I was a full time teacher for almost 3 years. I wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little kid, that was always my first response when people asked me what I was doing when I left school. Fast forward 30k in HECS debt and I found myself excited to get to know my kids, surprisingly loving admin (i’m a weirdo.. yes) and putting my heart and soul in my lesson planning. I survived the first term, but by the second term I was drained. I knew the challenges that were ahead. But everyday I would come home, crying or exhausted to the point that I would just sleep as soon as I sat or laid on anything remotely comfortable. I worked on autopilot basically for 2 years. To be fair, my first school was really rough. I mean… the baseline of good behaviour was “well at least he/she’s at school!”.
I can’t really put my finger on exactly one reason why I had just had enough despite such a short time in the career. When I was working on a contract, I loved getting to know my students, seeing that little light bulb moment when something clicked. Hearing from them how much I helped them, seeing them mature into well meaning adults. It is such a beautiful experience you get to have as a teacher. Unfortunately, the state of almost everything makes it hard to focus on those good moments. Every day my heart rate was averaging at least 90, I always felt overstimulated. I took every word of behavioural advice “if X is being disruptive, just call a head teacher”, but what if it’s not just X? but it’s A, B, C, D, E, F and G??? and now H is overstimulated because those kids are being disruptive and is refusing to do work. I call a head teacher and they only take X, but the rest of them are running a muck. No matter how much rapport I built, I guess I just don’t have that authority and I felt consistently disrespected and triggered. I would call home and nothing would happen because parents didn’t care. I spent more time taking phones than teaching, writing Sentral entries than teaching, reading AI work than teaching, asking for just a moment of the students’ time so I can… teach!! I stayed up well into the AMs differentiating every activity because I always had at least half of my class with behavioural and/or mental impairments (most of which parents refused to get diagnosed) and although they helped, at what cost?? There simply is not enough time in the day. Results improve, but I’m a shell of myself, crying at the thought of going to work, absolutely dreading going to work and even hating students when I know it’s not their fault (that’s when I knew I needed to gtfo). I wanted to leave the education career so I planned on working casual while I looked for jobs earlier this year. Working casual wasn’t any better. I had kids literally say “let’s make her cry, let’s make her crash out” as I took a moment outside to pull myself together and ask a deputy for help. Ugh
All that to say I ended up finding a career where an education degree definitely helped in the Learning Design field and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I work corporate now and have been for a few months. I clock off at 5, work from home 2 days a week. Have great colleagues, come home from work and I still have energy to do my hobbies. Steps are a lot lower but you win some you lose some lol. I use to peruse this subreddit A LOT looking at how people got out and if I was alone in my experience. ECT burn out is real and it’s okay to get out!!! There are a lot of jobs where an education degree is desired! it might take a while but don’t sit there and burn when there’s a way out. I always thought to myself that there’s no way I can work 40+ years in this field, and there’s no reason you have to if you can do something that makes it better. If it sucks now, it’s probably gonna keep sucking… Life is short, and you can always come back to teaching if things fall through. that’s the beauty of it! It’s never too late :)