Have you ever found yourself going down a path that wasn’t making you happy and not been able to see a way out? You’re not alone.
I found myself on that very same path a few years ago and learned a lot from the whole situation. I’m going to share with you the lessons I learned in the hope that you can apply some of them to your own situation. Being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel makes such a difference.
Where It All Began
The beginning of the road for me was while I was still in college, aged 17.
I attended my lessons but didn’t really put as much effort in as I should have done. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, I mean, who in all honesty does at that age? I wasn’t really that passionate about anything. (I did like my cars though!)
My tutors started talking about the next step. Life after college. What was I going to do? What career did I want to work towards? I quite honestly didn’t have a clue! I thought I wanted to be an airline pilot which is what I based my college choices on, but I wasn’t £100,000 into it (which is what the training would have cost!).
My tutors were beginning to increase the pressure on me to choose my path in life and encouraging me to go to University. The problem was, I didn’t want to nor did I know what I’d study if I went.
The Next Step
I’m sure Mum and Dad had some influence on me as the next thing I knew, I’d put in an application to go to my local University. It was a compromise. Wrexham Glyndŵr University was a 20-minute drive down the road and I wouldn’t have to go the whole hog of staying in halls etc.
The choice I made? To follow my Dad’s footsteps and become a teacher. I did deviate slightly though and chose to become a Primary School Teacher while Dad was secondary.
Dad made it look easy. He was a Physics teacher and Head of Upper School. He seemed to have lots of time off and holidays, we were lucky enough to be able to go abroad most years. I remember him working at home sometimes but not all the time and although I spent a fair amount of time in school when all the other children had gone home, I assumed that was because he was Head of Upper School and normal teachers wouldn’t have to do that. I have a lot of good memories from growing up and Dad features in a lot of them.
Teaching, I thought, would be a piece of cake. Lots of holidays? Check. Decent starting wage? Check. Money goes up fairly quickly each year? Check. I like children? Check. it seemed like the perfect match.
University actually ended up being a good laugh. I met lots of lovely people, it was almost like going back to school myself as lessons were taught in small groups most of the time with a few lecture hall sessions thrown in for good measure. I got to go on teaching placements which gave me a glimpse into the world of teaching. I received good feedback from my mentors about my teaching, the kids liked me. The holidays were good.
The three years I spent at University flew by, I enjoyed my time there and in the end, I’m glad I went. My hard work paid off and I graduated with a 2:1 degree.
I picked well, I thought to myself.
Entering The Real World
Reality hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was super keen to get myself a teaching job after my course finished and I landed myself a short term position three days a week in the school I did my final placement in. I met with the lady I was job sharing with during the holidays to get ready for the new school year (who was actually the Head), and then I realised, I didn’t actually have a clue what I was doing!
I’d always been told what I was teaching in my placements and had a lot of support and guidance along the way. I was asked to teach lessons here and there, do the register and playtime duties now and then. Now, I was responsible for coming up with the curriculum, what I was teaching when, what I was going to teach over the term; weekly plans; daily plans; individual lesson plans; marking of books for each lesson, every day; board displays; behavioural issues of the children; meeting with parents. The list went on.
I felt like I’d well and truly been thrown in at the deep end and I was drowning.
Luckily I was working in a very supportive school and little by little, I clawed my way back and began to feel like I was getting on top of things. Working three days a week helped as I could get marking and planning done at home and still have days off. It was harder than I expected, but I was coping.
After that contract ended, I began looking for a full-time position elsewhere as there wasn’t one available at the school I’d been working at. I was sad to leave. They had been a lovely group of people to work with and they’d been really supportive.
While I was job hunting, I tried my hand at supply teaching. That involved going into various schools to cover staff that were away on courses for the day or off sick at short notice. Supply was challenging at times as I generally didn’t know the school, the children, their abilities, where they were up to, some children had major behavioural issues and others put it on as I wasn’t their normal teacher. Other days were lovely as I had a great class of children and the teacher left me some nice easy, fun work for them to do. If there wasn’t any marking to do, I’d be out the door soon after the children by 15:30! Those days were the best!
I couldn’t rely on supply teaching though for a steady income though which wasn’t fair on Dave. The days were too erratic and unpredictable. I never knew when I’d get a call to go in and cover. It was a very unreliable way to make a living. So, I applied to lots of schools and eventually, got a full-time job.
Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire
It was a bittersweet feeling when I was given my first official teaching post as I had lost Dad only a month or so before. He was so proud of me when I graduated only six months earlier. None of us could have predicted the shit storm that was going to roll out over the following four months. I’m sure he’d have been over the moon seeing me in my first job, but he wasn’t there anymore to cheer me on, keep an eye on me or give me support when I needed it.
In hindsight, I should never have taken the job.
The timing couldn’t have been much worse.
It was the same story again. After months of working as a supply teacher, working days here and there, leaving early and having very little responsibility, reality set in. This time though, I was catapulted out to sea.
I was contracted to 25 hours a week. I ended up working 60-70 hours a week. I wish I was making that up, but sadly, I kept timesheets as I knew I was going way, way above and beyond. For the life of me though, I could not keep up with the absolute mountain of work that had been heaped on me by the school.
The support wasn’t there like before though. I barely knew anyone as it was the beginning of term and I hadn’t had the chance to get to know the team of people I was working with in my year group. It was only a matter of time before something broke. It was me. I had worked non-stop all week and hadn’t given myself any time off at the weekend. It was a story that had been on repeat since the start of term. I just couldn’t stop. I hadn’t managed to catch up with all the marking let alone finished planning for the next week.
They Broke Me
It was a Sunday evening, I was still sitting at my desk working. Dave was working a night shift so I was alone in the flat. I started crying and I just couldn’t stop. My uncle rang me up as Dave was unable to (he was at work and kept getting job after job). He helped me calm down and come up with a plan. I was going to go into school earlier than normal (which was already normally 07:15 or so), and see the Head – who was also my mentor – explain what had happened and ask for help.
Monday morning came. I went in at 06:30 (the Head was always there at that time) and knocked on his office door. His response when I told him what had happened the previous night? Yes, we could see that you were struggling.
What?!
You SAW me struggling but did nothing about it?!
Well, that was just the start. I should have seen the signs and walked there and then. But stubborn as ever. I gritted my teeth and carried on.
I went from a happy-go-lucky, full of beans, enthusiastic individual to a shell of my former self.
One day when I was driving to school near the beginning of the summer term (I’d somehow managed to keep on going for that long), I broke. I couldn’t stop crying. It was happening again. This time though, I had support as I’d got to know my fellow teachers that I worked with in the year group. They took one look at me and sent me packing to my Doctors. No ifs, no buts. They turned me straight around so I rang up and got an emergency appointment.
I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I was 23 years old and an absolute mess.
Once I got back to my car, I rang Dave in tears and told him what happened. He told me to come straight home. So I did. I was in no fit state to go back to school. When I got back and went upstairs (we had a first floor flat), I realised Dave was on the phone. It took me a few seconds to realise that he’d rung the Head of my school and was giving him a piece of his mind! I freaked!
What I should have done (which is what the Doctor and Dave both wanted), was for me to stay home and sign off sick. However, I knew that if I did that, I’d sacrifice all the work I’d done so far that term and have to redo it in order to pass my NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) year. It had been hard enough already as I’d had to fight to pass my previous terms.
I felt like I’d been targeted that year. I was picked on by various members of the Upper Management Team in lots of different ways.
During an NQT year, you have lots of lesson observations to make sure that you’re on the right track. All my previous observations had been positive so I wasn’t really expecting anything otherwise this year as I had gained more experience. Some of the lesson feedback was almost comical: ‘your window blinds were shut during the lesson’ and ‘you write the number 8 wrong’. Yet they failed me.
The Best Decision Of My Life
I made the decision that I was going to dig deep. I was going to complete my NQT year come hell or high water and then walk out of that school and never look back at the end of the school year.
I do not regret my decision one little bit.
I also wasn’t the only one to leave. Out of six teachers in the year group, one left to have a baby, two left to go to other jobs, two of us left to get the hell out of there and go back to supply and only one remained. I heard that the next year, there was a similar turn over of staff except they didn’t even wait until the end of the year.
It felt good to know that it wasn’t only me.
During the following year, I went back to supply teaching and came to the realisation that I didn’t want to go back to teaching full time in a school. In all honesty, I’d be perfectly happy not to have to go back into a school again.
I began looking for alternative jobs and found one in the NHS that I thoroughly enjoyed and retrained on the job.
And that was that. My teaching career was over.
My biggest failure.
Going to University to spend three years training to be a teacher (with the expense and student loan to go with it) and spending the following three years teaching (only one of which was full time, the other two were spent doing supply).
Six years of my life. Gone. Time and money and my mental health. Spent. My only regret? Not walking away sooner.
Lessons Learned
I did learn a lot from the whole experience though.
I learned that I should never be afraid to walk away from something that was making me miserable and damaging my mental health.
I learned that I should stick up for myself more and know when to say no. When enough is enough. When requests are too much. When my limits will be reached and passed. That I deserve more respect than I allow myself to have at times.
I learned how important it is to protect my well-being. To give myself time off. To allow myself to spend time with friends and family. To have time for me. That if I don’t do that, then I’ll burn out and be no good to anyone.
I learned I’m tougher, more determined, more resilient, more capable and braver than I ever thought I was.
I learned that it’s never too late to make a change.
I learned that there are never failures, only lessons.
At the end of the day, I still have a degree and I gained a lot of experience and skills during those six years that I’ve been able to apply in my life since then.
It wasn’t a waste of time. Nothing ever is. You may not see it straight away (it took me a while), but there will always be something that you take away from an experience – even if it’s just that you now know that you don’t like doing something.
Don’t ever be afraid to make a change in your life if something isn’t making you happy. The only regret you’ll have is that you didn’t make the change sooner.
Remember:
There are Never Failures in Life, Only Lessons
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