I guess this is a cry for help, I don’t really know. I have been miserable at this job for a while now, but after a particularly bad day yesterday, I’m currently at home on a sick day just constantly thinking about how the world, and this job, would clearly be better off without me.

I am a 4th year teacher going on my 5th year at this school. Next year would be my tenure. I am also finishing up my master’s degree in January, a degree which I now deeply regret.

My department head has made it clear that she wants me gone. After years of positive evaluations, my evaluations have suddenly become nitpicky, completely negative, and she now weaponizes our debriefs as a way to put me down instead of give me pointers on how to get better. I suspect she is trying to get me out either due to school politics/cliquiness (I’m not part of the clique, which my dept head is) or because she wants an opening for a teacher friend who got moved from a classroom teacher to just a literacy specialist.

I’m not going to go into all the details to not bore people, but I will go over the important ones. I decided at the beginning of the year for my CLC to plan with a different grade level teacher, which my dept head decided to make a tiered support (this will be important later). I have a co-teacher, the literacy specialist, whom my dept head insists I plan with, but the literacy specialist rarely helps, if ever. I was told I could ask LS (literacy specialist) to help me make materials, she doesn’t. I was told LS needs to plan with me, she doesn’t come. I was told LS is there as push-in support in my class, she sits on her laptop/cellphone each class unless I’m getting observed by DH (department head) or AP (assistant principal). She’s besties with DH, so DH has essentially said I’m not allowed to question it (“what are the expectations for LS when she is in my room?” “I’m not sure why you have expectations, she isn’t your boss”). DH said, because co-planning was a tiered support, I was no longer allowed to co-plan and then a week and a half later gave me an informal observation, leading to yesterday’s debrief. In my completely demoralizing observation debrief yesterday, which I only get debriefs if my evaluation was deemed bad, I was told I “Don’t seem like I know what I’m doing” despite years of positive evaluations from this DH and my AP. In fact, my AP has never given me a negative evaluation. I was told that a PIP was being considered.

I have already reached out to a union rep, but I did already for issues last year and they didn’t help me (“try to take DH’s advice and apply it” which I HAVE). I’m stuck in this job until I finish my Master’s degree until January at least, and I am so afraid of leaving. I feel like if I am a failure here, I will be a failure anywhere. I don’t deserve happiness or a comfortable job because I made my bed with teaching, as my family would tell me. Not only that, but would other jobs even want a young, incompetent, washed-up teacher who couldn’t even handle the classroom for 5 years? I am constantly told to separate myself emotionally from the classroom, but I just can’t. They have taught me for years that “this is my calling” and “you gotta care about the kids” so I can’t just emotionally sever myself overnight.

I’m sorry if this isn’t allowed, I just don’t know where else to go for support. Nobody else in my family is a teacher, and I clearly can’t seek support at my school. I feel so lost and alone.

I just graduated college in May with a degree in History Education. I got a high school teaching position and I realized I can't do this. I'm so stressed all the time I've lost like 10 pounds, food stops being appetizing, I can't enjoy my personal time, etc. I already made the decision to quit and my last day will be this Friday. I really like books, history, and writing.

I guess I'm just really afraid of quitting without a job lined up and ruining my life. I have a supportive family and a girlfriend who will be living with me and once she has a job we'll be splitting expenses. I have 22k saved up and my monthly bills add up to around 1200 a month. My question for everyone is this:

1. Am I making a massive mistake here?

2. What other jobs/careers are out there? Any advice is appreciated. I've always planned on being a teacher my whole life so this is kind of a huge shift and I really don't know what else I can do.

Anyone else?

Anyone had this same thought as they watched the student-led protests in France?

I’m a 28F teacher and Im on my 7th year in an HEI, permanent.

It wasn’t my decision. I didn’t wanna be a teacher to begin with but my late mother decided it for me and said it was the only thing we can afford.

I thought if I stuck to it long enough I would eventually start loving it. So I took my board and passed. I enrolled in my masters even before I applied for any job. I got a substitute arrangement in my current school which eventually made me a COS teacher then a permanent employee. I finished my masters. I took on multiple top management roles throughout the years. I enrolled in my Ph.D. Im now in my dissertation writing phase. I was told my “future is bright”.

Then my mom died. My father abandoned us for another woman taking all my mother’s death benefits with him. I ran away, got myself an apartment. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

I took a year off my Ph.D.

Got promoted a year ago but I didn’t get the position that my points reached because apparently there “aren’t enough slots”. I was supposed to go up 4 steps. I only got 2. The pay isn’t that much of a difference. I applied for a different promotion and nothing. They said I didn’t have enough points and a lot of my stuff aren’t counted. Like wtf.

I wished my efforts in my designated roles were counted. I wish the OTs were valued(none of it is even paid! You can stay at school till 12 am but it’s considered a “service to the community”) 1 year in that role is only 1 point when promotions roll around. And if you’re good at it, you get more responsibilities but still earning the same.

Now I’m just numb. I’ve been quietly quitting at work. Suddenly nothing seems to matter. Not that I accomplished a lot in 7 years. Everything just feels wrong. I don’t care about syllabi, I don’t care about meetings, I don’t care about positions. I don’t care about fucking titles anymore. I dont even want to finish my Ph.D. now. I’m so fucking exhausted. I’m drained.

I felt like I have wasted my early twenties focusing on this job that I forgot to live, long enough that I thought OTs and having no boundaries were normal.

I’m doing freelance administrative work at night. I love how it just ends when the timer ends unlike teaching where all your waking hours, you’re dealing with paperwork and deadlines. Im just doing it part time but had I did full time, i’d be bringing in more than my current position pays. Im tempted. Very much tempted to resign and transition to working remotely.

Now I do the bare minimum. Clock out at 5 pm. Not gonna do my teaching work when I get home. Not gonna message back in my weekends. Not gonna be available when my work day ends.

Maybe I’m stupid for even thinking of leaving an already stable permanent job.

Honestly I don’t know what to do. A part of me tells me to just stay and keep working. If I stuck long enough maybe I can get another promotion. It has benefits and Im set for retirement. But a louder part of me is screaming that this isn’t worth it anymore.

The way we all “joke” about hating our lives, and wanting to quit, and never getting time to pee, eat, drink water, go to the doctor, don’t get paid enough, kids treat us like shit, and admin is mentally ill…. And it’s all a hehe haha …. It’s not fucking funny. Like it’s not right and ik it’s a coping mechanism but it’s just disturbing to see and experience genuinely. And it makes everyone more complacent without them even realizing, it seems.

And when teachers snap and resign, have mental breakdowns and never come back, or worse- commit suicide, everyone is shocked? As if we don’t casually exchange lighthearted cries for help on the daily. It’s a sick profession. Genuinely. On my way out asap

I have an interview for another job tomorrow and gladly called out of my current to go to it. Cannot wait to send my 30 day notice by the end of tomorrow. Good fucking bye, to this soul petrifying profession

I’m 44 years old. This is my 21st year teaching. I’ve taught HS/MS band for the bulk of my career. I want to get out. Now. I’m burnt out. I’m frustrated. This job is taking a huge toll on my mental health and overall well-being. It’s not fun anymore. If I could quit right now, I’d walk right out the door and never look back.

I feel stuck. I feel trapped. I make really good money for what I do. I have a 14-year old son that I’d like to send to college someday. My wife is also 44 and transitioned to a new career successfully about 10 years ago.

What can I do? What should I do? I don’t want to do this anymore. I have nothing left for this profession. I’m done. But what do I do? I don’t know how to do anything else.

Please help.

Just finished a full day of teaching, I’m overstimulated. Literally sitting in silence, almost traumatised from the sound of kids talking, shouting, play fighting and doing everything but working or listening. I’m tired of straining my voice to get them to be quiet.

I need peace.

I know every job/career comes with its own set of stress but I think I at least need something quiet.

Any recommendations?

Thanks

I don't know if this is the right place, but I figure many teachers here are already willing to admit to the mental, emotional, and physical tolls the profession has cost them, so I wanted to know more about the actual financial costs.

While we often talk about the low pay that teachers receive, and the fact that teachers often have to pay out of pocket for items for their classrooms, I feel there isn't enough conversation about the financial impact of the physical exhaustion that comes with managing student behavior all day and then spending hours outside of work to do things like lesson planning, parent phone calls, grading, etc.

As a middle school teacher, I know there have been several evenings where I feel too exhausted to make dinner, or too exhausted to wake up early and make breakfast for myself, so I frequently order takeout or purchase frozen meals until I feel up to the idea of cooking again.

Personally, I know this has been very costly for me, and believe I could easily put away another $200-300 each month if I cooked more of my own meals, but there have been days and even weeks long periods where I couldn't figure out how to get out of the cycle of outsourcing this basic act of self care. When I consider that I've been teaching for over five years now while practicing these same eating habits, I know I could have another $10, 000 - 15000 saved in the bank, and I shudder to think of the potential health costs that my neglect in this area is causing me in the future. And for those of you with families and other mouths to feed, I know the costs would be even greater for you.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has the same difficulties and what their workaround is? Also, I'd be interested in knowing if you feel there are any other areas of daily living where you feel that you overspend or have to utilize other services just to compensate for the lack of energy or burnout?

I basically feel like I was hired to quickly fill a spot then pushed out when the first year principal got settled and wanted someone more experienced in.

I was hired in July to teach elementary after another teacher unexpectedly quit. I have a bachelor’s degree in another field and I’m currently working on my master’s in elementary education through an alternative certification program. He wants this to be a blue ribbon school as well so I’m not sure if being on a temp license hurt this.

I ended up resigning last week after only 3 months because of how my principal was treating me, it felt like he was trying to isolate me from other teachers, leave me out, and target me.

One of the first issues was my sub plans. I had left 3 sets of worksheets reviewing material we had already covered, along with an explanation of what we were learning. My principal said these weren’t adequate and I ended up getting a letter of warning over it.
I completely redid the plans after that. I basically made them into a script that the sub could read word for word to teach the lesson. I talked to other teachers about this and none of them had ever been expected to make their sub plans that detailed.

There were also several comments made by my principal that I felt were pretty inappropriate. At one point, he told me that 4th grade was departmentalized to basically “save” the students from my teaching. I later found out he had told another 4th grade teacher that they had to departmentalize because of her math teaching. So he essentially told both of us separately that departmentalizing was our fault. I understand that we may have needed to improve in certain areas, but I don’t see how making comments like that was supposed to help either of us become better teachers.

Another time he warned me not to make another teacher quit. Apparently a sub who had been in my classroom had asked this teacher a lot of questions throughout the day. I wasn’t even there when this happened, so I’m not sure how that became my fault and again left ample work. The main issue was a child with behavioral issues that the sub struggled with but I don’t think I could’ve done anything to make that better

I was also assigned a mentor teacher, but there wasn’t much opportunity for her to actually come observe me or model lessons. I was given one 15 minute time to observe her.

I was getting criticism about classroom management and instruction, but I never really felt like I was being shown what they wanted me to do differently. I tried making changes based on the feedback I received, and some later observations did show improvement but that didn’t seem to matter . A lot of the observations were also done during transitions rather than actual lessons.

Things really came to a head when my principal told me he planned to recommend me for nonrenewal at an upcoming meeting. From what I understood, there wasn’t going to be an improvement plan or anything like that. He was just going to recommend that I not return before spring evaluations. He also said I didn’t make my lessons “come to life” but when I said they never sat in on my lessons they told me “they didn’t have too” He did this to my fellow 4th grade teacher and a 5th grade teacher.
Around the same time, I needed him to complete an evaluation for my university. He initially refused to complete it and told me that if he did, he would give me failing marks in every category. He even said he was sorry if that meant I failed my university class.

I ended up contacting the superintendent about it, and he had to intervene to get the principal to complete the evaluation.

At that point I decided to resign. I submitted my resignation effective immediately and included my concerns about everything that had happened in my letter to the district.
I expected criticism and knew there would be things I needed to improve but felt like I was torn down at every opportunity instead of given help and guidance.

I would still like to teach again eventually, but this experience has made me question my ability to teach when I finish my degree.

For those of you who have been teaching for a while, does this sound normal? Does it sound like he had already made up his mind about me? Is there any recourse I should take further? I’ve already sent everything to the district in my resignation but maybe it’s worth making a formal complaint with the state?

Tomorrow’s Monday and I have to go back. I’m dreading it. Just had a few days off last week and was finally feeling normal again. I’ve been applying to other jobs with no luck and I don’t think I can do this anymore. I hate my life and I hate who I am when I’m teaching. Can’t quit because I have bills. I think I have the savings to make it a few months before I get desperate but people in my life keep telling me to stick it out. I’m weak and I’m at my breaking point. The kids are awful and don’t care and it’s really not worth my sanity to try and teach them. Might just phone it in this week. I don’t know what to do anymore but this isn’t it. I’m trapped and I have put myself in a horrible position where I need a job. I’ve screwed everything up. I miss the days when I wasn’t this miserable person.

Hi, all! 37 year old teacher looking to transition out of the classroom and into something with better earning potential. Prepping for a potential data analytics path or maybe going back into arts admin, but I want to complete the year so as not to leave my students hanging. Folks who have successfully transitioned out: did you complete your academic year, and, if so, when did you start applying for new work? Thanks!

I am at an absolute breaking point and ready to walk. I've given this school five years of my life (three in first grade, two in fifth - plus acting as yearbook coordinator and team lead). And how does admin repay me? By micromanaging my classroom resources, dragging up my past absences and asking me to "provide context for them", and ghosting me when my students are in crisis.

I'm on a provisional license, locked into a signed annual contract, and trying to pivot potentially out of education entirely. But the reality is that my environment is making me physically sick. Friday I called out because the thought of walking into that building gave me severe nausea and panic attacks. I had to strip my sub plans because they police TPT resources now too apparently and criticize what I do when I'm out.

The classroom is completely unravelling. I have an autistic student being viciously bullied on a daily basis for his disability, and admin does a grand total of zero to help. I have another student who is having severe self-harm meltdowns, throwing things, and disrupting everything. Last week, I sent admin a detailed breakdown of his self-harm, told them I tried their stupid 2x10 strategy, and begged them to sit in on an upcoming parent conference to push for a possible evaluation. They completely ghosted me. Radio silence.

They treat me like absolute garbage after everything I've poured into this school. I'm looking at our contract clauses threatening license revocation and non-rehire status for mid-year resignations, but since I have a provisional license and am leaving K-12 forever anyway, those threats feel pretty empty.

My plan is to get my long-term PCP to write medical documentation for burnout and nervous system breakdown so I can cleanly break this contract. If anyone in a large VA district (or elsewhere really) has walked away mid-year for health reasons, please tell me how you did it and how you survived the final stretch. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Edit:
I finally hit my absolute limit. I resigned effective immediately today.
After months of drowning in severe burnout, acute physical symptoms (panic attacks, nausea), and trying to hold everything together while masking, my body completely gave out. I couldn't walk back into that building another day.
My husband is dropping off my tech, and I've turned off my notifications to try to stop the immediate panic, but honestly? The guilt right now is suffocating. I feel sick about leaving my team in a bind, and a massive part of me feels like I failed or didn't try hard enough, even though I know I was completely empty.
For those of you who have walked away from teaching mid-year: how did you survive the initial wave of guilt and somatic panic? How do you quiet the feeling that you let everyone down? Any advice or perspective would really, truly help right now.

I just retired after teaching middle school and hs for 30 years. I moved to a new state and took a job at an elementary school in the library. The job was not supposed to be full-time teaching, but it is. I want to do something else, but am having trouble finding another job. What are the best jobs for retired teachers?

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Hey everyone! Second year music teacher here.

I recently left a Title 1 middle school General position for an elementary general pk-4 w/ 3-4 chorus in a better district.

This was a grass may be greener on the other side kind of thing as I didn't feel safe at the middle school and wanted out, but now I feel like I'm drowning and can't live up to the expectations of the district. I've never wanted to do general music, let alone elementary, and especially not chorus, nor do I feel like I have the skillset or experience to do so.

I feel terrible wasting everyone's time, money, and potential reputation, as well as feeling I have wasted the last few years of my life believing I wanted to be a music teacher, only to realize that this isn't a career for me.

How should I go about leaving? What would be some transferrable skills to put on a resume?

(P.S. my contract doesn't have any required resignation notice)

All right, I am using speech to text as I am driving to school to really get my true feelings down but I just really need some help.

I know it’s going to be my last year, no doubt. I feel really unhappy, but I am trying to finish out this year because it’s technically the last year that I need for my teach grant to be forgiven and then I will walk away loan free. There are some days and maybe I shouldn’t say some days I should say 80% of the time that I am just simply miserable. I’m not enjoying anything outside of work. All I can think about is just not having to do this anymore.

If I don’t finish this year, I would have to pay back 13k with a lot of interest because the teach grant starts collecting interest beginning the day that you accepted. The only thing that I’m really kind of stressing about with finishing the year is that there is a very small chance that my teach grant will not be forgiven and will still be converted to a loan anyway. There are some fine terms within that contract but I know that three years have already been approved and I am in the same role this year. I guess I should say that there’s may be a 10% chance that it won’t be forgiven and even after finishing this year I’ll still have the loan.

I’m also dealing with a lot of anxiety over the safety in schools. I know this was a messy rant so I’m sorry but I don’t know if what I need right now is motivation…advice….hard truth??? I am just filled with so much anxiety that I truly feel like I can’t think straight and see my options clearly.

hi all I live in Chicago so there are a lot of great community colleges and universities around me and in the suburbs. I have been working for over 10 years in early childhood and special education. I was looking at different jobs in disability coordination, accommodation, coordination, and student success in various colleges around me even though I have been working for a very long time and special education, I know I would have to start at the bottom and then work my way up to manager or assistant Director down the line. I really want to find a job that I'm qualified for that. I don't have to go back to school for I do have a masters degree does anyone have advice or has anyone worked in higher Ed? I'm also qualified to be an adjunct professor, but I really need healthcare because my spouse does not have healthcare through his job.

I have always loved working in special education, especially with the younger students, but after having a baby last year, I'm so burnt out every single day. I can't continue on more than a year.

I'm a middle school art teacher with a bachelor's degree in Art Education and a master's in Curriculum and Education. Lately, I've been seriously considering what other career paths might be available to someone with my educational background and experience.

I genuinely love teaching, I love art, and I adore my students. They're not the reason I'm considering leaving. It's the increasing lack of administrative support, the unrealistic expectations placed on educators, and the way Washington State's policies and restrictions seem to make an already difficult profession even harder. It often feels like our hands are tied while we're still expected to work miracles with fewer resources and less support.

I am tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired. Not of teaching, but of everything surrounding it.

Has anyone here successfully transitioned out of education? Or do you know someone who has? What fields did you (or they) move into, and how difficult was the transition?

I'd especially love to hear about careers where my degrees and skills might transfer without having to return to school for another degree.

Any advice, insight, or success stories would be genuinely appreciated. I'm not necessarily ready to walk away tomorrow, but I am starting to wonder what else might be out there for me.

Repost to another community

I'm in my 4th year of teaching Spanish at the High School level. I won't go too into detail of all the things we all know and are experiencing right now but the gist is I. am. exhausted.

There is zero accountability for students at my school. We have a 50% grading floor, even if they turn NOTHING in, I'm not allowed to take off points for turning assignments or projects in late, the learned helplessness, inability to be bored, parents believing their children are perfect, etc. The world of education right now in general seems like things keep getting worse and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I know things have changed post covid, but I started my teaching degree in 2019 with the pre covid students in mind and it's so hard to change that mindset of what students used to be like.

Finding a work-life balance has also been nonexistent. I'm either neglecting my grad school (masters in teacher leadership and educational coaching), relationships, and hobbies to get grading, planning, data tracking, and parent communication taken care of outside of work hours OR I tell myself I shouldn't have to do that stuff outside of contract hours to take care of myself and then I come to work feeling horribly anxious and unprepared and like I'm letting my students down (not that they want to be there anyway).

Last week I had a major, very scary, panic attack that was a wake up call for me. I've always gotten a sinking feeling in my stomach whenever my older colleagues joke around with me saying "Only 30 more years to retirement for you" but now I've gotten to the point where I really don't know how I could do this for even 1 more.

I know the job market is HORRIBLE right now so the idea of leaving for something else doesn't seem logical but I can't do it anymore. I'm not the type to get myself to leave mid year, I'll make it to May, but I'm open to literally any ideas Spanish related or otherwise. I've seen a lot about project coordinating/managing and other intro corporate jobs but again, I see hundreds of people applying.

Any advice will help!

I'm in my 23rd year and 9 weeks into the school year. I'm having panic attacks and can't do this anymore.

I won't go into the problems at school. They're the same ones every teacher is reporting here.

I'm considering tendering my resignation tomorrow. My health is my priority and I am falling apart.

I don't have a job to fall into, but will consider anything that pays the bills. Advice? Suggestions?

Hi Everybody!

I have been teaching AP history for over ten years. I love many aspects of this profession, but it’s time for new adventures and challenges.

Thanks to my experience running the history department (while teaching), and managing the transition to virtual instruction during covid at a magnet high school, and lots of advice from Reddit, I was able to take the PMP certification test and do very well. (Thanks, everybody!)

I am taking the AGILE SCRUM course next week and I hope to earn that certification as well.

I am applying to jobs and I feel like I’m flying into wall after wall. Is it my resume? Do I need to network more and find humans who can vouch for me? I mostly only know teachers! I live in Washington state (the capital) so I assume there’s lots of tech workers everywhere.

What do yall recommend for a time poor dad who only has so many hours in the day? I have been managing phone obsessed, hormonal teenagers for years and I have gotten them to actually learn! I know I can do this work too. Thanks in advance for any pointers or wisdom. Sincerely.

I am a secondary computing teacher. I want to move into another role outside of teaching but everything I apply for, I have been rejected. I’m not sure where to even start looking. I need to make at least £35k to be able to stay afloat, so this is making it very hard to transfer to a new career path and essentially re-train. I’ve even lowered my expectations and applied for £29k graduate trainee jobs, but still unable to get accepted. I have a bachelors, masters and PGCE in an IT related subject.

I have signed up for a careers appointment in the local job centre, but any ideas would be so appreciated. I have been applying for 3 years with no luck. I am a very hard worker and very skilled at what I do. I’ve always been successful in interviews in my life up until this point. It feels like the “teacher” label has become a bit of a block.

Hi all,

I’m looking for a website/service/person that can help me rework my resume to be more suitable for office and corporate jobs. All of my jobs have been working in schools or summer camps. Thank you!