In the past eight wonderful years in teaching, I have seen many co-teachers and friends of mine in the teaching industry leave and never come back. Many of them, including me, have particular reasons why we all decide to end and restart our teaching journey.
It was never easy to become a teacher, that is the truth. Sugarcoating it or gaslighting the idea that teaching will be easy, fun, and fruitful is something but no amount of these will suffice if passions are already burned out or everything about teaching already took a toll on our physical, mental, emotional, and psychological state.
Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only. All of the details of this post are based on personal experience and research. I am not generalizing the entire teaching community. Please do not come for me.
1. Heath Related Concern
Many teachers suffer a type of health concern when teaching. Take it from me, I am in my early 30's I have chronic back pain, ulcer, insomnia, and more. Some of the teachers I know are medically diagnosed with depression. This is one of the many reasons why teachers do leave. Nobody dreamt of weathering by this profession.
2. Low Pay
Becoming an educator is like being a dedicated priest or nun, it is all about passion and willingness. In reality, being a teacher is just another profession, we work to earn to provide. Many countries pay teachers a very low wage, teachers work beyond the eight-hour shift, do a lot of paperwork, do conferences, and more. The reality is this job asks for too much, with a very low return.
3. Burn-Out, Stress, & Work Overload
One talent of an educator is handling stress, but we get to a point that even the sheer amount of sanity we have to stay intact in work burns out and dies. Stress is part of being a teacher, this job deals with a lot of aspects from talking nonstop, checking papers, preparing materials, making lessons plans, dealing with troubled students, coordinating with parents, and more. It is exhausting in all sense. Teachers who left the field because of this are not cowards, the reality is your our work should help us lift our situation, it should not become the reason why we get burdened.
4. Trying Luck Somewhere Else
Getting experience is a long process for aspiring teachers, we need to practice this profession to provide validity to our overall working life. Sometimes teachers dreamt of moving to a different place or country to teach for the status of teaching in some places that are better than here. Some teachers end up applying to private or public schools just to gain experience, widen their perspective, or acquire certification then leaves the country to become teacher somewhere else.
5. Unfair Treatment
Generalizing the entire teaching community is unfair, but the reality is this profession does tend to have an unfair treatment towards educators. Here in the Philippines, being a teacher will not provide you a comfortable financial life, you are burdened with mountains of workloads, stressful situations, hazardous situations, and more. Not to mention the degree of unfair treatment to educators, teachers get little respect from this profession and are treated like common house helpers (Note: I am speaking from experience).
6. Career Change
Just like any other situation, there is a point in an educator's life that thought like: "I should never be a teacher" come to mind. Changing a career is a big step for any person, for a teacher as well. Leaving a profession you have been doing for a long-time is not as easy as everybody thinks. Just like me, from eight years of teaching to one ugly situation after another. I decided to pack and change careers. I am not influencing anyone to copy me, we are driven by different life situations, I am just narrating that if you are given a cross-road do not avoid it. Choose what will make you a better person.
7. Choice
In some rare cases, there some educators by degree generally choose to stay away from the teaching business. Getting a degree is one thing, getting a teaching license is another, and literary teaching is a whole another level. I know people who have just finished a degree in teaching but prefer to do another thing. Again it is still based on choice, the manner you look at life and your career is you.
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