One of the first blog posts I ever published was called August doesn’t suck anymore! In it, I talked about all of the reasons I was excited to quit the teaching profession. Among them, was the fact that I wouldn’t dread August anymore because I wouldn’t have to go from not being tied to any schedule for a few months to being required to be in the same places at the same times five days a week, and then continuing to work on planning and grading in the evenings and on weekends to even stay close to being caught up. I was glad to leave teaching at that point. I was really glad. And I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t grateful to not be teaching in March of 2020, or through the 2020-2021 school year, because I know it was incredibly hard for my friends and family members who are still working in schools to figure out how to go virtual while still maintaining integrity and relevance in their classes. But now, after three years working in a public library, I’m ready to jump back into public schools, though this time in a different position.
I knew I would miss kids when I quit teaching, but I figured that the new job I got working at the library would still allow me to work with kids some. And it did, occasionally. But for the most part, I was working with adults, and I missed kids even more than I thought I would. A couple of months ago I went to a high school musical that my niece was in, and standing outside the auditorium while high school kids were just being squirrelly high school kids after the show felt so right…and I didn’t even know those kids. That was kind of a turning point for me. I realized that I really do still want to work with kids, and that it wasn’t just the excessive amounts of time I spent on work during the school year that made teaching too much for me–a big part of my discontent was what I was teaching. I didn’t become a Spanish teacher because I loved Spanish. I mean, I liked Spanish–I still do. It was more that I knew I wanted to work with kids, decided I should be a teacher, couldn’t decide what I wanted to teach, and had been pursuing a Spanish minor because I did like Spanish, so I just decided to teach Spanish so I wouldn’t have to be in college forever.
I did enjoy teaching Spanish sometimes. But, to be honest, I never really felt fluent enough to teach it. I always kind of felt like a fraud because, although my accent was decent, I got anxious when speaking with native or heritage speakers, afraid I was going to use the wrong verb tense or not be able to come up the the vocabulary I wanted to use. And I always meant to do better–to spend time watching TV shows or movies in Spanish, or to find people to practice speaking with, but I was already spending so much of my waking life thinking about Spanish, I wanted to spend the rest of my time on my many other varied interests. It was also pretty disheartening to teach something that a lot of kids had no interest in. And I know–a good teacher can make any topic interesting, but I was burned out, and my heart definitely wasn’t in it those last few years. And the kids knew it–I still feel bad about that. So, it was a variety of things that led to me knowing I needed to quit teaching, but the main reasons were that I spent so much time focusing on one thing, felt guilty about not spending even more time on it, and wasn’t passionate enough about it to be as good at it as I could have been.
I did consider getting a different endorsement so I could teach something other than Spanish, but I was pretty sure that teaching any other one thing would feel just as limiting for me. So eventually, I decided I just wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. But that was hard for me to accept. Being a teacher had become part of my identity, and the camaraderie with others working in schools was something I missed dearly. A teacher friend of mine and I were talking once and agreed that teaching part time would probably be ideal. It would give us time to keep up with planning and grading so we could really do our jobs well. But I was still burned out on Spanish, and I didn’t think part-time teaching would bring in enough money for me to support myself. But, in the last few years things have changed a little. I’m in a different financial position now, and I finally figured out where I might actually fit.
I don’t think I would ever be content doing one thing 40+ hours a week for 40 years. But what I discovered while working at the library is that a few passions of mine are books, reading, working with kids, and learning about all different kinds of things. And, as sad as I am to leave the public library (tomorrow is my last day there), I’m excited to report that later this week I’ll start my new job as a (part time) Teacher Librarian for a relatively small school district in my area. This position requires a Master’s, so I’ll also be starting grad school this fall. I’m a little terrified because I don’t know at all what I’m doing yet, but I have so many ideas, and I can’t wait to dive in! And, even though I know that going back into public schools won’t be easy, I think the combination of me being excited about what I’m going to be doing and only doing it part time, will mean that the beginning of August still won’t feel like one perpetual Sunday night. And I’m thrilled to be starting a graduate program in something I can’t wait to learn about. Here’s to new horizons!
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