Why I quit teaching during my first year 👩🏻‍🏫 last week of school vlog | high school history teacher

Описание: A very vulnerable video.. please watch with care. Thank you. Sending love to you all.

For a timeline of my teaching journey: https://www.katrinastacie.com/teachin...

Time stamps:
0:00 My thoughts/why I quit (basically I'll vocally speak out what is written below)
10:22 Last week of school vlog

After months of consideration and reflection, I came to the very difficult decision to leave my teaching job. 😔 I know I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but as Ryan says, “the desire to tell people makes sense on many levels for [me],” so here I am.

It is actually impossible to list out all the reasons and mental gymnastics that led me to this decision, so I won’t attempt to do it here, but I ultimately came to the conclusion that if I were truly trying to live by my 2022 words (happiness, boundaries, me), I could not stay (or as my colleague helped me reframe, I /could/ stay and I /could/ make it to the end of the year.. but at what cost?).

I did not have the capacity to give my students the second semester they deserved. I was completely out of fuel and had nothing left in my cup to pour. All the reasons I had to stay were driven by guilt, fear, and external and internal pressures. But it felt so terrifying and it was so difficult to feel like this was the right decision. I knew that this decision would come with a myriad of emotions—both positive and negative—, an identity crisis, uncertainty, judgment, instability, and above all, I feared my own self-disappointment. This is what I’ve been dreaming about since I was a little girl. But I had a scary realization: I spent my entire life working towards this, and when I finally got here, this is when I felt the least like myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching. I love my students. I love learning with them and supporting them, and I already miss them so so much. But the teaching profession doesn’t love me (us) back. There were many positives and moments of joy, but I quickly learned that they weren’t sustaining me because the job is inherently unsustainable. Even when things got easier (but nowhere near easy), the workload was never-ending and took up so much of my mental real estate. I didn’t have the energy to truly pour into myself or my loved ones, and no longer had the time to do things that I enjoyed. Even when I set more boundaries around my time and adjusted my expectations for myself, I couldn’t feel much joy during my times of “rest” because all I could think about was the work I needed to do to feel like I could have my head above water in the classroom the next day. I was filled with dread and I was no longer in a place where I could give to my students as I had absolutely zero motivation to think about/begin planning for second semester.

I resigned last Tuesday and my last day was on Friday. This past week has been filled with so many mixed emotions, but I could not have imagined a more positive exit. For that, I am forever grateful for the incredible support I’ve received from my colleagues and admin, my loved ones, and most importantly, my students. ❤️ I didn’t get to tell my students in person due to asynchronous learning last week, but once I posted my video and message announcing my leave, they began flooding me with emails and messages of love, support, understanding, and gratitude. 😭 They reassured me that although they would miss me, they were so proud of me for doing what was best for me. My heart is both so full and broken. In my ideal world, I would have been able to take care of myself and finish out the year with them all.

Part of me wants to try again one day and continue growing and making an impact in the classroom, but I’m honestly not sure if I can ever see myself wanting that lifestyle again. I don’t really know right now and my emotions have been all over the place… and I think I’m okay with that for now. A lesson I’ve learned this year is that we can know one thing is true and still hold conflicting feelings. I can know that being a teacher is not limited to being in the classroom and I can know that teaching /is/ not and /should/ not be my identity… and still find myself grieving this “loss” and current departure from the classroom. I can hold all these conflicting thoughts and feelings and not be looking to rectify or alleviate myself from them in this instance. But what I do know is that for the first time in six months, I woke up on Saturday and didn’t feel stress and dread loom over me. I felt a sense of peace and hope, and I felt so proud for having the courage to put myself first.

Love,
Katrina
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Music by Laura Zocca - Never In Love - https://thmatc.co/?l=393A701C
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IG:   / katrinastacie