Why I stopped teaching and why I'm going back

I stopped teaching around this time last year because I was exhausted. I was fed up with the relentless emails from administration telling me I had to attend "more" — more professional development sessions, updating software sessions, curriculum development sessions, reporting sessions and whole school "let’s evaluate our mission statement" sessions.

I needed to reconnect with my passion of introducing these teenagers to the power of a narrative to change a life.I had also just completed a manuscript development program for an adult historical fiction novel that I thought may actually be my debut breakthrough. I wanted time to focus on this and I wanted to work in a bookshop, a dream that I have had for a long time. Then, yes! I was offered a position at a local, independent store.

In the meantime, I waited to hear back from a publisher who’d asked to read my entire manuscript. I’d been writing seriously for more than 15 years, this was my 7th manuscript. I stood behind the wooden counter and stared at the covers that surrounded me. Had these authors also faced countless rejections? Probably, yet they had persevered. Waiting for another reply, perhaps another rejection, was so very, very hard.

Indeed, each time they walked out of the shop, something within me gave a little nudge. Then a shove. I was missing them, these sullen, excitable, unpredictable, reluctant, pessimistic, engaged, shy, awkward human beings among whom I had been walking for so long. In fact, and here came the realisation: I needed them.

I made an earlier comment about a 1teacher school. I forgot to mention there were 28 students. No behaviour problems - NONE. I was only 21. Before that at 19 -20 I had taught k-3. I had only been trained to teach Grades 3-6. We had a dog in class - the best friend of a student.

Impossible teaching. 15 adolescents 16 years old. Most had been tossed out of Church school/public school and last chance to get School Cert was TAFE as Liverpool Sydney. They were the most disruptive students in the Liverpool area. Now that is real teacher STRESS.

Try teaching K-6, 5-12yrs, IQs below 60 to 140plus. All in one classroom in an isolated one teacher school at a timber mill. No phone. Only a methylated spirts duplicator.

Teachers burn out and have mental health issues due to workplace bullying and increasing expectations. Too many that care are forced to leave the system.

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