Why Teachers are Leaving
It should come as no surprise that teachers are leaving the profession in droves. A simple Google search reveals statistics showing more than 30,000 teachers have left education in the last ten years in the state of Oklahoma alone. In 2021, polling and data showed 1 in 5 teachers were planning to leave the profession within the year. And as an educator myself, I have numerous friends who have left the profession altogether.
The reasons why are mounting – stagnant teacher pay, increasing classroom sizes, budget cuts, the amount of hours required to be an effective teacher, rising behavior issues, the stress, and in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and the political climate surrounding education.
And yet, despite all of the negativity surrounding education at present, I have chosen to stay. I am often asked by friends, family, and those curious about the state of education how I do it. How can I stay when things seem so dire? What is it about this profession that draws me back day after day?
The answer is complicated. It’s complicated because the truth is I have thought about quitting. Numerous times. Every single school year, I stare at my resume and peruse LinkedIn and job openings. Just to see… And yet here I am, 12 years in, still going strong.
So why? When I’ve been so close to quitting. When I’ve actively sought employment outside of the realm of education, why have I chosen to stay all these years?
The short answer? Because at the end of the day, despite all of that, I love what I do.
The long answer? Oh, there are so many reasons.
Why I’m Staying
I stay because I genuinely believe if I don’t stay, who will take my place? Year after year, as teachers are leaving and education colleges are seeing massive dips in enrollment, the question truly becomes – who will be left to teach our children? I have seen firsthand what happens when someone who is entirely unqualified to teach attempts to do so. The truth is, that person rarely lasts longer than one year and the effects on children’s academic performance are dire to say the least. The thought of someone completely unqualified attempting to fill my shoes fills me with a sense of dread I can’t shake. And so I stay.
I stay because I’m stubborn. And it’s my subtle way of sticking it to the powers that be that want to see teachers like me gone. A relatively progressive liberal teaching children history? The audacity of it all. The idea that someone with such strong political convictions could teach students to see things from different points of view scares people. The fact that I’m not afraid to engage my students in dialogue that may make them question society and at times, themselves; the fact that I’m not afraid to touch upon the uncomfortable truths of our nation’s past, and the fact that I’m not afraid to hold students accountable for their actions, their work, and their speech scares some people. And I refuse to give those in power the satisfaction of knowing they drove another qualified teacher from the profession.
I stay because it is my passion. Education, history, building a better foundation for our future generations, all of it. I love coming to work (most days). Every day, I get to stand in front of a room full of teenagers and talk to them about things like Thomas Jefferson’s speech impediment and Andrew Jackson’s cursing parrot. I get to talk to them about the most misunderstood era in American history – Reconstruction. We get to discuss the wave of industrialization in the late 19th century set the stage for the modern era we know today. In my classroom, students learn how to think critically and engage in civil discourse with one another, even when they don’t agree.
I stay because I’m not done yet. I made a promise to myself when I started teaching that the moment it was no longer “fun” for me, I would quit. The moment I became the teacher I didn’t want to be, I would quit teaching. Too often when I was growing up, I knew of teachers that should have quit long before they did – they were burned out. They hated their job and it was so obvious – and it made the experience for students terrible. I never wanted to be that teacher. And twelve years in, I can say I am still not that teacher. I know I still have a few more years left in me. I’ve always known I would not retire as a teacher. Life is too short, I have too much I want to accomplish, and my brain is wired in such a way that I know I can’t stay with the same profession my entire life.
So while I’m not leaving just yet, I know my time as an educator is getting shorter with each passing school year. Which is why I plan to give all I have to it for now, and when the time comes, I can leave the profession knowing I gave all I could give, and knowing I did the best I could do.
But rest assured, even when that day does come, I will never truly leave the field of education. I’ve given too much of my heart to public education, and no matter where life takes me, I will fight for it with all I have. For always.