Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years of teaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host, him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need
Teachers Podcasts. The podcast or teachers who don't want to just survive teaching but
actually thrive. I'm not gonna lie. Teaching can suck between toxic administrators,
growing and unreasonable workloads, angry parents, rude and disrespectful students, and legislators
trying to micromanage what we do. It's no wonder that so many teachers plan
on quitting after the school year if they haven't quit already. Now, maybe
you're in this situation too, or you want to quit, But what if
you don't want to quit teaching, but you just want things to get better.
Like what if you're not ready to quit, but you're fed up with
your current situation. I mean, I bet for a lot of you you
actually do like teaching, but you're hating it right now because of what's going
on in your classroom. In this episode, I'm going to be covering five
alternatives to leaving teaching that can actually help you like or dare I say,
love teaching. If you want to stay and you just need a change in
your current situation, here are some of your options now. The first option
is to switch grade levels, switch subjects, or just switch schools now.
Sometimes a change of scenery can make a huge difference. I switch schools after
being at the same school for more than ten years, and I can tell
you that it made a huge difference. I also switch subjects. I went
from teaching band to teaching English, and that really reinvigorated my love for teaching.
In both situations, I had gotten somewhat bored and just overall tired of
what I was teaching and the situation that I was in. So making that
switch just really made it so that I had this new love and energy for
teaching. And especially if you're in a situation where your admin or just your
school in general it's toxic and everything is really negative, you can actually switch
schools and you can find that it's like a whole new teaching world. It's
a breadth of fresh air. The students are different, the admins supportive,
your colleagues are supportive and happy with their jobs, and it makes you wonder
why did they say it that other job for so long. I remember before
I switched schools, I was really hoping that I could help improve the situation,
I could help make a change there, until I realized that a lot
of it was really out of my hands. A lot of it had to
do with the way that the administrators ran the school, and of course they
didn't necessarily want to listen to reason, and so me switching made it to
where I could focus on things that I could control, and that just made
me a lot happier, more satisfied with my job. Now. You might
be worried about not knowing what you're doing when you switch new grade level,
maybe you're going from like sixth grade to second grade, or you're switching like
from music to English, but it's actually one of the reasons why it can
be so reinvigorating, because you're going to be trying new things. You're going
to be exploring that grade or that subject with the fresh eyes that you had
when you first started out teaching, and you might find that you actually like
that grade so much better. I mean, the personalities of the students at
every single grade and actually every single subject is like night and day, and
so doing that could really make a huge difference, and you might find that
you prefer what you switch to more than where you came from. The second
option is other part time teaching or alternatives to teaching. So this could mean
that you could do tutoring or some kind of online education. There are a
lot of options for that, or maybe you do like an adult school class
if you have some skills that you could teach there, and that can make
it where you're not so bored with the everyday stuff of teaching. And I
know that you know teaching is hard and the thought of doing more teaching could
be frustrating, but you might have fun actually doing these alternative options, such
as online teaching. So there are things like out school, or you could
teach English online and it's different probably from what you're currently doing. Or you
could supplement what you're already doing and just make things really fun and that can
make it so that when you are in the classroom it's not just the same
things over and over again. You could also try being a school counselor or
some kind of educational consultant, a curriculum writer, basically something in the education
field, but you're doing a different type of jobs, so you can do
that instead of being a teacher, or you can do that in addition to
being a teacher. I know that there are a lot of teachers online that
are educational consultants, and they're there to help other teachers. They create courses
and they create content online to help teachers kind of get out of a rut
or to address specific concern So that could be something that could really reinvigorate your
love for teaching because you're helping other teachers too, or as a school counselor
that can also be really fulfilling to help students in terms of helping them with
their personal problems or if you're in high school, also helping them figure out
what they want to do with their future. In addition, you could also
explore leadership roles, So maybe you want to consider doing some kind of a
leadership role in your school or at the district level. So this could be
a curriculum coordinator, the department head, and instructional coach. Maybe you want
to get your administrative credential because you want to take on more leadership roles,
or there's just something else in your school or in your district that you can
do that's still an education, but you're helping in a different way. So
maybe you work with special programs, or maybe work with school funding like federal
funding, and you help distribute those funds or help figure out where to best
spend that kind of money. I know lots of teachers who move into those
types of leadership roles and they end up really loving that instead of being in
the classroom. But they're not necessarily just teaching the education field altogether. If
you would becoming an administrator, depending on your district, at least in my
district, you have to get extra education to do that, you have to
get an actual administrative credential. But I know on a lot of school districts
is actually pretty easy to move up if you've demonstrated some kind of leadership role
before, or you've just shown leadership qualities. So that's something that you can
start looking at and working towards so that you can once again reinvigorate your love
for the field of education. That's something that I really like to do,
which is the fourth option, is to explore professional development. Now, a
lot of school mandated PD or professional development can be really really born, like
really boring, But when you can pick the professional development that you know fits
your needs, what you need to learn right now. It can actually be
really invigorating. I remember I went to this conference that was here in San
Diego, and it was a huge conference and there were a lot of people
there. I learned so much about educational technology and it really helped me solidify
the fact that I wanted to really embed technology into my teaching, and it
introduced me to new ways of doing that. I've also attended subject specific conferences,
like for English or for band when I taught band, and again just
seeing other teachers and what they're doing in discussing ways to improve my teaching.
It really really helped. And while I didn't implement everything from it, it
really made it so that I was able to love teaching again because I was
so inspired by it. So you can ask your administrator or your district cowvert
works where you're at, if there's any funding for maybe additional classes, some
one off classes. Those can be awesome as well, or like I said,
attending a conference or just any other professional development opportunities. And if there
isn't funding from your school or your district to further your professional development, you
can also look into something like donors Shoes dot org and I actually made a
podcast episode about that, so I'm going to go ahead and link that in
the description in terms of how to get started on donors Shoes and get it
successfully funded. So just look are opportunities that can once again help you just
become really inspired and invigorated, and it's something that you get to choose.
That's what's really important. Is that something that maybe you think that you need
more help with, or just something that will make you excited so you can
get more ideas to help you with your teaching. And my final tip is
to take a sabbatical. So some districts offer sabbaticals or a leave of absence
for teachers. So this is basically where you're going to take a set amount
of time off and you're not going to be getting paid. I'm not really
sure how it works in terms of health insurance or benefits like that, but
you're not getting paid during this time and so that could just be some much
needed time for you to take off from teaching. But when you take a
sabbatical instead of quitting, you get to hold on to your position so that
when you're ready to come back, it's still there now. Again, depending
on your district, some districts don't let you take sabbaticals, or if you
take one, you don't get to go back to your exact same school or
grade level, things like that. I know that in my district you can
take a sabbatical for a year at a time, and then you get to
come back to your same position at your same school. But find out what
the rules are in your district and if that's an option, and if you
can, maybe you just need some time away from teaching, but not all
together quit. You can use that time to reset and pursue some other opportunities
so that when you are ready to come back, you've had some time away,
maybe miss teaching while you're gone, and it's going to make you love
the profession again. Now, leaving teaching is obviously a big decision, and
it's a very very personal one. And if you're leaving, I completely understand
because I know that some of your situations are just god awful, They're just
terrible. I would probably leave too, But it doesn't mean that you have
to leave teaching altogether. You can just find other alternatives to just quitting.
So what do you guys think do you think that you could possibly explore any
of these options? Let me know. Send me an email at Kim at
Teachers Need Teachers dot com and I'd love to hear what your situation is.
Even if you are definitely leaving or if you're considering leaving, please reach out
to me and let me know and let's just talk about it. Thanks for
hanging out with me this week. You guys, I will see you next
time. Thanks for listening to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast. Love this episode.
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