Why I Quit Teaching and Never Looked Back
How the Story Began
I’m a former fourth grade teacher, who just like you, when I was an elementary school student always did exactly as I was told… haha well not exactly. Though, in spite of this, the expectation to do good and make something acceptable of myself was an utter non negotiable for my parents. Which is indeed what I’m (at least) TRYING to do.
(Mom and dad this is where you can stop reading…)
I always knew I’d go to college, which was a clear expectation for my 18 year old soon-to-be graduating from high school self. My path going forward was pretty much carved out to a tee, to ensure I’d end up exactly as my God-given adults anticipated.
“Go to college.”
“Get good grades.”
“Graduate.”
“Land a good job with benefits.”
“Work hard for long enough and you’ll be successful.”
If you’re reading this (and have lived enough time to know better) you’ll know that it’s… a lie. Well, certainly not always, but somewhat a scam don’t you think? (For reasons a quick Google search can answer). Depending on the path YOU want to set for YOUR life, conforming to the masses of a cookie cutter life simply isn’t the way.
I couldn’t fault my parents for teaching me that this was the only way I could make a respectable living, it’s simply what they were taught and pursued themselves. Really, it was the same advice mostly everyone I grew up with received. (Which by the way isn’t bad advice.)
A Seed was Planted
One day in middle school, my 8th grade science teacher, Mrs. Palmer had an insightful discussion with the class. She asked us the age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Of course the obvious answers were “professional athlete,” “famous singer,” “actor/actress” and the likes of those. Then she asked us what our parents did for work. This time around what she heard back were answers like, “retail store manager, bank teller, teacher, nurse and construction worker.”
Next, she wanted us to consider the differences between the answers we gave for both questions. What most students in the class aspired to be didn’t look like anything their parents were doing. She told us, “Hey class, you want to know something? Look at what your parents do for work, the type of car they drive, which political party they vote for, the size house or apartment you live in and even where you go to shop.”
The class instantly became silent.
“Chances are, you’re going to end up just like your parents. Living a very similar lifestyle to one you’re currently living.”
Majority of the class was taken back in confusion, as we couldn’t quite fully understand yet what Mrs. Palmer meant by what she said. It was a jab to the heart to some and a compliment to others (depending on what their parents did).
She explained how our parents cannot give us what they do not have, so they teach us what they know, and in return there’s an effect it has on us. “The things you all said you want to be. While they can be achievable, they’re also not your circumstance. If you want to be a professional athlete, but your working class parents cannot afford the time or money to put you on a team, or know anybody who can train you, you’re more than likely not going to be a professional athlete. Even if you say it 100 times a day. It’s not that you can never be one. You just have to work really hard.”
Ouch. Way to kill a dream Mrs. Palmer.
But also, there goes those words again… “work hard.”
She proceeded to give more examples using different careers, in an effort to not prevent us from wanting more out of life, but showing us as 13-14 years olds to be realistic about the things we want to achieve and see what reality might instead actually be open to us. She ended each example with the same point that the pursuit of any dream requires you to work hard.
While I don’t believe Mrs. Palmer meant harm, I do believe the way I internalized the concept of working hard left more discouragement than anything in my teenage brain. At the time, I didn’t realize my own limited beliefs I’d been picking up since a very young age, mostly through watching my environment. Honestly, I’d yet to realize the ways I had already been internally conditioning myself for future perpetual let downs.
The Internalization
Is working hard one size fits all?,” I thought.
My parents work hard. Both my mom and dad being restaurant managers for the bulk of their careers, pulling 12-14 hour long days, often coming home tired and drained, bills never-ending, all while maintaining a marriage, taking care of a home and raising children?! “We didn’t always have what we wanted, but we never went without what we needed,” my mother always says. The point is though, working hard was all I saw, but it sure wasn’t making anybody I knew rich or successful. If working hard was so crucial to success, how come the things I see my parents work hard for bring them dread or stress with little things to show for it.
This reality was in fact the same for many of my relatives, neighbors and friend’s parents. Unless you signed a huge sports deal or something, you pretty much already knew you’d be doing a similar rendition of what your parents did. Thus, I began to project this ideology onto my own life believing it’d be the same for me.
I thought, “How could I ever believe I can step outside the norm and achieve something different from what I’d always seen?”
Essentially, proving Mrs. Palmer’s point.
What she understood was greater than any of us teenagers in that room possessed the ability to fully comprehend yet. It wasn’t that we could never achieve our wildest dreams. However, due to the way I perceived life as a product of my environment, my limited beliefs would keep me stuck in this generational cycle. Unless I made a decision to change the way I think and beget an action plan.
You’ll never truly believe you can be more, because you can’t see past what’s right in front of you. It’s the same fear that grips people to stay at a dreadful job because they believe there may not be something else that’ll match or have greater pay, better insurance benefits, or increase their joy. In return, most people settle for a salary cap, little time for hobbies and minimal joy and happiness. I wanted to avoid it like the plague.
I’m not saying I don’t want to work. That’s not at all what I’m saying, but if we fall into the trap that the harder we work the more successful we’ll be, we’ll be burnt out and headed for an involuntary early retirement.
She’d planted the seed in middle school, but by the time I was mature enough to fully grasp it, years passed and turning back wasn’t an option. I was a year away from crossing the stage at my college graduation.
How I Became a Teacher
Up until this point in my life I was so good at meeting the expectations of people around me (mostly my parents and teachers) that I didn’t realize the time and mental expense it was costing me from believing I could do or be anything different.
At 23 years old I walked across the stage at Bobcat Stadium to receive my Bachelor’s in Education. After the ceremony, I could see my former classmates, some of whom I’d been taking the same classes with for years, displaying the expected and much appropriate graduation-day excitement. Hugging one another, their family and friends, and shouting “We did it!,” because well… we did. I could hear a group of girls discussing what decor their classrooms were going to have and what job offers they’d already lined up in their respective school districts.
I too laughed, cried and engaged in hugging my dear family, and taking pictures with classmates. Though, deep down I was very much aware that my sentiments about the day weren’t quite the same as everyone expected. Honestly, I truly felt proud of myself for making it to the finish line, but I really really didn’t want to be a teacher.
I know the obvious question would be, “Well why did you choose that degree?!” It was the same question I asked myself for the last year and a half of college. “Why did I choose this degree?”
The truth was, I followed the norm.
When I looked at my family’s faces, I could see they were so proud and overcome with joy for my accomplishments. Somehow, I felt even worse knowing that they weren’t privy to how I felt, and that if they found out how disappointed they would be that after 5 years and thousands of dollars of student loans later, what I chose wasn’t at all what I wanted to do. But in actuality, it was fear that led me to choosing a “safe” degree in the first place.
I felt crippled by the fear that whatever I chose I’d have to do forever, and if I’m going to work hard at it, it must be something I at least enjoy. Also, I was bothered by the fact that many of my friends knew almost EXACTLY what they wanted to do, or so it seemed. Teaching would linger in the back of my mind here and there since high school. While I wasn’t overjoyed by the idea, I looked back on all the teachers that made an impact on me. I figured I could be like them and inspire a new generation of learners somehow.
Then I thought, “Sure, everyone knows the pay isn’t massive, but I could teach kids. Can’t be that hard.” Besides, I actually was very good at school. Reading and History had always been my strongest subjects and the classes that most intrigued me, but I wasn’t quite certain if I would have a knack for teaching it. Nevertheless, when it was finally time to make the choice, I decided I was going to be a fourth reading teacher.
The fact is, it wasn’t that I despised teaching, I despised the life I saw myself living as a result. A life consistent to all the adults of my childhood. A life of never ending “hard work”, but at major expense to my pride and joy.
For some time I found contentment in pursuing an education degree. Or, at least I believed so because it seemed as if I was “on the right path.” Praise from my friends and family and getting good grades only served as confirmation that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be.
Seeking God for Purpose
Though, while in school, I prayed to God so many times for a sign, miracle, ANYTHING! In the back of my mind I believed my true passion would one day just show up and hit me like a ton of bricks. And how in that moment I would leave the education field behind and run as fast as possible in the other direction. I always said that teaching was my plan B while waiting for plan A to arrive. Yet still, there I was at graduation holding that diploma.
Fast forward months after graduation, I still didn’t feel led to teach, but I needed a job. I took up substitute teaching part time (to utilize my degree somehow) and working as a server part time. On one hand, here I am as a substitute with my good foot ready to run out the door, while the other’s delivering strawberry lemonades to table 31.
One of my favorite lines from the movie Wonder is when the main character, Auggie Pullman, says, “If you don’t like where you are, just picture where you want to be.” So that’s what I would do. I would picture the car I wanted to drive, what my ideal day looked like, the house I wanted to live in, the neighborhood, my future children, spouse, etc. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d get there yet, but I believed in faith someday I would. In reality, sometimes you have to do what you don’t like to get to where you want to be. For me, this was a constant reminder every time someone asked why I hadn’t yet accepted a full time teaching position.
An Interesting Journey Never Follows a Straight Path
I remained in prayer with God to reveal what it was I was meant to be doing with my life. It was as if I were Julia Roberts’ character in Eat, Pray, Love, searching for purpose left and right. Throughout this time I was desperately trying to find an answer and that’s where, aside from praying, I picked up a book. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson to be exact.
It began with that book, and then another and then another. I mostly read to distract myself from the fact that I felt so stuck in life and needed a constant escape. Before I knew it, I’d dived into the world of personal development books. I must’ve bought a bookstores’ worth of books and still have some whose pages haven’t seen the light of day…(shhh, that’s our secret). This led to me continuing down a rabbit hole I didn’t want to leave. I felt chains and strongholds breaking away in my mind as I learned practical ways to replace fear with courage, worry with faith, and scarcity and lack with abundance.
I figured if I could improve myself, my quality of life and shift my perspective by applying the principles I acquired by reading then maybe, just maybe, I might muster up the courage to go after the life I’d dream about. A life that didn’t look like anybody else’s I knew, one that didn’t conform to the masses. It was also during this time I would get an Uber driver who told me something I would never forget. He said, “God doesn’t always show us exactly what we’re meant to do, but He’ll gently nudge us in that direction.” I imagined it’s like you’re trying to put a puzzle together and have to connect one piece to another over time, and then eventually you have the completed picture. At the time of me receiving this nugget of truth, it’s been a year and four months since graduating from college.
Coincidentally the Uber driver on that day picked me up after a day of subbing from the very elementary school that just 1 year later would give me my first full time teaching position. Yes, I eventually faced my Goliath and did teach full time (because…bills lol). Also, it was time I upheld my part and “landed a good job with benefits” haha, jk.
To End Things…
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I would soon learn I needed to go through the process of being a full time teacher because it was through time that I discovered so much about myself. I only ended up teaching for 1 year before resigning, but I believe God chose that school to mature me, mold me, and push me into my purpose. Can you believe it? The very reality I was so afraid of living actually connected me further to my purpose.
There were certainly many long days, Sunday scaries and first-year teacher anxiety. But through that I discovered I actually love teaching things to other people. I genuinely love watching the aha moment when information is being absorbed, but being in the school system was sucking the life out of me bit by bit. I knew I wouldn’t continue through the educational system for long. However, I am very grateful for the experience, and the skills I learned that I am using to further my purpose. I still want to teach, just in different ways. Since resigning, I am FINALLY stepping out on faith and started a lifestyle blog where I inspire others on their path to pursue the unconventional. Truth be told, there was also no way I would’ve known I even wanted to do this had I not taught elementary. Even when running from what God had for me, I still ended up where I was meant to be.
One last thing, thank you Mrs. Palmer, for planting that seed in my head over a decade ago. I realized the goal was never to not just work hard, but to cultivate a way I can be just as successful making a living doing something I love and still maintain balance for life’s other pleasures. I appreciate you so much.
Here’s to also reclaiming your time and going after the life you want.
Welcome to Syd’s Time.
