Teaching is thought to be an easy job. It is not. I am not

Posted on: January 19, 2024 at 09:34:12 CT

complaining, I chose to teach and I continue to do so 30+ years later. Teaching is high-stress and emotionally draining. When Covid hit a lot more was dumped on teachers' plates with no actual training to prepare them. It was simply we have to teach virtually, make it work.

Teaching has always had a high attrition rate in the early years but for the most part, once you made it through the first five years you were a teacher for life. Recently I have seen a large number of experienced teachers, 10-20 years, leave the profession. these have always been the heart of any school, still young enough to spend the extra hours at school but experienced enough to be highly effective teachers.

A large part of that is the recent change in pay across America. It used to be that once you had been teaching for several years it was tough to change careers without taking a significant cut in pay. But teaching pay has not kept pace with the private sector. We recently lost a math teacher and a SPED teacher who both had over ten years of teaching experience to the private sector. One of them I knew well enough that he told me he was not taking a cut in pay to accept an entry-level job elsewhere.