“You’re Not a Teacher Anymore”

My wife said this to me last week in the middle of a conversation. It wasn’t accusatory, nor was it the focus of the dialogue. This simple statement of fact was only an aside of another sentence, falling between a pair of commas.

Silently I sat and listened to her continue the conversation, completely rocked to my core. The worst part is, I don’t really know why I felt that way.

I graduated college in December 2014 with a degree in History Education. My first full-time teaching job began in August of 2015. Before that school year was over, it was obvious to me that I wouldn’t be in the classroom forever. In fact, I was positive that I would have an opportunity in the next year or two to leave the classroom behind.

My career goal was now to improve all other teachers around me by switching to a position where I could teach them how to use technology and effectively implement it into their lessons. Why only impact the students that I get, when I can impact an entire campus? Or, possibly, a district.

In my second school year, I was offered that exact position. However, due to an impending move halfway across the country, I had to turn it down. A year later, my new school offered me the position.

There is a commonly repeated statistic that half of teachers leave the profession within their first five years. I am now just a number enforcing that statistic. Not because I couldn’t handle teaching or that I wasn’t good at it. On the contrary, I am a phenomenal teacher.

*sigh*

Was. I was a phenomenal teacher.

To prove it, here is a collage of student artwork I gathered over the years depicting me as their favorite teacher.

In the center is Communist Dictator Mr. Woods eating a taco. (My love of which my students in Georgia found strange. The concept of a breakfast taco left them flabbergasted.) This originally came from a giant banner that was hung in the hallway outside of my classroom that read “Role of Citizens: Obey Mr. Woods.” It was all my students’ decision, I promise.

In the bottom left is the Mad King Mr. Woods holding up his favorite threat to give even more homework; in the bottom right is “Dictator of the World” Mr. Woods happily reminding his student that their hand has no power; to the far right is Devil Mr. Woods proudly standing in front of his typing test results, proving that he is indeed better than all of them; in the top right corner is Tree-Mascot Costumed Mr. Woods with his catchphrase:

“I hate you all equally.”

See. Great teacher. Highly respected. You can ignore the classroom rule in the top left corner. That’s not important and says nothing about how my students interacted with each other in my room on a daily basis.

Absolutely nothing.

Even though I enjoyed working with students every day, I chose to leave the classroom. I took a job working with teachers, but would still describe myself as a teacher to anyone who asked. Technically I was still teaching, but to a different audience.

Then, in October of 2020 I chose to leave that audience, as well. I felt uncomfortable being on campuses with hundreds of other humans during a pandemic when I had an infant son at home that had only just begun developing an immune system, and so I sought out a new job. While I was fortunate enough to find a district-level position within the same school district, I don’t teach anyone anymore. Sure, there’s the occasional training that I put together or quick videos with technology tips, but it’s nothing more than I do in my regular life with friends and family. Instead, I do my best to keep audio and video technology working and help other’s presentations run smoothly.

I’m no longer a teacher and I hate it.

And yet, I have no desire to go back. No matter how much I miss student artwork. My teaching certificate expires in the next year and I have no plans to renew it.

Despite that, I have a desire to teach others. In a way, working on “Ptolemy’s Tales” has allowed me to continue thinking of myself as a teacher. The research I do for Ptolemy also allows me to explore history and, in the loosest of misconstrued definitions, think of myself as a historian.

Two birds, one lie.

Unfortunately that’s not quite enough for me. Especially with the speed at which I have been writing. While I have made more progress in the last year than I had in the 5 years previous, I’m not exactly working at a fast pace.

But similar to how I treat my weight, a dislike of the truth isn’t enough motivation for me to make any serious changes that would drastically impact my day-to-day life. At least, not on my own. My brain is best motivated when I feel like I am held accountable by others. It’s the reason I began this website in the first place. Knowing how many people are visiting each week can encourage or discourage me from writing.

Ironically, if I’m not making posts, no one is going to visit the site. It’s a vicious circle of confirmation bias and self-doubt.

This has had my mind racing with creative ideas to both use my knowledge of history to expand upon other’s and to help promote all the writing that I am doing here.

More to come soon.