It's Been Awhile

It's been awhile since I've posted to this blog. Mostly because I'm not teaching Kindergarten anymore.  After a long year in which I could feel my fatigue building I decided to resign my position.  I love teaching and most importantly I loved teaching kindergarten.  The students are the best of everything.  Fresh, young, blank slates upon which the world will write.  They deserve a thousand percent from everyone, especially their teachers.  Every teacher during the year, (usually in the weeks right before Christmas break), has that moment when they are just so tired and frustrated they know they're not performing at their best, they are simply surviving.  But then you revive yourself and come back ready to give it your best. When that didn't happen for me I knew I'd reached a place I didn't want to be at, and more importantly, I didn't want my classroom to be at. So I did my best and finished the year strong but I didn't come back to the elementary classroom.  It was in my mind the right thing to do. But even as I was packing my last box I kept asking myself- can I exist without this job? How much would I miss it?  Turns out I miss it a lot, but I've relished the time to regroup, refuel and re-evaluate myself as a wife, teacher and person.

I've seen a lot of burnt out teachers.  I've seen a lot of teacher whose personal lives overshadow their professional lives.  Most become parents and juggling a family doesn't leave much inspiration for other peoples children.  It's understandable of course, that your personal life, your own family should come first. Wether you are a wife, sister, mother, all three and more, whatever you are to your family, they should be your first priority and you should never need to apologize for that.  But as teachers we should never forget that the children in our classroom should not suffer or do without quality of education because of our personal life. I left the classroom knowing I needed a change, however brief, however permanent, but I could not go on giving my best and being proud of my performance without walking away to regroup.

The next few posts I write will be about forays into the world of substitute teaching -(a not so magical place "tired teachers" go to make a little spending change)- and my adventures trying to find gainful employment as a teacher in a bad economy and in an state and subject area where what the expected qualifications would be are replaced by unexpected ones.  The world of education can be a beautiful place, but it can also be a ugly place with confusing expectations for teachers and students.  I've learned a lot. I think I'm ready to put these new tools in my tool box and take another shot at the classroom.