On what would have been my last day of school this year I wanted to share about the pressure cooker that finally popped. The one that made me leave the classroom. Today is a weird day for me knowing that I would have been saying goodbye to this group of students that I started with in August to send them onto the next adventure life had in store for them in their summer and next grade level. It's odd for me because I didn't finish something I started and throughout my whole life I have been about finishing things I start, even if at times it has felt tumultuous to do so but this time I couldn't do it and I've had to admit that in a way that at first felt defeating and now feels empowering, while still feeling a bit uncomfortable in this new found power.
When I made the decision to leave my dear students, a world I had loved for the last six years and honestly a world I had wanted to be a part of for my entire academic career, I found it unbelievably hard yet essential to my well being. I wanted so badly to finish what I had started, to be a part of the winding path that a school year takes, none the less a school year following pandemic pitfalls, public scrutiny and continued pressures on educators from paraprofessionals right on through the highest of administrators. I wanted to be there for it, I wanted to make a change, to help education grow, change, and become sustainable in a way I previously had known, but it wasn't meant to be. Put simply. I couldn't do it. I had to wave the white flag.
The pressure cooker of the last few years filled with the pandemic fears, glories, challenges, and shifts on top of the political angst that has entered the stratosphere of education and the concerns of safety for children and teachers within our schools finally popped for me. I no longer could continue to subject myself to the stress, pressure and mental health pit fall that really began rolling during the pandemic and hasn't stopped since. Education always has had its challenges and public and political pressures, I knew that going into it. What I didn't know is how the pandemic and heightened political aspects were going to take a career that I loved, time with children I loved, and turn it into a circus of angry parents, students with needs that schools didn't have resources to provide, particularly following almost a year away from a school building and the structure of school, and the substitute and staffing shortage that continues to ravage our school systems. It is not what any educator signed up for. I can tell you this, I have a feeling most educators, whether they want to admit it or not can relate to this pressure cooker in ways three or four years ago we never could have imagined. And no, educators don't want to hear about self care, about taking care of themselves with a spa day or doing something special.
They want to be paid for the work they do, they wanted to be respected for the degrees they have and the continuing education they continue to be a part of for their whole career, they want to feel safe in schools and feel as though they can teach without fearing for their students or their own safety, they want to be trusted that they know how to teach and how to help children grow because of all of the learning they have done, they want to teach children and work jointly with parents to make the best case scenario for your child, they want resources to help them work with students who excel, struggle, or need support with mental health, emotional regulation, or support for families who have fallen on a hard time. Teachers want the best for kids, the best for families and the communities they serve!
So on what would have been my last school here is what I want to say to educators. Summer is here for you, or will be shortly. Go enjoy it. Pack up your classroom and leave it all at school until it is time to go back, don't think about next years roster or bulletin boards you want to do. Spend the summer with your family. Spend the summer sleeping and watching trashy tv with a tub of ice cream in your lap. Go enjoy the vacation you have planned. Go love on the people around you that you've been wanting to go see but haven't felt you had the time or energy for. Enjoy your comfy clothing, your coffee that isn't cold or your iced coffee that isn't watered down. Enjoy going to the bathroom when you feel the need to go and not worrying about how long it will be till your teacher friend across the hallway can watch your students or your class go to lunch or specials. Spend time with your own children instead of going to after school meetings or worrying about grading. Learn something you want to spend time learning, school related or not. Do what makes you happy. Spend your summer recharging so if you make the choice to go back into the pressure cooker again next year you can give the best you to your students because they deserve it. Our students didn't create the pressure cooker but sadly that are put in it too. If you are a teacher who is working this summer, find joy in what you are doing, even if its teaching. Find joy by trying something new or trying that lesson or activity you were always too tired or too scared would go wrong during the year, sometimes that refuels you too!
Whatever refuels you, whatever gives you life, go do it. You deserve it because you educators of the world, YOU are changing children lives each day, even when it feels like the pressure cooker is about to pop.
As for me, I will sit here today and think about my students. I will think about the triumphs they had over the part of this school year I was in the classroom with them and I will think of all the things I missed with them, things I truly was excited about. I will think of them and their closing chapter as they open the next. I will think of how my leaving the classroom has encouraged growth in myself and how finally putting myself first has changed the very way I function forever because I have now taken back the power and am letting off the steam so I hopefully someday can join the ranks of the educators of the world again in some capacity because truly what I love is kids. I love teaching and knowing them. I love taking the winding path of a school year with them and celebrating the triumphs and working even harder on the challenges. I love seeing kids grow, change, and learn. After all it is what I am meant to do, even if I have to pause for just a little while to refuel, recharge, and let off some steam.
Happy (almost) summer!
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