I recently got an email from a reader who found my blog and is looking at moving into the teaching field. This individual has been in the business world for over two decades and has recently been laid off.

Last month I was laid off from my position with a multi-billion dollar company as a national recruiting manager.  I have a friend that went through iteachtexas.com last year and is finishing her first year as a middle school teacher [in Texas].  Talking to her has really made me think hard about teaching.  In almost every job I have held, I have found a way to teach someone something.  I have taught martial arts and have over a decade of experience working with teens in church.  I…

In rereading the last about teacher burnout, I was struck by a handful of things that my reader mentioned in the email. I thought it was powerful enough that it was worth digging into deeper, and yet I didn’t want to dilute the conversation that might come as a result of the emotional impact of the reader’s email.

With that being said, here are 20 insights from a 17-year veteran teacher about things that teachers ought to be doing.

1. Take care of your body
2. Avoid whiners
3. Get more sleep
4. Accept imperfection from yourself
   
5. Don’t expect to make everyone happy
6. Don’t abuse your sick days, but do use them
7. Relax more
8. Have trusted friends who can smack you upside the

…

About a month ago, I received this email in my Inbox:

After 17 years of teaching, I was diagnosed with ‘burnout’ and needed to take some time off. I fought it, but when the lab results showed body systems shutting down, I complied… for awhile. Part-time only made it worse. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I LOVED my job, my students, my teaching. I dreaded the politics, the nay-sayers, the whiners. Still, how could I be burned out? I thought that only happened to folks who hated what they were doing or had been there too long. It seems remaining a teacher at the top of your game requires more than 3 hours of sleep per night,…

Many of my readers have left comments or sent emails asking me if I have more information about transitioning from teaching to another field. Unfortunately the answer for them is simply that I don’t. But I think I can finally refer you somewhere that should help out. If you stick with teaching (which is sometrhing I highly encourage you to do), you can at least perhaps see what it’s like vicariously.

I was somewhat confused this morning when I opened up Twitter and started reading some disconcerting comments to @ddmeyer referring  to him leaving teaching. I tracked back, and found it.

So that’s that. This year was far and away the most fun I’ve had in a classroom, which definitely…

I got a comment on this post yesterday that I wanted to address more in-depth tonight. I posted a teaser this morning to see what kind of responses the community would come up. So far, I have read some incredible (and almost all positive) pointers.

• I’ve written a great deal about classroom management in the past here
• I’ve written about how I changed course and overcame a poor history of teaching in March of my second year of teaching

I suppose this is sort of a follow-up to The Honeymoon Is Over: What Killed My First Teaching Job And 7 Tips For Getting Your Next Job.

In that initial post from April of 2008, I outlined the things…

I got a comment on one of my articles about quitting teaching last night that touched my heart. I will respond to her more in depth later on today, but I don’t have time right now to get back except for briefly. I thought I would use the opportunity to tap the resources of the SYWTT community and throw the question out to the readers for some feedback.

She writes in part:

I think it is too late for me. In my 2nd year of teaching 5th grade – first year barely made it and this year is worse. I definitely have some helth issues that have just sucked away my creativity this year. I always struggled with lesson plans…

When I entered the field of education, I was well aware that I wasn’t going into teaching because of the prolific amount of cash I could accumulate from the career. I entered education basically because it’s a good thing to do and it’s something that I absolutely love doing.

Last week, I posted a question about when the right time to relocate to a different teaching job might be. I received some great responses (in the comments, through Twitter, and in email). However, some of the comments sort of caught me off guard.

A few of the comments referenced the Recession of 2009 as being a reason I might want to stay in my current teaching situation (despite the social…

On the one hand, I love my job. I absolutely love the kids I work with and am on pretty good terms with the rest of the band staff.

On the other hand, my life is pretty boring. I have never been a crazy partier or anything (I don’t drink alcohol or much caffeine for that matter). I don’t go out to clubs and can’t stand the bar environment. But in a relatively small town (less than 50,000 people) that is over an hour from the next closest reasonably sized town, life can get to feeling pretty isolated.

A question I have for those of you out there who have been in this type of situation: When did you feel…

I am featured as a guest blogger over at I Want To Teach Forever as a part of his 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons project. I recommend going over there, reading the article, and adding some comments.

Sometimes Quitting Is The Best Thing You Can Do!

Quitters never win? Au contraire
The old school adage is that quitters never win. Unfortunately, that trite saying is too simplistic. Sometimes quitters are the only ones who win. Consider these examples:

• In an auction, the one who doesn’t quit often ends up with an overpriced item.
• The boy who doesn’t quit pursuing an uninterested girl often wastes a lot of time, burns bridges, misses out on other opportunities, and alienates the girl and her friends in

…

A reader wrote in with the following story. I don’t even know how to begin to respond to it, but I’ll add some thoughts at the end. Hopefully this reader’s experience will serve some of you somehow in the future.

When I interviewed at my school, it appeared to be everything I wanted in a job. I interviewed for one prep. I addressed my classroom procedures, consequences I employed, rewards I employed, my teaching style, asked about administrative involvement… and basically heard everything I wanted to hear. I fortunately came to that school with very kind references and evaluations.

What I found on my first day were five preps across three grade levels. When I questioned it, I was told…

A little bit of levity here, in light of my current Student Teaching Project. (By the way, if you are student teaching, join us by writing a blog and letting me know about it!)

Brought to you by TeacherPortal.com.

Lisa writes:

I googled “bitter about teaching” and came up with your blog.  I was recently let go from a school I busted my a$$ in for a whole year (my first year) – constant criticism, cattiness, and pointing out and embellishing the negative things I had done while minimizing the positive (all the while they were telling me to stay positive!).

She concludes her email:

I just wanted to let you know that your blog picked me up a little bit.  I still have a lot of healing to do, but I’m glad that I’m not the only person that this has happened to.

What an awesome thing! In case you missed the story, here are a few articles…

I have a friend who is interviewing for jobs this summer. What are some of your best tips for interviewing for a teaching job? How would interviews be different for elementary or secondary?

I got a comment on my article Valid Reasons Teachers Quit tonight:

I am up past my usual time and I just decided to go on the web. I came across this. I have been teaching for seventeen years. Maybe you can help. Every morning I dread the thought of going to my job. This has been the worst year ever. I don’t have the desire to ever teach another child. Last year a child brought a knife to school-told his friends he was going to kill me. This year I seem to have the class from hell.

I love to teach-but not children any longer. I am sitting here practically in tears bbecause I feel as though I am…

I found this article that I wrote back in November but never got around to posting on the blog.

Do I really want to teach?
In my first two years of teaching, not a week went by when I didn’t ask myself that very question. Many people face it every day. Without question, the most popular search terms that brings visitors to my blog are “quit teaching” and “do I want to teach?” I wonder how many Google searches are done each day on the subject. I wonder how many young teachers decide each day that this will be their last semester to teach. It’s tragic, really.

At the same time, the greater tragedy is the number of people who…

It’s nearing the end of August. Hopefully, you are not looking for a new job this early in the school year, but studies say that 60% of people are thinking of switching jobs at any given time. If this is you, you may want to check out The Ultimate Job Hunt Guide over at Chief Happiness Officer’s blog.

I’ve written a some on the topic of switching jobs before. Here are some good articles to get you started.

• Invalid Reasons Teachers Quit
• Valid Reasons Teachers Quit
• 9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick)
• The Total Résumé Makeover
• Polishing The Résumé

Last weekend, I began considering Why do teachers quit? As someone who is very interested in maintaining a strong educational system, and someone who wants to see children get the best education possible, it is an important question to me.

As we continue pondering this, we want to begin this weekend looking at some ways that we might be able to keep teachers from quitting.

If there is a problem, find the underlying source
Simply realizing that teachers quit is not the answer. Simply treating symptoms may solve the problem on an isolated basis, but it doesn’t really begin to scratch the surface of where we really need to be working. So we need to dig a little deeper and…

For another look at quitting teaching, see my article 9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick).

One of the most popular search queries that has sent people to my blog lately has been “why do teachers quit?” Doing a quick search of my site tells me that I have a number of articles that reference this idea, but have not yet explored exactly why it is that many teachers choose to quit teaching. This weekend, I will write two articles on that very topic. Today, we’ll consider the question Why Do Teachers Quit? and explore some valid reasons they do so. Yesterday, we considered the same question and explored some of the invalid reasons for quitting. Next…

For another look at quitting teaching, see my article 9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick).

One of the most popular search queries that has sent people to my blog lately has been “why do teachers quit?” Doing a quick search of my site tells me that I have a number of articles that reference this idea, but have not yet explored exactly why it is that many teachers choose to quit teaching. This weekend, I will write two articles on that very topic. Today, we’ll consider the question Why Do Teachers Quit? and explore some invalid reasons they do so. Tomorrow, we will consider the same question and explore some of the valid reasons for quitting….

Think of the many reasons you have to quit.

1. Bad students
2. Bad administrators
3. Bad curriculum
4. Too much paperwork
5. Too much negativity
6. Too much responsibility
7. Not enough time
8. Not enough credit
9. Not enough PAY

Face it, you are not as good of a teacher as you could be. You’re not living up to your potential. Nobody is.

Where am I?
Seth Godin says that you are in The Dip (What’s The Dip?). This is that place where it feels like nothing you do matters. Things were going so well until you hit The Dip. It’s when you get to that point where you realize that indeed, the honeymoon is over. When the tide has turned and things are…