Why I Finally Quit Teaching
When COVID happened it exposed a lot of issues I had with education. We had a two week break from education, and that wasn't terrible; I enjoyed a little extra spring break. After that little extra break, I was suddenly tasked with teaching my students online with no resources and no training. I'm a very "pull myself up by the bootstraps" type of girl, so I taught myself how to use Zoom, record videos and post them on our Learning Management System, which I'd embraced immediately and taught my students how to use years prior. I worked hard making interactive lessons and recording instructional videos. And you know what? My students didn't even log in. I worked hard transitioning my lessons into ones my students could do online. I created ScreenCasts that showed them how to navigate the lessons...and I did this with no help or training from admin. Fast forward to the end of that school year, when I tried to hold my students accountable for their online learning. My admin just told me, "Show grace. Maybe the kids don't have a computer. Maybe they don't have internet." The underlying point was that I should just pass every kid who did ANYTHING. So I passed every kid who did anything, per my admin. I didn't like it, but it was implied that if a kid even did even one assignment, he or she should pass.
The following year was "hybrid learning" where students didn't really have to come to school. They could stay home, or they could come to school. Teachers who taught subjects like construction technology or culinary arts had to change their lessons so the kids could do it at home. But they couldn't. Not many students had large-scale shops or professional kitchens at their homes. So the teachers had to compromise their content and their lessons. It was unfair to the kids and their teachers. But the teachers were still pressured to pass the kids if they "tried." While a kid in class was learning to make a souffle, the kid at home was getting a passing grade at hone for scrambling an egg.
As a teacher, I saw the writing on the wall. This is the future of education and I am not here for it. Against my better judgement, I stuck it out. I didn't really look for another job, even though I wanted to. I naively thought, "Education will return to normal after this year." Spoiler alert: It didn't. I had to return to normal teaching, but I also had to consistently put curriculum online (which had to be different than what I was teaching in class) for kids who were "quarantined." But couldn't put those assignments in the gradebook and hold kids accountable for doing them.
This year, I just got so tired. I got tired of the "hybrid" model. I got tired of a kid missing two weeks of instruction, but I was expected to catch them up when they wouldn't even come to tutoring. I got tired of my administrators coming in to my classroom and telling me how I should be teaching in a post-pandemic world they've never taught in. I got tired of working harder than my students did. I am so tired that it's not worth it anymore.
