Why Most Resourceful Educators Leave Classrooms.
The decision about staying in or leaving the teaching job is taken by 80% of educators within the first five years of teaching. Five years seem like a lifetime to me. I was done with school already after my first year as a new teacher.
“It was hard” – cannot describe the emotional and physical imbalance I found myself in. And now, going into my fourth year, I’m trying to rationalize decisions and figure out what the comfort place in education looks like for me, or it’s just a myth.
“This is the time to try different positions and grade levels,” – veteran teachers say. “You are still a fresh teacher, not rooted, no strings attached. Just explore and find what makes you happy” – they say.
I think I get it. That’s a piece of good advice.
Giving myself time to explore is an excellent way to masquerade “I-have-no-idea-what-I-want” status quo. But that’s ok, too. No one is perfect.
My exploration path brought me closer to great educators whose ideas and products support and encourage thousands of teachers. It’s online PDs and courses from which I’ve learned much more within the three years than at any local school PD I attended.
The one thing I’ve always been skeptical about is educational professionals lecturing or offering advice while they are no longer in a classroom. This has been my pet peeve for quite a long time.
I remember my first year PD and that principal who opened the session with “I was not the best teacher…” I checked out the next minute and could not digest his explanation of smart SGO writing.
I remember conversations with some school administrators who attempted to give advice, but who stepped out of the classroom a decade or more ago. If every new school year students and trends vary, why would anyone think the tricks that worked in the classroom ten years ago will work for the current student generation? I don’t think so…
And that’s why I switched to the Internet to connect to teachers who would inspire me no matter what. I encountered some names, and I’m a dedicated follower of many of them. What ignited my interest in their personality and work is the similarity in the life story that I always suspected to exist but just wanted the reassurance of it.
Some educators that I listen to, read and admire have one thing in common. Guess what it is…
Nope, that’s not just experience. And it’s not high qualifications.
Nope, nope, nope…
It’s that….they all left the classroom.
Yep, all of them don’t work in a classroom anymore. They left!
Hey, what about your skepticism then?
Wait, hear me out! Do you remember we talked about the possibility or impossibility of combining teaching and balanced life in general? Do you remember my Hamlet’s quest to be or not to be a teacher?
I pondered the issue of whether teaching can be compatible with my lifestyle so many times. And whenever I discovered for myself significant figures of educators online that I wanted to be like, the existential question would always come up, “How can they be so versatile, prolific and still be in a classroom every day at 7:40?”
And I was right. The most resourceful personalities I’m following are not in classrooms anymore. So what’s their story?
I dug into their lives and found a very logical answer, the one I was pretty much expecting: there is no way to combine teaching and “normal” life if you want to do something beyond or dedicate yourself to a big project.
There is no way one can be efficient in personal or business or educational ventures if you are still a full-time employee at a public school district. If there is a calling to do something more, there will be a decision to leave the classroom. And they did, at least the ones I follow.
“I could not imagine myself being in a classroom for 5 days teaching and then come home and do what I am passionate about. I would never be able to do what I do if I stayed working as a teacher,” – these are the common thread in the stories of new edupreneurs.
And this I think proved another point: a classroom is not the only place educators can work in. There is much more to being an educator than just be a classroom teacher.
Many teachers turn their passion into 6 figure businesses and coaching, and that’s what excites me most. Let me introduce you to some of them:
Angela Watson delves into the reasons of quitting her a teaching job in her article “Why I quit my teaching job mid-year (no, it wasn’t the testing).” She opens up about just “managing the classroom,” “maintaining some sense of order,” but not teaching. After leaving the classroom, Angela pored her creativity and passion for education into multiple projects that now support and inspire thousands of educators.
To me, she is cool entrepreneur-teacher making smart moves with great heart and desire to change things.
Jennifer Gonzalez mentioned her decision to not to go back to teaching in one of the podcast episodes. For her, creating what she is doing now with her Cult of Pedagogy blog was not compatible with staying in a classroom full time and being a productive teacher.
It was also a choice created by the desired to go beyond to create something that was not possible while living a regular teacher routine.
I admire Jennifer for her in-depth Podcasts episodes, applicable tips, great questions, high-quality resources she creates on TpT.
I discovered Kayse Morris on Instagram. Her post on Instagram was one of those sponsored posts that I usually ignore, but this time, she was talking about me.
She mentioned teachers and them not making money equal to the value we provide, and it resonated. I took her free webinar, listened to the story of leaving the classroom and ultimately creating a very profitable business that brings her triple or even more of her teacher’s salary.
What I love most about Kayse is her messages that are honest and are sure to echo with any educator. She is also very determined, success-oriented, and bad-ass inspiring.
Jen Regan was featured in the USA Today article of July 1, 2019 “How former teachers are making $100,000 or more, and you can too.” Regan left her full-time teaching job to spend more time with her family. By this moment she had already developed a side hustle that made up for the teacher’s salary and more. She rocks TpT as well.
Julie Bochese decided to not go back to the classroom when she got pregnant in 2015. She already had her business developing selling Common Core-based lesson plans on TpT.
Julie definitely puts in more hours to her business than she would when working in a classroom, and yet it’s a business that she loves and that provided a hefty amount of financial support to her family.
April Smith, also mentioned in the USA Today article, approaches her business very professionally. She invests time into creating quality resources as well as marketing them online with the help of a professional photographer and a social media team.
I’m sure those stories are not exceptions. Hundreds of teachers are entering the realms of business using their knowledge, skills, and creativity to change their lives and inspire other educators.
What sticks with me about these stories is that teaching does not have to be confined to the classroom. Also, a degree in education does not lead to the only path of a classroom teacher.
Based on the examples, teachers are finding multiple venues of work to create their business empires and spread their influence. I think the best way to approach such stories is to drop skepticism and start believing that things can shift even for you.
Whether your reason can be to stay home with your children or to travel the world, you can shift your teaching from the classroom that is often limiting, stressful and time-consuming to new areas of online education, coaching, content creation, course creation.
The sky is the limit, and that’s promising to me.
Don’t forget to take care of yourself!
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