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Seven Weeks After Teaching
A good decision was made.
Seven weeks ago I left my secure teaching position and started a new job adventure. I had a really good spot in a district, did fairly well at the actual teaching part, and loved the people I worked with. I had a great administrator.
The problem? A lot of things that I won’t dwell on too much, because then it becomes whinging and whining, and that’s not what I want this to be.
Working 60+ hours a week sucks, especially when you don’t get paid for that time. I know many teachers who have a passion for teaching and all that comes with it, but even then, they put far too many hours into work than are fair. They live school all day, almost every day, searching out Pinterest themes for bulletin boards at all hours, designing virtual Bitmoji classrooms on the weekends, and crafting diverse, complex assignments to fit the highest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Those people are born teachers, but many of them are tired and overextended. I couldn’t do it anymore.
I love working and being useful, but I also want to leave work at work, during work hours. I resented, really resented, having to do work on what was supposed to be my own time and it was constant. I felt like I could never get out from under the weight of the never-ending papers-planning-staff meetings-content area PLC meetings-parent…
