29 Days

There are now 29 days remaining in the school year. That means not only is the school year soon coming to a close, but so is my career as a teacher. Ever since I was offered a position with a test development company, I have been looking forward to being done with teaching. I am just so tired of dealing with disrespectful students. Today however, I began to have second thoughts about leaving my profession of seven and a half years. There are a lot of things that I will miss about teaching. Sure, I’m going to miss getting to go home from work before 4:00 every day and having my summers off. I’d be lying if I said that these weren’t great benefits of teaching. They are not the only reasons that I became a teacher though. In fact, they were really small considerations. I am going to really miss working with young adults who genuinely enjoy learning or who at least give it some effort. I think that I’ll enjoy my new job. Instead of trying to motivate students who don’t want to be motivated, I’ll be able to sit down and actually do mathematics. I think that this new job will all me to use my skills to help students in a different way. Instead of teaching them directly, I’ll be indirectly guiding what it is that they learn. While I think that I am going to miss teaching some of the time, especially during the summer and between the hours of 4:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon, it’s not as if I am completely closing the door on teaching. If I find after a few years that I don’t like my new job, I can always try to return to the classroom.