Sad. And true. I don’t know what it was like for teachers from previous generations. I know that it doesn’t help to compare what we went through when we were kids with what kids are going through right now. You can’t unring that bell, you got to play with the team you’ve been given and that’s what I tried to do for 28 years.
I’m not leaving teaching because “kids are so much worse than they’ve ever been,” or anything like that. If I knew that I have many more years and that I would get the time to explore all of the things that I’ve been working towards, then I might have considered delaying leaving teaching for another year. You see, every challenge I faced this year, every unit I taught or every robotics issue that I figure out, my natural inclination was to store that information away so that I could do it better next time. That’s what you do, you work the problem until you find a better way to do it next time. Before I got laid off from my teaching job at Full Sail University in 2014 I had no intention to ever retire from this profession. I thought I’d just plug away until I died at my desk.
Getting a serious illness in 2012 and then getting laid off in 2014 and then surviving the pandemic, that made me think twice about my previous plan to never quit teaching. Most people, it takes one wake up call. I apparently required three “unscheduled deceleration events” to decide that whatever it is that I want to do beyond teaching, I need to do now because I’m running out of runway (sorry for the series of mixed metaphors…).
After five seasons, I love this part of Midge’s final stand-up set:
They say that ambition is an unattractive trait in a woman. Maybe. But you know what’s really unattractive? Waiting around for something to happen. Staring out a window thinking the life you should be living is out there somewhere, but not being willing to open the door and go get it. Even if someone tells you you can’t. Being a coward is only cute in the Wizard of Oz.
Midge’s Late Night TV Set Finale | The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
So, after at least three “warning shots” or wake-up calls or whatever, I am, again just another statistic, as I join the large number of former teachers looking for work. Unlike the person in the video above, I don’t see this as a downgrade as much as a next step. In my case, it’s time that I finally do something with my degree in Journalism and see where that takes. I’m done and I’m looking forward to what might come next. Enjoy, take inspiration from the sentiments expressed in Midge’s set:
