How to Decide if Teaching Is Right for You

Hey, Teachers!

New teachers may be questioning whether teaching is the right profession and career for the long haul. Now more than ever, there are so many reasons to leave education. 💔 Teaching is a hard job no matter how many years you've been in the classroom.

How do you know if teaching is right for you?

How can you preserve your original desire to help kids?

How do you prevent becoming a statistic among increasing attrition rates?

The answers to these questions center on (a) why you became a teacher; and (b) if those reasons are powerful enough for you to stay.

Following is what to consider when asking yourself whether to become (or remain) a teacher.

1. Why did you become a teacher? The typical answers have traditionally been "to make a difference", "I love kids", "it's the one profession that affects all other industries", and so forth.

But why did you really choose this? 

That's an important question because everything you do in the classroom and how you integrate negativity on the job spring from your teacher self-image, the "why" behind your roles and relationships in public school.

And if you don't have support (which is most of us), your original, positive reasons for going into teaching are easily obliterated.

*The stress becomes overwhelming

*The devaluing experiencing becomes too painful

*The benefits or rewards aren't exceeding the deficits

If you became a teacher because you have a passion for others, you have a natural talent for nurture, you enjoy your subject area, you are excited to see learning and growth, you are enthusiastic as a person first, and then as a practitioner, you truly look forward to sharing ideas and concepts that help build strong relationships and lifelong learners, you are up for the challenge in meeting students where they are, see difficult students as opportunities, and at one point there was fulfillment in the work, then you may not be ready to abandon your job.

Good teachers, veteran teachers, and teachers who keep showing up for kids in the worst of conditions, most severe of limitations, and most challenging of circumstances are:

*motivated

*caring

*determined

*compassionate

*visionary

This doesn't mean there aren't hardships, years that are backbreaking, struggles with students, parents,  colleagues, administration, staff, curriculum, difficulty integrating mandates and policies, new procedures, feelings of low self-worth and exhaustion, confidence challenges, or positions that don't feel like the "right fit".

But veteran teachers who still love what they do are resilient. These teachers know how to see the storm coming, do better at predicting what's in that storm, and figure out ways to protect, self-preserve, and persevere before the storm destroys everything they've built as educators and envisioned is possible in education.

We stand on our personal teaching philosophies, whether penned, spoken, or just internalized.

To stay in this profession, you have to know the "why" behind your choice to be in a school. 

To stay in this profession, you must be ready to navigate tough terrain, cutthroat moves, and diminished hope in your collective circles.

To determine whether teaching is right for you, it can't be about your paycheck or feeling like there's nothing else you can do.

Staying a teacher is about a light you have deep down that shines for the students you serve. This light is who you are as a person, professional, teacher, advocate, and learner on and off-the-clock. 

 2. Are the reasons you chose to be a teacher powerful enough for you to stay? Often, new teachers are met with a stark and abrupt disconnect between ideals and reality. I was met with that 30 years ago as a young teacher when teaching was less rife with the insurgence of digitalism, increased safety threats, politics, and other challenges that reduce attractiveness going into the field in this day and age.

So, that's an important problem space to examine.

To determine whether you should become a teacher or stay in this profession, consider:

*Whether your ideals are clashing with reality

*How you can find harmony and balance between the two

*What your boundaries are (have you set them?)

*If you're enthusiastic or the system has become insurmountable and eclipsed your joy

*Whether you have the right mindset tools to cope with expected and unexpected obstacles

*How you're approaching the time factor, and what your responses and reactions are to negative stimuli and results

*What your non-negotiables are and if you've articulated those and communicated those with others

Quitting teaching is a personal and professional decision. And it's the right decision for some teachers. Some teachers do not enjoy teaching. Some teachers are not teachers. Some teachers are so beaten down that to preserve emotional well-being and find happiness again, finding a new profession is necessary.

But some teachers just need further introspection and stronger resiliency. Some teachers could never imagine doing anything else even in the harshest downpours.

The answer about whether teaching is right for you centers on where you stand as a teacher, what you can and can't accept, what your beliefs and values are, how motivated you are, and if helping others grow is more important than what the garden lacks to thrive on its own. 

If you see your classroom as a garden, if you believe in your students, if the teaching challenge isn't threatening your well-being to the point it's becoming a major dealbreaker, if you can be more objective about the hardships, devising a game plan for coping and recognizing that no school year is the same, and work with imposed structures that can't outshine your love for teaching and learning nor steal the supreme example you are and can be for kids, then you may decide to stay.

You may be that one teacher who changes the course of someone's life for the better. 

No policy, destructive force, or struggle has the last word.

We do. We're the stewards of our classrooms. Our students look to us for that leadership. It just depends on whether you want to be in that role, and what your heart's telling you to do.

Deep down, you'll know the answer. 💜