Yeah, I don’t know. Happened to me this way too.

You run out of autonomy first, I think. It wasn’t about money for me – more about something exciting that I couldn’t do if I kept teaching.

I don’t understand why mentoring adults is supposed to be the appealing alternative to teaching children. It just seems to internalize the low status of working with children.

This is the kind of issue that seems increasingly insolvable because the solution is so straightforward. Everyone needs lighter teaching loads, less time in front of students, and budgets that have a bit of slack so that it is possible to pursue interesting ideas, go to conferences, etc.

Lighter teaching loads, more free time, and a little extra money don’t improve things on their own, but they are a prerequisite for just about anything interesting happening.

I admit that I’m at the point in my teaching career (currently in year 16) where I’m thinking of making a change. I’m tired of lugging papers around with me wherever I go; tired of trying to find the time every day to do the fun imaginative stuff that my students (and I) deserve; tired of having a one-day weekend because I spend all day Sunday grading papers and re-doing my plans for the next week. It’s a scary move to get out of education (at least as a teacher) but it may be that time for me.

So far my solution to the lack of challenge problem has been to move country; so far I’ve lived in four different countries. I’ve also changed up what I’ve actually taught. The past two years have seen me only teach one class, and spend the rest of my time supporting my colleagues’ work. Starting in July, I won’t even be attached to a school, let alone teach children.

The difference is that I will almost certainly spend the rest of my career in education trying to elevate other people’s teaching. I think what Shawn is concerned about is good people who leave education completely, not just leaving the classroom for a support/consultation role.

This is an aptly timed topic for me. I’m in an independent school (2nd year) – which is great other than the fact that we are at about 87% salary of our public counterparts.

While I have no intention of leaving the classroom in the forseeable future, I am thinking of going into my contract discussions soon and asking for more work. It’s insane – I coach two sports now and am considering requesting to coach all three seasons next year. While I love coaching, the #1 reason I’m considering this is money. As someone living in a high cost of living area and someone with 2 degrees worth of student loans, the road to home ownership is pretty non-existant for me right now.

Of course, coaching 3 sports in one year is a work load that could lead to a fast burnout. I’m growing awfully tired of working with some of my student-athletes several hours a day, 6-7 days a week and I’m only halfway through the year. Another 4 months would be tough. But that’s the position I’m in and I’m sure I’m not alone and not the worst case scenario out there.

I would agree with what’s been pointed out in terms of teaching’s insanely broken career model, and add a few additional points that bear mentioning.

Some other things to consider in context: the pattern of good young teachers cycling out of teaching to do other things for a while and then cycling back into teaching after some time away is not totally uncommon in many other careers. In fact, in the world outside of teaching (speaking as someone who spent most of my own post-doctoral adulthood in Silicon Valley), this is an extremely common pattern.

Younger adults tend to need about 3-5 years to really master their first entry-level assignment. Then they tend to rise more quickly than they have previously, but usually through a variety of lateral moves within and between companies. This is how individuals negotiate for better pay, for one thing, as well as broader responsibility. Almost nobody entering the corporate world over the past 25 years expects to work for the same company for their whole career, much less to do exactly the same type of assignments.

Teaching is one of the very few career paths that still hold to the model of starting at the bottom of a straight ladder, then rising step by step (and column by column) to some predefined retirement age at the top.

I can’t think of any such careers that still exist in the private sector. Maybe someone else can fill in my gaps here.

Another pattern I notice that needs addressing is that many (most?) terrific young teachers tend to need to supplement their insufficient entry-level paychecks somehow with tutoring jobs and/or other part-time gigs — a situation that gets old very quickly. Living “rent-free” on campus as a teacher at a boarding independent school is another form of uncompensated part-time work that boosts net take-home pay, but at a price. Three to five years of this grind gets old fast.

I remember the day I had the realization that I could continue to teach my current load plus do my four other part-time gigs along the way every year, *OR* I could get myself ONE better-paying job and not feel so exhausted and overstretched all the time.

There are a lot of other things broken with the current career model for teaching, but I think it is useful to consider that the first ten years of a person’s career in our current society tend to be a time of enormous transition, growth, and upheaval. So maybe these realities need to be factored into a more sustainable path toward keeping good teachers in the classroom.

– Elizabeth (aka @cheesemonkeysf on Twitter)

I’m not sure enough people care about keeping teachers of that quality. My bet is that the powers that be will opt for consistency and repeatability over powerful teachers they can’t easily replicate.

I fear many pieces are already lined up for the (further?) McDonaldization of education- increased focus on scripting, rigid pacing guides with standardized lessons plans, adaptive path LMSs etc. Not too far a stretch to record the “best” Disney approved edutainers and then pay low skill workers to manage the bodies. It’s not far from what I saw at the School of 1 in NY a few years ago. They’re franchising.

I’d like to be very wrong.

I’m wholeheartedly in the school-context-matters camp. The experience that many of my friends and I had is that being a good novice led to additional responsibility– more preps, “leadership” roles chairing this or that, mentoring new teachers, curriculum-writing, coaching, clubs, etc.– in part because we had so much turnover that our staff was nearly 50% first-year teachers. I was indeed young, single, and childless, so I could handle the punishing schedule, but it frustrated me that I didn’t have the mental space and energy to improve, because while I was good for a novice teacher (or so I was told), I certainly wasn’t good period, and I desperately wanted to be. So I contributed to the turnover, because like Dan said, working with adults (some of whom are not far removed in age or maturity from the children I taught) is easier and more lucrative than classroom teaching, which gives me back my evenings, some weekends, and the opportunity to continually learn and grow.

I think there’s a third rock/hard-place hinted at by several of the commenters in administrative interference in teaching practice.

For teachers for whom the thrill of the challenge of planning and executing interesting and incrementally better lessons, there certainly is a point of diminishing returns brought about by getting comfortable with the lessons you’re teaching (content and pedagogy), pay scale caps, and administrative requirements that frequently don’t make sense for the benefit of the students’ learning.

Teaching for me isn’t about the kids, or making the world a better or more just place (although those are nice added benefits), it’s about the challenge of self-improvement and creating new and exciting curriculum for my classroom. I never want to be at the point where I pull out my collected binder of activities for days 1 through 180, and make a few copies, review a few notes and go. That isn’t me. I long for feeling unsettled, and fear complacency–because for me, as soon as I stop feeling the need for self-improvement, I feel as though I’m not doing enough to improve my practice.

I’m in my second teaching job–after six years in an urban system, teaching mostly freshman (Algebra I and Geometry, later Algebra II and Precalculus), I’ve jumped ship to a suburban high school with its own set of unique challenges (and teaching Calculus, Algebra II and Precalculus). Each time I’ve shifted courses, it’s given me a chance to re-excite my passion for content creation–but I’m worried about what happens when I reach that point here?

After a few years of teaching calculus and remastering the material, will I begin to grow dissatisfied with the amount of improvement I can make each year? Will it be enough to shift back to Algebra I and Geometry and rediscover the cool math that I find distasteful now? Or is that the point I head off into the sunset and find something new–use my engineering degree for engineering, or take the actuarial exams and play with math without the kids in front or me, or head into college teaching where there’s more math for me to play with and a little more freedom in what and how I teach? In any of those vocations, I would make more money, work fewer hours than I currently do, and have more time to pursue my non-teaching passions, but would that be enough for the challenge I’d lost? I’m not sure.

@Tom #4: “I don’t understand why mentoring adults is supposed to be the appealing alternative to teaching children. It just seems to internalize the low status of working with children.”

Consider the work that physicians do. Physicians are supposed to be all about working with *patients,* right? True, but that does not mean that they get to skip the part where they undergo intensive training with a highly skilled, experienced adult who knows how to treat patients.

Novice teachers take heart! There is light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not a train. Talk to teachers that are still on fire for teaching and have taught a long time. People stay in teaching because they love kids and love the subject they teach. I am not saying there are not things that are wrong with the system. And I think we need to fight, vote, and blog about things that need to be changed to give kids the best math classrooms in all schools. I am disheartened as I see many new teachers start in a blaze of fire and then smolder under long hours of paperwork, administrative demands and unsatisfactory pay. I wish I knew all the answers, but I do know that I love my job where each year is fresh start, new challenges, new students, and if I get bored I ask for new preps and new subject matter. Oh I wish I had more planning time to make the videos, plan with colleagues, research new teaching methods, but I have to do the best I can. And I will continue, until we can fight for more time and money. I guess I just wanted to let you all know that you can survive and stay in the classroom. I spent long hour at school for years. Then I raised a son and spent less time at school. Now as he heads to college, I find myself spending more time again at school. I have never held another full time job other than as a high school math teacher, but I know all jobs have their drawbacks. We will always struggle with time at work versus time with family no matter where we work. I think of all the clichés, but you do make a difference teaching! Isn’t that what we are here for, to make a difference? No, the pay is not good and the demands are ridiculous. But we don’t do it because we have to; we do it because we get to. Every day I get to teach I know I make a difference and you do too. Please don’t forget that.

I’m not sure where I fit into this discussion, I am a 7th year teacher, and was a career-changer. I began teaching in my mid-40s, married with 2 school-age children. I do work too many hours, even though many of my colleagues in this large well-established school do not, and managed not to sacrifice attention to my own children while attending to the educational needs of some very high-need students in my first 5 years. (I even managed somehow – with a lot of support from family and colleagues – to survive a serious illness without negatively impacting my career or performance.) I am absolutely floored by the energy of some of my younger colleagues, some of whom give 100% in the classroom and then come home and share their creativity with the rest of us in blogs. But I also know that even though I am teaching some of the same courses for the 5th or 6th year in a row, I am still revising, still looking for new ideas, still trying to implement new technologies – still trying to be a better teacher. One of the things I love about this job – besides the math, and the kids – is that is ever-challenging; you are never the best you can be.

I am fortunate to currently be working in a school that supports rather than undermines its teachers. But even in schools that presented greater personal stress and challenge, I have been in the private sector – spent 20 successful years there – and I know that I never was as proud to introduce myself professionally as I am now. Whether the entire public respects us or not, saying “I am a teacher” means a lot to me. Do I seem overly simplistic and starry-eyed? Hardly; I have sacrificed personal things to devote this much energy to work. But I’m not sure you can thrive (and survive) as a teacher without loving what you do.

I think more wisdom could be gathered from the stories of people who have figured out how to stay in the classroom than the stories of folks who felt that they had to leave. (That would be a fun interview series, actually.)

From my viewpoint in 2013, the thing that excites me most about teaching is having the chance to attack interesting problems and share my results with others. Right now, the blog world is more than sufficient for the sort of feedback and satisfaction that I seek. If for whatever reason that became frustrating (or if I needed to get my hands on some cold hard cash) I’d probably be looking for a way out.

And, again, from my viewpoint in 2013, the place where I’d probably head off to is a Phd. I’d be worried about losing touch from the profession, though, so I’d be especially eager for compromises that allow me to stay sharp by spending time around students learning math. Preferably in a classroom. I assume that’s impossible, but that’s what I’d look for in 6+ years.

Totally love what you’ve written here as I find myself contemplating if I’m in fact burnt out.
The pressures from the central office and holders of power are getting overwhelming as they have apparently forgotten just how much hard working teachers already try to do for their students in the classroom. The challenge of teaching has become trying to keep up with curriculum changes made by others that we have to actually pull off on the day to day level.
I’m torn from wanting to implement more inquiry activities in class to being required to deliver more common assessments, make sure we cover all the material in time to deliver the common summative assessment within the week long window so the district data nerds can compare all of us. I used to be a pretty positive up-beat guy but I feel I’ve become more beat-up recently.
PLC movement has some good aspects to it but way too much emphasis is placed on the assessment and not what was done prior to it. Maybe an alternative organization can be created that focuses on good instruction instead of frequent testing?

Its gotten better every year. I’ve gotten better every year.

But non challenging? I still feel challenged every day, its the returns that are diminishing.

The indiscriminate praise bugs me the most. Somehow that feels like a bigger indication that nobody is paying attention. Student test scores go up and I get a pat on the back, but what did I do that was so great?

Somehow I’ve lasted 9 years or so. I try to find a reason every day to stick with it. It’s hard sometimes.

This community has not only offered some great ideas and smart folks to bounce ideas off of, but it’s also been a great support group to pick me up when I’m down about what I do.

The bottom line for me though is this:
I’m a vote-with-your-dollar kind of guy and to be honest it royally pisses me off that such a critical profession garners such little respect. People pay lip service to it, but until the community decides to put their money where their mouth is, and chooses to invest in not only teachers but also TIME for teachers to do a good job, I’ll be one bad day away from joining the other 50% who already left.

How have I lasted 25 years (one school for the first 8 and this current one for 17)?

I too enjoy developing what I think is good content delivery. I also am enjoying implementing the use of technology to help students learn. I am one of the Ed tech leaders in my school. The young teachers have nothing on me in that light. I put in a lot of time every week developing the week’s plans. Is every lesson a major success? Hardly and I’ll call any teacher that claims otherwise a liar.

I’m concerned about the lack of success on NECAP tests by our students. We are alway just below the State average( sometimes a little too much below). One change over the years that must be a factor here is that today’s students seem to have shorter retention spans. They can’t remember things. At this point, my annual evaluation doesn’t have testing data as a component. I hope my State is wise enough not to mandate this by law.

I am getting tired of managing a classroom. The retirement system says 6 more years. I’ll be honest that for many years now it has been the breaks and the shortening summer breaks that has held my interest in this career. The chance to recharge and plan is greatly appreciated.

Financially, I work the two jobs (HS and teaching cc courses every semester) to support the family. I’ve been doing this since Fall’93. The work load is intense but it pays the bills.

If you don’t feel challenged after two years of teaching, you have not even begun to understand the profession.

What I have to say echoes some themes that are getting airtime across the comment thread (P. J. Karafiol, Grace, Tom Hoffman, Chris Robinson, Pam Hall, …) but I want to make sure it gets highlighted.

Dan, I was initially horrified by your characterization of “the rock”. I thought you were echoing something I sometimes hear from ambitious folks in their late 20s which always pisses me the f*ck off, along the lines of “I decided to move on because I wasn’t challenged any more.” If you are unchallenged after 5-6 years of teaching, then to paraphrase Ludacris, you just ain’t doin’ it right. Do you mean that your classroom now functions moderately smoothly and you have a couple years of experience with your curriculum? Fine, what thought have you given to experimenting with classroom structures? To exploring questioning techniques? Have you really mastered the collection and use of formative assessment? How about the question of how your curriculum responds to kiddies with different levels of understanding? Does every task you bring to the classroom admit multiple levels of entry? Have you thought about experimenting with your classroom community building? This list of questions is a 10-second brainstorm from somebody with only 1 decade in education. You have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes, and you’re insulting both the profession, and all career educators in particular, with your ignorance.

Then I calmed myself down. You, Dan, of all people, obviously know this. You’ve been writing for 6 years about fine points in curriculum and task design like you know you could keep doing it forever, and that’s just one little corner of the pedagogy universe.

Given that, what could “unchallenging” be referring to? Well, I can’t know exactly what you meant, but numerous comments have pointed out the way that the structure of the profession makes it difficult for folks with serious professional ambitions to feel those ambitions continue to be expressed within the classroom. I think this is a flaw in the structure and that it is remediable, but the remedy is heading in a different direction from where the ship currently seems to be sailing. To wit, toward decreasing teachers’ classroom and administrative responsibilities to create room for reflection and serious growth initiatives (cf. Tom Hoffman), such as critical friends groups and lesson study, which would of course also help with the personal-unsustainability part of the issue (“the hard place”), increasing our creative autonomy, especially our collective autonomy, increasing the amount of interaction and visibility between individual classrooms and the communities that surround them (first, other teachers; second, parents; third, the whole community), and fourth, more and more varied opportunities for teachers to exercise leadership (I am a big fan of serious mentoring programs).

The thing I want to drive home is to clearly distinguish two possibilities for where “unchallenging” is coming from, and make sure everybody’s clear on which one they’re talking about: is it the nuts and bolts of the job, or is it the structure of the profession?

As an aside, my own leaving the full-time classroom was governed almost entirely by lifestyle considerations; however, after the fact I discovered that it also freed me up to explore my educational values much more deeply. The proximate motivator was that I was in a serious relationship on which my schedule was taking a toll, but more generally I was done with the too-thin, too-permeable membrane that you mentioned between my job and the rest of my mental and physical existence. After I left, though, I discovered that I was also tremendously relieved and rejuvenated to no longer be compromising what I cared about educationally because of the mismatch between the expected curriculum, the kids’ prior knowledge, and the calendar (cf. Chris Robinson’s comment). Being involved in education in other, less regimented ways has allowed me to bring my teaching practice into much deeper alignment with my educational values. (I’d love for the structure of the profession to make room for this kind of exploration of values, but again, things seem to be headed in the other direction.)

Word.