Leaving My Classroom Series: The Painful Part

Welcome! If you are a new reader, I am a former special education teacher and currently an ABA therapist. This blog post is the first in a four-part series about why I left my job. I don’t think I have ever been more nervous to share a blog post than I am right now.

The most defining day of my teaching career is May 9, 2016. If you have followed me for any amount of time I’ve eluded to this awful day.  I can’t figure out a good way to lead into it, so I’ll just put it out there: I was placed on probation that day.

I started teaching a classroom for students with Autism in 2013. I made mistakes that many first-year teachers make and I struggled. I slowly grew a little bit each year and I was doing better and better until May 9.

Before I continue, please know that there is a lot I cannot share due to confidentiality. What I can tell you is I was not put on probation due to one huge issue. Instead, it was smaller things. I didn’t understand at the time how much responsibility laid on me as a case manager. I didn’t know how to delegate. I didn’t know how to make my classroom run without me. 

I was married on April 30 of that year. I remember in the weeks leading up to my wedding I told my now-husband that I wanted to cancel my honeymoon. I was facing a big scenario at work and I felt like I couldn’t leave. I did end up going on my honeymoon, which continues to be one of my biggest regrets, and I returned to work on May 9. 

A lot happened while I was gone, and I wasn’t there to fix problems, answer questions and navigate situations. By the time I got back to the country the mountain of small things had stacked up.

And the truth is, if I had slowed down and believed in myself I could have answered a lot of those questions. I could have provided examples of what was working well and had the situation work out differently.

As many of you know, I have an anxiety disorder. I struggle with constantly believing what I’m not good enough. When I got back to work and caught up on what happened while I was out, the guilt coursed through my body. My head started to tell me “I always knew you were not good enough” and I froze. 

Instead of sticking up for myself I accepted everything. When I was told I needed to make improvements as a teacher, I accepted it. I mean, I had been telling myself for years I wasn’t good enough. Of course, someone else figured that out too. When I was told probation was the nest step, I said okay. That was the biggest mistake I made.

Probation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When used correctly, it is a tool for improvement. But probation carries a negative connection, one that followed way past improving and for the remainder of my teaching career. 

I needed to leave my school, but because I was on probation I couldn’t. As I mentioned I make a lot of improvements and ended up having a glowing recommendation the following year. Honestly, I can’t believe how much better of a teacher I was at the end of that year but I was still stuck.  My best analogy is when someone loses weight but when they look in the mirror they still see their previous size.

I knew I was a better teacher. I could see it in the progress my students were making. I could see it in the IEPs I wrote, in my parent communication, in the way other people asked me for advice. I knew with my head I was a better teacher, but I didn’t believe it in my heart.

I spend two years in that space. Wanting to leave but feeling like I couldn’t. Thinking that if I went somewhere new I would fail. If I had change where I was workong I might have found happiness again, and that’s the point of sharing this blog post.

If you have made it this far, thank you. That is something I have never shared and it was painful to do so but I always strive to be honest and that’s the very real part of my story. If you want to hear about the next step, check in next week for part 2 of the series.

If you prefer to hear an audio version of this story, listen to my podcast with the same information! You can also access this freebie in the description of that podcast!