I messaged my guest writer for permission to post his words because I could have written chunks of his sad, retirement post. He is drowning in sympathetic responses right now from teachers who empathize with how he feels. He feels he failed. I would say you can’t fail if you can’t succeed. When the snowball in hell has better odds than you do, you cannot fail. No one can be held responsible for their inability to do a job that cannot be done.
I quit for many of the same reasons my guest writer did. So did friends I intend to meet for lunch next week. So do friends I know who plan to leave teaching this year.
Enough intro. Here’s one of the more heart-rending posts on teaching that I have read in awhile:
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Gonna be a long one…
So February 17, 2017 was the day I resigned after 22 years in the classroom. As a middle school teacher, union delegate, and all the other hats teachers wear, I walked away. Into what? I have no idea. Scary. But I just couldn’t do it anymore. Stressed out. Not finding success (as defined by test scores and the Framework for Teaching based on Charlotte Danielson). Constantly overwhelmed. Couldn’t differentiate all my lessons. Couldn’t find time to write 5 Common Core aligned unit plans every 5-6 weeks which elaborated how I was meeting the needs of my “diverse learners”, my tier 3, 2, and 1 MTSS groups, and how I was meeting the social and emotional needs of each student and addressing their individual learning styles. I struggled to integrate all the “powerful practices” such as “close reading” and “collaborative conversations” and “depth of knowledge” questioning. Just couldn’t keep up – “Writing About Reading”, “Universal Design for Learning”, “grit”, “growth mindset”, “agency”, “authority”, “mtss”, “differentiation”, graded papers with purposeful comments and feedback, “TRU Math”, “multiple means of representation”, Reach Performance Tasks, value-added scores, the Framework for Teaching and all the “critical attributes” to be evaluated as a “distinguished” educator. For example, “Teacher and students establish and implement standards of conduct. Students follow the standards of conduct and self-monitor their behaviors. Teacher’s monitoring of student behavior is subtle and preventive. Teacher uses positive framing to model and reinforce positive behavior for individual students. Teacher’s response to students’ inappropriate behavior is sensitive to individual student needs and respects students’ dignity.”
And “Tasks align with standards-based learning objectives and are tailored so virtually all students are intellectually engaged in challenging content. Tasks and text are complex and promote student engagement through inquiry and choice. Students contribute to the exploration of content. Teacher scaffolds and differentiates instruction so that all students access complex, grade-level, and/or developmentally appropriate text and/or tasks. The teacher’s pacing of the lesson is appropriate, and tasks are sequenced not only to build students’ depth of understanding, but also to require student reflection and synthesis of the learning. Teacher’s grouping of students is intentional and students serve as resources for each other to achieve mastery of the content/skills.”
I failed.
You don’t walk away from the classroom unscathed. I will be haunted by the students I wanted so deperately to reach and couldn’t. The students I wanted to save. The students I wanted to adopt. The days that I lost my temper. The days I wasn’t my best. The failures.
My wife once met a retired teacher at an exercise class and they started talking and my wife said, “My husband is a teacher” to which the retrired teacher responded without pause, “What’s he on?”. My wife laughed and the retired teacher looked her in the eye and repeated the question, “I mean it honey, what’s he on?” Well, let’s see…I am on alcohol and Lexapro and have seen a few therapists. And it has been a constant battle to try to be healthy.
Teaching consumes. And while the successes feel great, the failures haunt. And as they say on the plane, “Secure your own mask before helping others.” I guess I had to walk away and secure my own mask.
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Eduhonesty: The best teachers always care. They are always trying to save kids who often don’t care about saving themselves. They always feel bad when they tried their best to help their students and their best was not good enough. They feel bad when they wanted to try their best, but between grades, data spreadsheets and meetings, they somehow ended up so sleep-deprived that patience failed them, or they forgot their handouts in the copy room. So many, many details. So little time — and less time every year. So many superfluous, time-sucking details that are designed to help administrators instead of kids — like the six benchmark tests that stole many hours away from me during my last year teaching because my Principal wanted both AIMSWEBTM and MAPTM testing done so she could pick the best numbers to show to the state.
I have been messaging my guest writer to tell him how much I enjoy retirement. I hope he will enjoy his new life. I especially like the fact that I will never again spend 20% of a school year giving students obligatory, incomprehensible, Common Core-based tests and quizzes written by corporate outsiders 700 miles away — when I know I ought to be teaching those students reading, adding, subtraction, multiplication and division first.