Hi OP- i started to read through the responses to your post- but then felt like my head might explode.

I was a school counselor for 8 years. I loved most parts of my job (especially the kids) but I can totally relate to feeling like your strings are constantly being pulled. If I JUST had to be a school counselor I would have never left- but it became so much more and the job became a bad fit for me. I stayed at home when I had DD and then resigned from my position after a year.

It can be hard to reinvent yourself (I floundered for a couple of years). All of my education and experience was focused on school counseling and didn't translate easily into other careers. I finally found a great, small company that offered flexible hours and let me branch out into HR/recruiting and blogging/social media promotion.

Good luck to you, OP. While you are still working, research and network and see what options are open to you that would be more fulfilling.

similar path here. Plan to go back to school.

Law school, obviously.

Anonymous wrote:with the benefit, the vacation days, teaching is my dream job. How to get into teaching?

You have no idea what you are talking about. If you wake up with the flu, guess what? You still have to write sub plans detailing what to do with your students in half hour increments. This is pain staking detailed work. You have to rely on someone picking up the job. You can't just say, oh I feel sick and take a day off.

Vacation days?? I get 3 personal days - other than that, my sick leave is all I have. That I need to show documentation for who was sick in my family in order to receive. And either way, I have to write sub plans.

Teaching is not some cake walk. It's hard emotionally and physically. It takes a strong person to teach. Especially elementary. You need to know how to deal with children and adults alike.

Anonymous wrote:If you're up for going back to school, my recommendation would be to study something like occupational or speech therapy. I work in early intervention and love it -flexible schedule, decent pay and you can make a big impact in the lives of families.

How do you get started in a career like this?

Anonymous wrote:with the benefit, the vacation days, teaching is my dream job. How to get into teaching?

This is a joke, right? Benefits are good. The rest of your post is garbage. Vacations days? Huh?? We get the same vacation days as other jobs except they're dictated. We can't take a week whenever we want it. We *have* to travel during spring break when it costs 3x as much and beaches are overcrowded. Summers are spent teaching summer school, taking prof development classes, and attending meetings.

I left teaching to be a SAHM... still hunting for other options. I miss having a class and working with children TERRIBLY! But I absolutely do NOT miss being a puppet, the bureaucracy, unsupportive admin/parents, insane expectations, crazy inflexible schedule, etc.

with the benefit, the vacation days, teaching is my dream job. How to get into teaching?

Let's all agree to ignore the nut job who hates teachers.

I have nothing but respect for most teachers. Don't fan the flames or engage in dialogue with that weird poster.