Why Teachers Leave

Dear Bloggers,

This is the time of year when schools post their new positions, out of work teachers begin reaching out for references, we watch people leave for various reasons. Some just didn’t cut it, others were let go to the shock of their colleagues, many are off to bigger and better things. Why is teaching such a revolving door? Simply stated it’s a taxing career. We work tirelessly throughout the day, long past the time the students have left, into the weekends and on vacations. Our checklists are never-ending, and we hear thank you so infrequently that to some, it just isn’t worth it. We hear our peers tell us that we would make more money in the corporate sector as we watch our benefits and pension dwindle away. I can understand how people leave.

For many of us we came into this profession to help children. We have enjoyed the creative aspect of jazzing up boring concepts and making them interesting. The longer I’m teaching, the more changes I see. The more educators leave because their hands are tied and they can’t do what they really love to do… and that’s teach.

I used to teach in an elementary setting. My LLD class, grades k-3 earned rewards for a “fun Friday”. We would cook, make art projects, have some sort of party. To the outside, this may have looked like the special education class played all day, but my activities were carefully calculated for team building, math skills, literacy, and the all too important socialization aspect that many classrooms are missing.

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In February, we would have baseball day. I didn’t really like celebrating Valentine’s Day in an elementary classroom, but didn’t want my students to feel punished while all of the general education teachers had their parties. I remember how devastating it was to the child that didn’t receive the same amount of Valentine’s day cards as someone else. Or worse… knowing that they only received them because their teachers required a card be given to each student. So I transformed my classroom into a baseball field. We wore jerseys, played math and phonics baseball, read stories about baseball, and had baseball inspired cupcakes. The older students in third grade looked at statistics and wrote a persuasive essay on why a player or team was the best. They learned how they could carefully choose the right statistics to fit their argument. 

In March, I would higher one of my sisters to dress like the Cat in the Hat and we would make green eggs and ham. The more shy students, would bring a plate to teachers around the school and ask in rhyme if they would try them try them as “Alex-I-am”. They would then poll the teachers if they liked them, creating a bar graph in the hallway. The third graders practiced using quotation marks from various Dr. Seuss books, while the kindergartners refined tracing and cutting skills using patterns to create the characters that the older students wrote about. We practiced rhyming to develop fluency and phonemic awareness. Students did “book talks” practicing summarization and public speaking skills. They prepped for a week before this “fun Friday” took place.

October they made Halloween trees and wrote scary stories using the word lists the younger students created for them. These activities were carefully thought out and truly collaborative, and so much fun they didn’t realize how many academic skills were being taught and reinforced when they were taking part in their “fun Fridays”.

And then my principal retired. New administration put a stop to these activities. The food in my room was banned due to allergies… although, not one of my students had allergies and I always sent home permission slips. The push for more “formal” teaching took over and the fun was sucked out of my classroom, and the spark from my soul.

I left at the end of that year. I left the family I had grown to love after only four years, because I didn’t look forward to going into work anymore. I looked to return to middle school where I started my teaching career. I thought a job with older students would allow my creativity flag to fly once again. I was right, and I’m really glad I made that move, or I would have become a statistic… one of the teachers that didn’t make the ten year mark before leaving the profession.

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Many do not recognize when it’s time to part ways. Or some do, but the fear of leaving a job that they know, or tenure, or change in general keeps them where they are not happy. The result is often a burnt out unhappy person. Some resolve to work less or care less. That is not me.

Across the country throughout classrooms, the fun is being sucked out. Instruction came to a halt for state testing last year, not once but twice. There’s a push for data driven instruction - I get it, but it’s getting ridiculous. There are district benchmarks, SGOs, PARCC, pre and post assessments. When can we go back to teaching? We’re constantly assessing these children. Good teaching has assessments built in. But informal assessments no longer count. We need data and response to intervention. I get it, I really do, the theory behind it makes sense, but the application is sucking the life out of classrooms across the nation, for both students and teachers. Maybe it’s the special education training in me, but I’ve always taught like this. And I know my colleagues have too - we just may have not graphed and charted kids and assigned them numerical values.

Teachers are unable to prominently display their students" work on colorful bulletin boards without objectives and pre and post writing. It’s so monotonous that there isn’t enough time in the day to realistically change the boards as often as we used to.

Compiling files on students with data is taking us backwards in time. With plethora of technology available to us, I don’t understand why a digital portfolio isn’t sufficient. Students no longer do their prewriting on yellow lined paper and waste valuable instructional time drafting, rewriting, and revising on several different versions. Students use Google Docs to collaborate with one another and teachers confer with students using comments or suggestions. Why should we stray from time effective practices and motivating ways of teaching just to create a paper trail and justify our teaching?

As seasoned teachers, we’ve dedicated our education and lives to benefit our students. We watch new teachers leave all too often. I love my job, and I am so happy, but I still find myself discouraging loved-ones from entering the field. I’ve asked around, many other teachers do the same. It worries me what the future of our profession will look like.

Sincerely, 

The Frustrated Teacher