Why I Moved On…and Left My Career
Last November 2016 when I took my first medical leave, I spent several hours a day browsing and reading articles on topics of teachers: leaving, quitting, burnout, living with anxiety and depression and other topics. While reading I reflected about the core of my problems with my career. I knew that the core of the issue was a deep dark place burning with anger and resentment. I made notes about my reflections and came up with a list of issues that brought me to the decision to “move on.”
One of the first things I read was in reference to “teacher burnout.” I knew what I was experiencing was much more than burnout. I come across a specific definition of the word “burnout” that I felt hit some of those dark deep angry places at the core of my issues.
Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest or motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place.
Burnout reduces productivity and saps your energy, leaving you feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful. Eventually, you may feel like you have nothing more to give.
Well, that described me perfectly. I remember 20 years ago, when I used to feel like a great teacher; I would go home and feel like a success! Now, after all these years, it was just the opposite. The job made me feel inadequate, defeated, and quite frankly, a failure. I realized that I reached a juncture of “compassion and empathy fatigue.” I had no energy to pursue interests and developed a VERY cynical nature about most everything to do with my career. Then this bitterness began to spill over into my general view of life.
So, here’s why “I moved on…”
v I moved on because of the ever-increasing role/control of government bureaucracy which induced the loss of teacher judgment/trust and autonomy.
v I moved on because my best was NEVER going to be good enough any longer!
v I moved on because a test score/reading level/color (green, yellow, or red) took priority over a living, breathing human …the student (a child is not a number, a letter or a color code).
v I moved on because I could not work under the constant pressure of teaching a curriculum at a rapid pace to make a deadline so that someone can use the data to inform me of “something.”
v I moved on because I was expected to cover every objective by the end of the year, when Literacy assessments (given one-on-one) took away at least 2.5 weeks of literacy instruction 3 times a year. (That’s almost an entire grading period sacrificed all in the name of assessing, which would give me “all the answers” I needed to guide my instruction.)
v I moved on because I wanted to have a positive impact on learning, which cannot be accurately measured through a test score.
v I moved on because professional judgment was essentially a thing of the past, it was all about the DATA, DATA, DATA…you ONLY made decisions based on the DATA!
v I moved on because I wanted to be treated and respected as a true professional.
v I moved on because I was no longer a teacher, but someone who had been given a job that was inhumane…physically impossible to complete.
v I moved on because of the overuse of assessments, no matter the name they are given or how “research based” they are.
v I moved on because we have created students who see reading as a test and not a pathway to learning.
v I moved on because I cannot assess students more than I teach.
v I moved on because I no longer wanted to participate in a framework that began the process of pitting teachers against one another.
v Finally, I moved on because I value my mental and physical health over a job. You will hear many voices telling you to prioritize your work (or more accurately, your students’ test scores) but it will be far less often that you hear the message to prioritize your health and well-being.
v Oh…one more…I moved on because collaborating for an hour each week (a requirement)…NEVER EVER made me a better teacher! That is in addition to other endless mind numbing meetings I had to endure. This last statement my friend is called “Educational Blasphemy.”
by : Jamie Strickland
