new SAHM mom after many years teaching. I felt super weird at the end of August when all my friends were going back to school, I thought I would miss it, and I did, for about a week. Now I can't imagine teaching and then coming home to take care of LO. Teaching is so demanding, I had work to at home almost every. single. day. The pay for the workload is just not sufficient. When I do eventually go back, I am hoping to get something part time.

I'm a teacher in a Title One school and it is incredibly stressful. I love, love, love the kids but it is everything else that makes me crazy. Admins and their bosses seem to take advantage of the fact that most teachers have helping, giving personalities. We are constantly being asked to give more (the children need after school clubs and sports, the children need books, the children need tutoring, the children need supplies, etc). This is where the burn out occurs. I come home and I am dead tired and I have my own child who needs me. They take up our precious planning time with stupid data meetings so that forces me to do most of my grading and planning after school. Higher ups who don't really know what they are talking about make policies that don't work in our situation. We are pawns and we are often treated like children. Speaking of children, so many of them come to school undisciplined and not ready. One mom walks her tall kindergarten student to the door every morning, has a temper tantrum when she has to drop her at the door (the mom has the temper tantrum) and then expects us to carry her daughter who starts with her own temper tantrum. "Just pick her up!" she screams at us. The kid kicked my assistant principal in the face last week. Most of the kids are great and I just feel sorry that they were born to such disaster areas for parents. If I didn't get the summer off, I couldn't do this job.

I taught for a few years and got the hell out for the same reasons as PPs, plus the fact that I was drinking too much to cope with the stress of working in a high poverty school.

Now, like some PPs, I make much better money aNd have flexibility. DH is an educator and works 50% more than I do for more than 50% less. Any rational person would leave like I did. Good thing we have people that choose the profession for less than rational reasons.

I have much respect for teachers.

My children know I will not pay for their college tuition if they enter the field, and sadly, my son would make a fantastic science teacher for many reasons.

two teacher HH, btw

But they know better. In fact, I only know of one two-teacher HH where the child entered teaching - and that's only b/c his parents were both big wigs in the system. He grew up w/o hearing about the hardships of actually being on the front lines.

He'll learn - and quickly, I imagine.

At least 12 summatives per quarter because teachers are so terrified of giving out low grades.

Retired MATH teacher here. Teaching when I first started was a profession- you were respected by admin, parents & kids. 30 years ago, when I called a home, a parent would say, "I'm sorry. I'll make sure he/she doesn't behave that way. Thank you for calling me" . Behavior issues were extremely rare. Now, if I call a parent, I am just as likely to hear "he/she must have had a good reason to do that" (this is from the parent of a child who "borrowed" my flash drive that was on my key chain as I was helping another student) or "is homework REALLY necessary? Could you accept it late/give him another chance/extra credit?" Or "can't she write a report or do a poster so she can get the 90, so she can make the Honor Roll" (no, poster skills will not help with the SAT). Or "I don't know why she doesn't listen or do homework. I don't know what to do", as I see the 14 year old with bleached blonde hair, fake nails and the latest iphone. Of course, luckily not all students/parents are like this but when I didn't feel enthusiastic for the first day of school anymore, I knew it was time to get out.

Anonymous wrote:I love teaching.......I really do.
But, things that are pushing me over the edge:
-The hours (there is enough discussion about this in another thread)
-Using up all my patience and energy to help other people's children. When I get home, I have little left for my own kids.
-The stress-I work way more than I should, but it's never enough to really be fully prepared for every subject, differentiation, parent communication, entering data, trying to meet the individual needs of students and their families, etc. I'm constantly playing catch up or having to wing-it for one of my lessons. Plus just the stress of the job itself--having to be "on" every minute.
-Unrealistic expectations (such as last week when we were told we should already have differentiation up and running in the second week of school. We're still trying to gather assessment data, establish routines, and get to know our students, so I'm not sure what kind of differentation our administration is hoping for.)

I've struggled with this one for sure.

Anonymous wrote:I love teaching.......I really do.
But, things that are pushing me over the edge:
-The hours (there is enough discussion about this in another thread)
-Using up all my patience and energy to help other people's children. When I get home, I have little left for my own kids.
-The stress-I work way more than I should, but it's never enough to really be fully prepared for every subject, differentiation, parent communication, entering data, trying to meet the individual needs of students and their families, etc. I'm constantly playing catch up or having to wing-it for one of my lessons. Plus just the stress of the job itself--having to be "on" every minute.
-Unrealistic expectations (such as last week when we were told we should already have differentiation up and running in the second week of school. We're still trying to gather assessment data, establish routines, and get to know our students, so I'm not sure what kind of differentiation our administration is hoping for.)

*differentiation

Also, I didn't mention pay, because I recently got a very nice raise by switching counties. My husband makes twice what I do, and he has a lot of flexibility. This helps the financial part to not be as big of a deciding factor.

I love teaching.......I really do.
But, things that are pushing me over the edge:
-The hours (there is enough discussion about this in another thread)
-Using up all my patience and energy to help other people's children. When I get home, I have little left for my own kids.
-The stress-I work way more than I should, but it's never enough to really be fully prepared for every subject, differentiation, parent communication, entering data, trying to meet the individual needs of students and their families, etc. I'm constantly playing catch up or having to wing-it for one of my lessons. Plus just the stress of the job itself--having to be "on" every minute.
-Unrealistic expectations (such as last week when we were told we should already have differentiation up and running in the second week of school. We're still trying to gather assessment data, establish routines, and get to know our students, so I'm not sure what kind of differentation our administration is hoping for.)

I left because standardized testing ruined the job. I think it's important to have accountability, but the standards weren't even aligned to the tests at first; you can only test for certain strengths via a bubble test which meant that schools were disincentivized to teach/address all the other areas of intelligence & social/emotional intelligence that also greatly matter. I also really disliked the amount of CYA paperwork I had to do in DC, as compared to the amount I had to do in California (my paperwork doubled moving east). I was an English teacher, so on top of my 7-hour workday I had to prepare my classes (minimum 1 hr) and then do all of my grading (for 150 kids, so just multiply however long each assignment took to grade -- let's call it 5 min per paper, which is a low estimate -- that would be 12+ hours of grading. I didn't feel like I could really have kids writing as much as they would need to be writing (secondary school) to learn with that # of students. Finally, although this wasn't the reason I left teaching, as another PP has noted, I make more $ in my current nonprofit job, have a flexible schedule, can telecommute, and don't have to be at work at 6:30-7am. Like another PP, I didn't think that lifestyle was compatible with raising my own family.

If I leave teaching it will be because of:

-Long long hours. I work more than anyone else I know in other fields.
-Dealing with hard-to-deal-with parents
-A lack of recognition or support
-Being treated like a child instead of a professional

I felt like I gave 150% to my teaching career...long hours, lots of stress, lesson plans and troubleshooting issues with kids/parents always consuming my thoughts etc.. When I got pregnant, I honestly didn't see how I could be a good mom/wife and carry on at the same pace. There was a lot that I loved about my job and with extra curricular activities added on, I was making a respectable salary, but now that I'm a SAHM, I can honestly say that I do not miss the job primarily because of the stress. I was a teacher for over a decade in both public and private school and likely will not go back into the classroom when I decide to re-enter the workforce.

As a person who has worked for non-profits and gov't contractors I have been on the outside and I observe the following:

- Teachers are the scapegoat for everything, such as poor parenting, yet they are paid abysmally low.

- Long hours outside of contract with everything being made to sound like an requirement "because Administration" "because the School Board" "because the VA Assembly" - passing down all kinds of unfunded mandates.

- I can earn 2x as much and relax in a cubicle and not fear being ostracized on Facebook for a random comment I wrote on a student's paper.

- I can take a day off without having to spend inordinate amount of time on sub plans.

- The hours I work amount to a regular job with 1/2 the pay in this area, so it makes perfect sense. There are plenty of jobs in my field. I guess I'll go back, lol.

- I feel respected by my peers and my clients.

- I can have a flex schedule. Not so in teaching.

- I can telecommute

Those are just some...

See the thread in the Schools and Education forum.The answers are all in there.

Per a news article, teaching school enrollment continues to drop year after year in most parts of the country. If you're considering leaving teaching or if you already left it, what's pushing you (or pushed you) over the edge?