This is the outline of my podcast about why I left teaching. I left it in bullet form to make it a lot easier to skim-it is the same exact information I shared in the podcast!
How I got into teaching
- I really wanted to work with kids with special needs
- I did not know that careers like ABA or SLP or OT existed in terms of working with children
- If I had done more research on other careers I might have made a different choice
- I kind of assumed to work with special needs you had to be a teacher and that’s how I got into the field
How did I know I wanted to quit
- I did not really enjoy teaching. The things that I saw bring other teachers joy did not bring me joy
- I knew I wanted to spend more time working on behavior and communication
- I absolutely believe that kids need to be learning reading and math skills as it’s very important as part of their daily life skills I just did not want to be the person teaching it
- I did consider moving to a secondary position or to an early childhood position for less of an emphasis on typical curriculum than what I was experiencing an upper elementary school but I really felt like at the end of the day if I didn’t like teaching I didn’t make sense to go teach in a different setting
- It was pure luck that I met the BCBA that owned the center at the time. It’s the first time I really realized that I could have a clear doing exactly what I wanted to do
If I knew that teaching was not right for me, why do I still feel sad but I left teaching sometimes?
- Just because I knew teaching was not right for me doesn’t mean I didn’t love the people that I worked with and the students that I had
- In fact if I could’ve stayed a teacher and just stripped away the parts of the job I didn’t like and kept working with the same exact kids with the same exact team doing what I do at the center it would’ve been a dream. I had fantastic aids, SLP, OT and I was so sad to walk away
- I also found it really hard to have closure since the pandemic hit afterwards. I wanted my aid who took over to be successful and I wanted to be able to see that The kids were making progress and in the pandemic hit and everything changed.
- I had a lot of guilt over what if I had not left? I did not like teaching but if I had stayed in the position could I have provided the kids with more normalcy and a more stable environment. Probably not but it took me a long time to work through that layer
Other reasons that people assumed per Instagram
I left due to aggressive behaviors
- No not at all. I actually enjoyed responding to and intervening on intensive behaviors.
- I’m a lot stronger at collecting data on behavior and writing FBA and BIP than I am at teaching reading.
- That is what appealed to me about the center. I still work with intensive behaviors but I can focus more on that and less on the curriculum the way I had to in the school. I think a lot of people who assume this don’t realize that I still work with intensive behavior in a different setting
I left due to the paperwork/expectations
- Kind of yes and kind of no
- I actually don’t mind paperwork that much. I don’t mind writing reports and things like that
- I do feel like teachers have too high of an expectation on them and it’s difficult to manage it all, but I didn’t leave because of that
Mental health and work life balance
- Yes. I talked fairly openly about how I went through probation at my school. Episode eight explains that
- I found that no matter how much progress I made in my classroom I always saw myself as the teacher who struggled
- I did have trouble managing my anxiety I felt like I needed a fresh setting. That’s what first had me looking at making the switch but then as I explained earlier I decided that switching to another school didn’t make sense
- It’s hard for me to really say if I will have better work life balance in this position because right now I’m more like a TA and when I pass the boards I’ll be more like a teacher but I feel like I will because like I said I did not really like teaching and I spent a lot of time in the evenings and on weekends working on things that I didn’t feel passionate about. As a BC BA I’ll still be working at night and on weekends but on things that really interest me so I think it’ll be more enjoyable
I felt like I can make more of a difference in this setting
- Yes this one hit the nail on the head
- I can look back at students and feel strongly that I did not do enough for them
- There are a lot of teachers out there who love teaching reading and that’s important. But I didn’t like that and I felt like I was spending my job doing things I didn’t like. I have strengths that I couldn’t really utilize the way I wanted to in the school system and I’ll be able to do it at a private center