Ask a therapist > Anxiety > Should I quit being a teacher?

Should I quit being a teacher?

I have recently qualified as a teacher in July. I did not manage to secure a full time job so now I am working as a supply teacher and going to different schools around my area. This experience has been so daunting and stressful for me, from not knowing where I will be until I get a call in the morning, to not knowing what the school will be like, how the kids will be. I have been doing it for a couple months now and I have been to quite a few horrifying schools with challenging children. I feel like it has ruined my experience for me and its doubting my skills as a teacher. I feel like I cannot control the classroom, I cannot teach properly and it's making me question why I have decided to become a teacher in the first place. Some schools were quite horrible, some teachers were either just ignoring me and not helping me out with the routines. Of course there have also been some amazing schools too. But I’m stressed about my future and I don’t know if I want to carry on with teaching anymore. I don’t want my degree to go to a waste and I have 5 years to complete my ECT years before my teaching certificate expires. Going off of someone else’s lesson plan is hard as it is. But I also feel like my plans aren’t good enough. I keep thinking about my training years and how stressful it was for me but luckily I had a mentor who helped me. But knowing I won’t have that same level of support anymore makes me feel not ready to become a fully qualified teacher. I’m also thinking that luckily as a supply I do not need to plan and attend meetings, but if I do have a full time job then I would need to do all of this and I remembered how incredibly time consuming it is. There’s pros and cons to doing both supply and full time teaching and I don’t know what to do. I also just feel like it’s too stressful for me and I’m losing my passion and motivation. I think it’s because of the recent schools I have visited and how horrible and stressful it made me feel. I also think I should maybe just quit teaching but I don’t know what I would do instead.
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Asked by Cam
Anxiety
Careers
Answered
11/10/2022

Hello,

So you've worked really hard to become a teacher, and it took a lot of time. I'm not going to tell you whether you should quit the profession or not, but I also believe that it's common when facing a lot of frustration trying something that's relatively new, it's easy to feel like it's impossible and that things can't get better. You also don't seem to be getting a lot of support as you're starting this profession. You're also starting the career at a time when there is a massive teacher shortage, and so maybe you're being asked to take on more than you normally would. Without having a regular classroom and the ability to build rapport and develop a stable routine at one particular location, this is a very, very difficult way to start. 

You mentioned that you had a mentor who helped you when you were training, and it sounds like you've lost some of that support and guidance. You're losing passion and motivation, but that's not necessarily because you're in the wrong field, but perhaps because your early experiences as a teacher aren't at all what you expected, and they aren't necessarily indicative of what your future experiences will be like. Your statement of, "I feel like it has ruined my experience for me and it's doubting my skills as a teacher" suggests that you know that your current experiences aren't providing necessarily what you need as someone starting out as a teacher. It also suggests that you know that what your experiences are currently aren't reflective of what your experiences will be like in the future.

It's common for people to seek therapy when experiencing work-related stress, especially when new at a job or in a career. This is a challenging time for you, and you may ultimately decide that teaching is not for you and that there is something else you'd prefer to do (even though it's hard now to know what you would do instead, the fact that you've made it this far through school and being placed in this position provides evidence that you could be successful in a number of different fields), but with some additional support it can get easier. It may also just take some time. My suggestion is to consider participating in therapy (whether that be on this platform or elsewhere in your community). I wish you the best of luck, and if you have any additional questions or if I can help at all, just let me know. Remember that you're probably doing much better than you realize, so try to pay attention to the evidence that shows that you're adapting, that you're competent, and that you're growing.

Take care,

Nicholas DeFazio, MRC, LPCC-S, LICDC

(MRC, LPCC-S, LICDC)