In the midst of summer break, I wanted to take some time to discuss the number of teachers who are leaving the profession as a whole. There is a mass exodus of teachers who are retiring early or leaving positions due to the work load, the toll of the past school year, and the general atmosphere that is education in the current social and political state. It is also now the norm when I run into people I haven’t seen in awhile to ask me: “Are you even returning in the fall?” The assumption is I would run from the experiences of the past 2020-2021 school year. The prediction is that I would leave teaching, and if I said that I wouldn’t be returning in the fall, I would be met with an all-knowing look of “i get it.” I acknowledge that the teaching and education job culture and climate has reached a critical mass of unrealistic expectations that are demeaning and unhealthy. However, this isn’t the first time many of us have contemplated leaving the field of education.

The idea of leaving teaching is one that I have spoken extensively about on the blog for many years. The first post sparked many of the other posts that really got my blog going back in 2017. I spoke about the paper load and the time spent outside of the classroom on teaching-related tasks. The second main one addresses why I stayed teaching for over 10 years (at the time of the post publishing) and continued to come back each year. I said in that post: “I hate the amount of paper and workload we have, the criticism that teachers face, the growing pressure to “fix” the achievement gap, standardized testing, stress and stress eating, the absurdity of sub plans, and the growing anxiety we feel related to work.” This was before the pandemic happened and virtual learning took place.

The post is titled "The Reason I Would Leave Teaching" because the reason I am going to discuss is the only and main reason I would ever consider getting a different profession. I could easily go to nonprofit work or even sit behind a desk. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to pee whenever I wanted to or to be able to go on a lunch hour to a spot "around the corner." These are luxuries that teachers don't have. And many reasons that teachers leave do not involve my main reason for contemplating leaving. In fact, I am in love with classroom management. I love tough kids. I see many teachers leave the profession because they are not getting the support when it comes to classroom management or organization. I also see teachers leave due to pay, working conditions, lack of supplies, lack of support from administration, class sizes, etc. Eddie B Comedy offers some amazing jokes about teacher issues and the Michigan Education Association wrote a pretty great article titled "The Disappearing Educator." I often give this article to interns to make sure they know what they are getting into in terms of this profession.