m telling any current friends and past colleagues that I’m looking for a non-teaching job and to keep an eye & ear out for me. Etc, etc. I now something will come along eventually. It may not be making as much as I was, etc, but I know I will be much happier. Even as I currently struggle financially, I’m much happier. Anyway, good luck and just keep looking relentlessly. We DO have Masters and other things going for us, so it’s not helpless by any means.
MTB: I suspect that your blog will soon need yo be renamed as it evolves and we who follow it finally quit. Hey, we picked this bog, not the blogs or how to do a better rubric. Soon the banner will read: the ex- teachers blog of disgruntlement
I like that name!
How about teacher’s blog of ex-disgruntlement?
My husband has been in 6th grade for 24 years. They just put him in teacher jail (full pay but you sit in a room with other teacher convicts and do nothing all day). The district, LAUSD is the most disfunctional in the country. He does not know what they are accusing him of, they say they don’t have to tell him because he is being paid, and that this is his “assignment” He is a great teacher, but has a big mouth. He called the health department on his school 10 years ago because the students had no toliet paper or paper towels, after trying to get the admin to fix this for a year. Needless to say he has a rep as a problem teacher. He also has just about top seniority at his school, and is immensely popular with the kids even though he is a tough teacher. I can say he is truly one of the best teachers I’ve ever met. But he is incapable of brown nosing the admin. So he is to be f@#@ed over by definition. See a pattern? Well he is giving up the fight and retiring. He is going to sell his art on a full time basis (he taught art and science and math). I could write reams of the crazy shit that happens in that district. Mr. Teachbad, you and my spouse should be best buds
She told them if they will just pay him for the rest of the year, he will quit. They said yay, as long as you promise not to sue. HA! Well, he gets to take care of his wife that is disabled by teaching stress full time now…
Yo, Teachbad! Now that you’re out of teaching you’ve left us all hanging! There have been days when reading your blog has kept me from losing my mind. But I’ve been through all the archives already so I need new material every now and again. My “Pretty Good Teacher” mug puts a smile on my face, though, which I need after another day of being told I suck. I’m trying not to let it get to me – I just wait for the new reason why I suck. (I didn’t do group work; I took too long going over the homework; I didn’t engage my student who never comes to class; I didn’t use a rubric; I asked students to fill in blanks; the work wasn’t rigorous; I didn’t differentiate; I didn’t scaffold;………) Just trying not to let it get to me – I may have to find another job. But keep the blogs coming in the meantime!
Hey, Mr. Bad: Along the lines of the comment above – how about an occasional guest blogger? Those of us still in the ranks could add updates about their local insanity and help all of us stay in touch with national trends in educational absurdity.
Of all the comments on this post, your rings most true to my situation.
Some days I just want to scream four-letter words to everyone in the building, tell the kids to make signs for the highway, and instruct admin to take all that bull, write it on a some toilet paper, and then go wipe a goat’s ass with it!
WTF? All this “disabled by stress” crap is going to give us an even worse rep. If I run across one more teacher who bumps her knee or sprains his wrist or is really tired and applies for disability I’m going to scream!
Look, you’re obviously one of the ones who is well suited to this job and can somehow get the students to perform, or at least play the politics correctly and somehow avoid accountability for your students’ boneheadedness. Maybe you snagged the Calculus class or Honors English, where the kids are college-bound and come prepared to class. At any rate, I’m truly glad teaching is a good fit for you; the world needs teachers who actually can tolerate the job. Now, please don’t condemn others whose experience you clearly know nothing about: people struggling to cope with the job or trying to find a way out. It’s increasingly difficult in this country to change careers or get help when a toxic job environment is compromising your mental health. Don’t be part of the problem.
amen, xll4nyn!
Well put Teachbad! I have written about the dead-end nature of teaching for some time now but never as succinctly as you did in this blog.
I entered teaching after nearly a decade in retail and quickly noticed that the only way for a teacher to “move up” was to get the hell out of the classroom (and thus cease to be a teacher). Unwilling to sell my soul, I left teaching after five years to join the US Army (yes–I had reached the point that going to Iraq was preferable to staying in the classroom). For whatever reason, I missed teaching and, after a five year absence, returned. The second go-round I made it merely two years. What derailed my second attempt at teaching was, more than anything else, incompetent leadership (that and a never ending stream of world-saving initiatives).
I agree that “teaching is not for everyone” but this line of reasoning gets a lot of incompetent people off the hook for terrible decisions. I really liked certain aspects of teaching but the people I worked for made me hate my job. The absence of a systematic way of identifying, developing, and promoting leaders means that self-promoters, boot-lickers, and good ol’ boys will be the ones running the show.
I admire those who can suck it up and find a reason to continue but I don’t think that their perseverance should preclude frank discussion about the very real problems facing education.
I was one of those who rode the bull for way longer than I should have, not because I liked it, or felt comfortable, but because I didn’t see any other options. I simply was not cut out for it; I was at six different schools in twelve years. I couldn’t believe what my life had turned into; all my mental energy was going into creating the appearance that children were being educated. Barking at sleeping, disengaged students all day long, taking their obvious contempt, curving their uniformly failing test grades into grades that would enable them to pass,feeling constantly like a fraud. I was a hollow shell of a person at the end of each day, just sucked dry, a zombie. I became paranoid- felt like other teachers were looking at me and judging me: “There’s that teacher – did you look at his scores last semester
? Wonder how long he’s got left.” Eventually my mental health became a serious concern and I had to leave in the middle of the 13th year, shortly after starting at a new school. Those who decry teachers for taking stress leave have absolutely no idea what it’s like to work at and worry constantly about a job where your every effort produces nothing but failure and criticism.
This comments forum is helpful and cathartic for teachers struggling with all the BS, but I think what would really be helpful in making this more than simply an echo chamber of complaint, what would move the discussion forward, would be if someone knew of an administrators’ or principals’ forum some of us could crash and shake up a little bit. Make them justify some of the educational theories they’re so comfortable throwing around. That might be more fun than just complaining to like-minded people all the time, and easier than challenging your supervisors in your own school.
Troll if u would!
I can handle the monotony of teaching. The ever shrinking paycheck, however, is getting a little old. After finally getting a $300 “raise” after five years on nothing, my first post raise pay stub showed a $30 decrease in pay because of the increase in social security taxes and health insurance premiums. I never expected to get rich from teaching, but I certainly expected that after ten years my salary would have reached a comfortable level. http://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/im-rich-bch-well-maybe-not
I don’t have it nearly as bad as many, but the monotony is getting to me after thirteen years. The only real change is the dreary and steady decline of the students’ qualiies.
I have no idea what else I would want to do or could do as another career though.
Today I ended up having to drive past the school I last worked (also the school I was at when I quit). It brought back all those wonderful feelings. I started to think about how I had felt going to that hell hole every day. I rehearsed it all in my mind. It went something like this:
I wake up in the morning, feeling physically sick knowing I have another day ahead of me. I think about the education-related nightmare I had that night too. I then get dressed, dressing down as much as possible because I simply don’t care what the hell I look like.
I get in my car, dreading the ride ahead; it’s as if I’m driving to my death. While on the highway, I think about suddenly swerving into the guardrails; then I think of my sweet wife and let the thought drift away. As I head off the highway, taking the exit, I feel even more sick knowing I’m only minutes away from work.
I park my car blocks away; there are no closer spots….ever. I arrive 20 minutes before the first bell; just barely enough time to be “ready”. I do this because I don’t care. I sometimes wait to get out because one of the many nose-in-the-air teachers is walking to the building and I want to be as far away from them as possible.
I arrive at the building, walk in, and get my daily dose of envy as I’m greeted by the School Safety Agent sitting at his desk reading the newspaper…or texting…or eating.
I make my way into the office to turn my card, saying not much to anybody….because that’s how I feel everyday. I walk to my room, passing my bulletin board and laugh inside with amazement at the idiotic rubrics and checklists attached to the graded papers.
I turn on the computer and log into the school email right away to see what stupid sh*t is awaiting me. I then think real well if I need to use the bathroom, knowing I can’t go until my lunch and prep…because that’s the type of wonderful job I have.
Then, I look on my desk at all the useless paperwork I will never get to and care nothing about.
The bell rings, my stomach drops, and the day begins.
Geez. I wonder how I even lasted the few years or so that I did.
Diff: thank u. This made me laugh and I am down a little extra today. Not just school. Besides the job, folk have normal life stressors too.
Any advise? My last class tues and Friday is a group of 35 7th graders who are vicious and aggressive toward me. It doesn’t help that its last period on Friday. No parent phone numbers work, so I don’t get enforcement of detentions etc..
I need some help here. I’ve asked the principal to come to class for support. She promises but never shows up. I”m left to die with a group of monsters who are big , insane and rotten. My 8th graders are fine. This is my only problem class and I think I’m going to quit . G-d forbid someone suggests that I carry a gun to protect the school. I’m glad I’m not armed:)
Would have been nice to pursue a real profession….like being a dentist. Check out the starting pay lol :
http://www.cs.ny.gov/examannouncements/announcements/oc-cr/decentralized/20-957.cfm
Not to make it sound easy. I know the cost of dentistry school is very high, but at least there is a pay off.
I did talk someone out of becoming a teacher yesterday. He was thinking about it and had a lot of misconceptions. He mentioned (we’re in NY) the $100,000 they make. I asked how long he thought it took to get to that amount, which is the top pay. He said 3 or 4 years lol. Told him the painful truth: 22 years. Insane but true. Not that money has much to do with it all, because it really doesn’t. I wouldn’t go back to teaching if I started making that tomorrow, which would be a $40,000 increase from what I was making.
You can reach $100K in NY after 22 years?!! In Miami the salary schedule capped out around $65K I think. I know it was less than $70K even with advanced degrees. In short, I am making in an entry level position in my new career what a teacher in Miami would make after about 15-20 years, depending on degrees attained and whether or not the salary schedule has been frozen for x number of years while the legislature chooses not to fund education and to require districts to spend salary money on new tests and test prep materials, most involving unnecessary computers.
Get out. Out, out, out!!!
I have to say, I don’t understand all of the constant whining by some teachers. If you don’t like the job, then quit. I was a scientist working in a lab and I woke up one day and decided that I hated lab work with a passion. So I quit! And I got an entry-level job doing marketing, and worked my way up, slowly but surely.
I guess what I am asking is what makes teaching so different from any other profession, in terms of starting over? (I don’t intend for this for the comment to sound mean, so please don’t take it that way.)
Ann, I agree. Having done it recently myself, I do understand that it can be really discouraging when you first start thinking what else you can do, especially if teaching is the only professional experience you have and all the more so if your degree is in education. However, it is definitely possible–but, as you say, you do have to be willing to start at an entry level position and work your way up, which, depending on the new job and the location, could mean a pay cut, at least initially. If you want out of teaching, just suck it up and do it. If you aren’t willing to start over again from scratch, then I guess just suck it up and make yourself love teaching. After all, someone’s gotta do it…
I am in my first year of teaching in the Bronx, NYC. I teach high school. Honestly, it’s not nearly as terrible as you think (behavior and student-wise): all my kids are fairly well-behaved, motivated (mostly), and like learning. They are ELLs.
The problem is the administration. My principal is recently divorced and is bitter towards everyone. She’s given everyone U’s on the 2nd formal observations. She despises me and has not even me any usable feedback. I get no compliments and all I get is the usual speech: “Your lessons are a hot mess and you have no right to justify/defend yourself in front of me.” I don’t trust my colleagues because they are all scared of her. There’s no community at my school.
The only reason why I come to school everyday is the kids. Not the checklists, differentiation, rubrics, or rigor. Certainly not because I love being told that because of Danielson’s rubric I am an “Underdeveloped” pedagogue. I adore my students and I know I’m lucky to have kids who are great (there are 6 of them who I wish I could give a year-long suspension to but rest of the lot aren’t bad at all). I’m afraid if I tranfer to a different school the kids AND the admin will be TERRIBLE. Should I stay in my school or should I try to transfer out in June?
Dear 1st Year Bronx Teacher:
Great question. My first reaction, since this is your first year teaching, is that you should stay put for another year. By next year you will have figured out some important things and you’ll know what to get ready for over the summer. It may very well still be terrible next year. But starting over at a new school, just when you’re starting to figure this one out, is it’s own mess of stress that maybe you don’t want to put yourself through two years in a row if you don’t have to. By sometime mid next year, ten or eleven months from now, you’ll really know for sure if this place isn’t going to work out for you. Then you can get your exit strategy together. Use the time between now and then to find a handful of schools you think could be better for you. (Here is the South Bronx School blog.) Find out what you can about the students and how the admin works. Find out the teacher turnover rate for the last three years. (If the principal is real dodgy about answering this simple question, run away.)
Don’t stay there more than two years if you really hate it. And don’t let yourself randomly land in some other place you didn’t pick and don’t want to be in.
Mr. Teachbad