🔍Why I Returned To Teaching: Key Lessons

👩‍🏫 Are you a teacher wrestling with the "stay or go" dilemma? This vulnerable and honest episode might be your roadmap!

Episode Description: In this deeply personal episode, experienced educator Grace Stevens shares her transformative journey of leaving full-time teaching, discovering unexpected challenges in her new life, and ultimately finding her way back to the classroom—but on her own terms.

Key Insights You'll Discover: 🔍 The REAL reasons teachers consider leaving their profession 💡 Surprising emotional and professional gaps created by stepping away from education 🌈 How flexibility doesn't always equal fulfillment 💪 Strategies for maintaining passion while protecting your well-being 🤝 The irreplaceable value of human connection in teaching

Raw Moment Alert: During a conference exercise, Grace discovered she scored incredibly low in "validation" and "purpose" - a revelation that sparked her return to teaching.

Pro Tip for Educators: Grace advocates for normalized sabbaticals and more flexible re-entry paths in education.

Memorable Quote: "Is my life easier without teaching? A hundred percent. But it is not as full."

Who Should Listen?

• Teachers contemplating a career transition
• Educators experiencing burnout
• School leaders interested in teacher retention
• Anyone seeking an authentic story of professional reinvention

Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life?
Check out my signature on-demand course, Balance Your Teacher Life. You can go the self-study route or join a cohort with group coaching for Summer 2025.

Check out all the details here: www.gracestevens.com/balance

📘 My latest (and greatest!) book:
The Empowered Teacher Toolkit
Check out the best-selling Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers book here
Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries book here

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Transcript

podcast - back to classroom

[00:00:00] Grace Stevens: Okay friends, this week I'm just going to go straight for the throat and let me tell you this is the episode for you if you are really getting to that point where you're thinking stay or go. I am going to unpack how things have been since I left the classroom, what has really improved in all the ways that I thought it would, but what has been different about that experience that I hadn't anticipated so much, and what has led me.

[00:00:29] Ultimately, to go back into the classroom. Plot twist, right? Now, certainly in a limited capacity, I don't want to give anybody the impression that I'm full time back in the classroom, but I am back in the classroom. I am substitute teaching for a lot of reasons. I am really enjoying it. And I just, I feel like this is a very vulnerable share.

[00:00:48] Who knows? Maybe I'll delete it later. I don't know. But I want to help people to maybe think about some things that they have not. Thought about if you're really thinking stay or go, or you're just curious. What is it like? You've been in education for a long time. What is it like when you're not? Then this is the episode for you.

[00:01:08] It might help you gain some clarity. Think of some things that you haven't thought of before. And that's it. So it's a little bit different, but. We're going to go for it. I will see you on the inside. Welcome to the Balance Your Teacher Life podcast where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries, and achieving better work life balance.

[00:01:32] If you're passionate about education but tired of it consuming your whole life, you have found your home in the podcast universe. I'm your host, Grace Stevens, and let's get going with today's show.

[00:01:51] A few things off the bat. First off, yes, I slightly tweaked the name of the podcast. You are in the right place. You are in the right place. If you're interested in having a more positive teacher experience, learning how to set boundaries, learning how to be less stressed, you're in the right place. I'm your girl.

[00:02:07] All right. So there's that. And then the other thing is sometimes, you know, mostly I have a nice research podcast, all my thoughts in a logical fashion today. I'm not saying we're exactly free association, but I was just feeling really compelled to make this episode. So I'm going to do it. So if you're short on time I'm going to give you the cliff notes right now, right up front.

[00:02:32] Yeah. What is life like? Since I left teaching, amazing but also I've been missing a lot of things. So, is your life easier outside the classroom? Possibly, mine is, but I'll be honest, it's not as full. So, if you want more detail than that, let's go for it. Okay, so first off, let's talk about why I left the classroom.

[00:02:55] And so, I had always planned on teaching 20 years and then leaving. I had had a corporate career before for 13 years and I When I made this big decision that I wanted to be a public servant, I had told myself and my family, I will be a public servant for 20 years, and then I will go do something else.

[00:03:15] Because I knew I was getting into education late enough that, well, at the time, it didn't seem like it was going to be such a big issue because I was married. And my husband made a very good living. I was very gracious about me giving up a huge salary to, you know, I think I took a 70 percent pay cut to become a teacher at one point.

[00:03:35] And, you know, at that point we were a team, it was fine. But, you know, 10 years into that career change, you know, suddenly I was divorced and single parent and whatever. It became very current apparent to me that I would never be the teacher who put in enough years to be able to live off their retirement.

[00:03:55] Okay, so I always knew that around year 20, which would leave me young enough to go do something else, like not quite 60 yet, right, that I could leave and And do that. So I'd always planned to leave at year 20. And then there was a whole bunch of personal circumstances. I wanted to move to be closer to my partner.

[00:04:16] And that seemed like that needed to happen. We've been thinking about it for seven years. Needed to pull the trigger on that. And then when it came down to it, what am I going to have one or two more years in the classroom? I'm really not going to start again at a new school district. My, I became very passionate about wanting to help other educators have a more positive experience.

[00:04:37] My books positive mindset habits for teachers and a couple of others were doing pretty well. And I'm like, Oh, I could go all in on this and, you know, I would be fine. And so those were the reasons. Now, I will say the last year I taught was the most stressful. That isn't the reason I left that I had a really, really tough group of kids and I was really struggling.

[00:04:58] It wasn't the reason I left. What it was, was just a Big old bummer because I really wanted to enjoy that last year. Like I just knew it was my last year. I knew even when I started the year, even though other people didn't know, like I just wanted to revel and enjoy in everything and everything that year was not feel battle.

[00:05:15] So that was a big old bummer, but it wasn't the reason I left. Anyway. So what is different? I knew I was going to leave. I knew what that entailed and the reasons that I wanted to leave were yes, I wanted to have enough time to have a good run at something else. Okay, I also wanted more. I wanted to move.

[00:05:35] I wanted more flexibility in my schedule. For 20 years. I could only ever go, you know this, on vacation when everybody else is on vacation, when it's stinking hot, when it's expensive, all those things, right? My partner had already been retired quite a few years and was really bummed about traveling during summer and Easter break only.

[00:05:56] So I know that might seem like a trivial reason, but no, that was like one of the benefits. But the bigger reason I wanted flex building. My schedule was aging parent overseas really at some point she's going to need looking after her and I wanted that to be me. And I wanted to have the flexibility in my schedule to have some kind of job where if I needed to go bail, and be with someone for four or five months.

[00:06:20] I could do that. I had lost both my, I have a father and a stepfather and I had tried to negotiate. They both died of cancer and it was very difficult to be in this country and trying to get back to Europe. I remember my dad telling me at one point he was going to try and die over summer for me.

[00:06:41] Right? Honest to goodness, my stepdad Thanksgiving break six years ago, I went and helped my mum get him in hospice because, you know, I had nine days off, came back, and then the first day of winter break he actually passed, had to go back, all the things, right? So, it's terrible to lose people you love, and it's Even more terrible when you're like worrying about subplans and about how is my class behaving and all those things, right?

[00:07:07] So that was the biggest reason, okay? And so did I achieve those things? One, yes. Flexibility. That's been the biggest win. Not only has it given me flexibility to travel and I have done a lot of traveling and I have Really spent a lot of time with my mom while she's still feeling healthy. Don't want to focus on her not being healthy while she was still healthy.

[00:07:28] Oh my goodness, I've taken her to, to Paris to see her little brother. I've taken her to Crete for two weeks. I took her to Turkey for two weeks this year. We have been all around England. She is, I'm planning another trip home. My niece is getting married in the north of England. We're going on a little road trip together.

[00:07:44] So. That has been awesome, I've done a great amount of traveling, but you know what else? The flexibility, you don't even notice when you're in it. You know what the biggest thing has been? It's like, oh my gosh, I can take better care of myself. You know why? I can schedule a doctor's appointment. A dentist appointment, right?

[00:08:03] I don't have to call and say, I need to be your last appointment of the day, you know, and that's six months out, right? I can go to the doctor whenever I want and I always tell them, Hey, give me whatever opening you have. I won't take one at the end of the day or the beginning of the day because I want to save those for the people who need that.

[00:08:20] So more flexibility really in everything. I did joke that I will never ever go to Target, Safeway or Costco again on a weekend. So that's a huge blessing. Why contribute to all that drama when I can go during the week, right? So, the flexibility part is wonderful. Taking better care of myself, wonderful.

[00:08:42] Sleeping better, right? Less stress that is kind of that, not just exhaustion, but that vicarious stress. So, I'm going to tell you, if you, there are a lot of TikTok, A lot of things I see right now with really this new industry that's jumped up about helping people transition out of education, teacher quick talk, oh, how my life's been, how I went and you know, how I transition my classroom skills into these skills and I've got this other job and it's amazing and I don't work the overtime and, and all the things, right?

[00:09:16] So I know you see a lot of that stuff and I've had other jobs. Some people only have ever been in teaching. I have had jobs outside of teaching. And I have to tell you You know, it's called work for a reason. Most jobs are hard, right? If they're not difficult, they're mundane and they're monotonous. We certainly can't say that about teaching, right?

[00:09:36] So, it's a different type of hard, right? Choose your hard, right? Sure, it might be less hours. It may well be more pay. But it's going to have its own stress. There isn't any job that is just, you know, maybe there's a job that's totally stress free, but I don't know, like I still have kids who, and you know, people I know who work in, you know, customer service or taking care of, of people in a, you know, in different ways.

[00:10:01] It's all stressful. Okay, it might not be that kind of crushing stress that you take home and you worry about kids. But all life is stressful, so I don't always want people to think the grass is greener. But yes, it is an insane schedule that we keep an obscene momentum where you can never take a breath, right?

[00:10:20] Being in the classroom is like running a marathon from the minute the bell goes till the minute. The bell rings at the end of the day, and then that's when you really get to start working on your job, right? Lesson plan, grading, meetings, like it is kind of insane what we do. So I think other jobs out there are probably easier, but I will say this because here's where the big thing came for me.

[00:10:44] They are not as rewarding. They are not as rewarding. So there were a couple of things that led me to really want to go back. The first I'll just be honest was financial. You know, I seem like my business did better when I never worked on it. I don't know what else to say about that. I do not know what else to say about that.

[00:11:04] Seems like I work every single day, which is kind of hard. When you work for yourself, you feel like you should always be doing something. More content, more free content, more emails, more podcast episodes, write another book. You know, like, oh, wow. Like it's, it's, it's kind of hard. Listen, the biggest thing, and I am so blessed to be able to say it, look, I retired early.

[00:11:26] When I retired, I think I was, I was 58. So I knew there were seven years I was going to have to fund my own health insurance. And I don't know where it is anywhere else, but if you live in America, especially in California, that is so expensive. My health insurance alone is more than half my retirement. So You know, there is a financial aspect to it.

[00:11:46] I'm not like, I certainly, you know, I knew that I could cover my bills and look after myself, or I would never have left the classroom, right? I'm a very financially astute person but I, you know, so for a financial aspect, Just having a little wiggle room to treat myself to still do things for my kids that I like to do.

[00:12:06] Going back and finding something to do seemed good. But what really led me back to the classroom was a couple of things. One, I felt I had some unfinished business. Right? Really, in my career, I had only ever worked at two schools. Now, they were very different. One was a Title 1, very small, one school school district, TK through 8th.

[00:12:29] I taught the very lower grades, first grade there for nine years, and then third grade, a little bit of second and fourth. And then, so I had relationships with those kids, with those parents, who sometimes I had three, four, five of their kids for literally decades, right? So That was very different than when I moved to a very high achieving school, very high test schools, a ton of resources, you know, curriculum teams, like, just money was never an issue, okay?

[00:13:00] So, two very different experiences, but at the same time, there was always a part of me that always wanted to teach really little children. Just to see what that was like. And then that wanted to teach. I have a supplemental that I can teach French and Italian. I had never taught a foreign language. I still felt maybe there was a place for me to do that.

[00:13:19] And I had never really taught high school. I had subbed before I became a teacher and I got caught in that middle school loop. I'm going to be careful about that this time around, right? That you take one assignment, you do a good job, and then people just keep calling you back. And you know, it's hard to get people who want to sub hormonal children.

[00:13:36] I get that. So anyway, so one was a little bit of unfinished business. Two was, here are the things that I really missed that I had not anticipated. And, you know, it's this whole thing of feelings can coexist, right? At one point, I really craved that flexibility, like time freedom. I would say that certainly working for myself, really.

[00:14:02] I mean, amazing the technology that we have today and whatever else that I can work when I want, where I want. Like when I go to Europe and spend weeks at a time, I spent five weeks with my mom and I can work out of the house. That's no problem, right? And so when I want, where I want, with whom I want. So much freedom to that.

[00:14:22] But it turns out something that I learned about myself is I kind of really missed having a routine. I am somebody who has had a lot of anxiety my whole life. I've always been very honest with that. In something that I did appreciate about teaching at the time, but I never realized how much exactly I'd miss it, was it in certain ways, it is very passive.

[00:14:49] And what I mean by that is, you know what time to show up, you know what time the bell's gonna go, you know what lessons you're gonna teach, right, there is kind of a routine and a function to that. Like, I always used to say, I know every day at 10 o'clock that bell's gonna go. Okay, so that was very soothing.

[00:15:06] to me and my nervous system to kind of have this routine, this pattern, this hundred and eighty day cycle, right? This, this cycle that allowed for an extended period of rest over summer. Like that kind of routine was good for me, right? I kind of knew that but I didn't realize how important it was to me until suddenly you're faced with, Oh my gosh, like I was so excited.

[00:15:33] I'm never going to set my alarm again unless I need to be at an airport. And yet, you know, while sleeping in a few days, a few months was fun. Like I kind of missed having a routine. And I definitely, and I did not anticipate this, was just Adult connection. Now if I had gone into another job not working for myself, I would have had that, hopefully.

[00:15:58] But you know, I work for myself and when you podcast, you sit in a room by yourself all day. I mean and as a writer, the same thing. And as blog posts and content creation, the same thing. Now certainly I get interviewed on podcasts, I do do some professional development, I do go to some conferences, I do interview some people on my cup.

[00:16:19] Podcast. But even that is over like Zoom, Riverside. You're not really in the same room as people. And so I miss that kind of connection. When I am in a room with people, if I'm presenting, like I need to be on, right? I miss that kind of downtime with my teacher besties, right? Hanging out in the lunchroom, laughing about what happened during the day.

[00:16:44] And here's the other thing to remember. Like while I have this amazing Flexibility in my schedule, for which I'm so grateful. My friends still work. Most of my friends are teachers. And so they're at work. I'm at home like, Ooh, let's go do something. But they're still tied to, I can only do it weekends and spring break and summer break.

[00:17:08] And then they want to be with their family. It's not their friend, right? So I really miss some adult connection. I miss that. I miss routine. I kind of missed getting up and getting dressed every day. It's not that I don't get dressed but I'm, you know, strictly at leisure wear. I'm on my way to the gym or I got back from the gym and now what?

[00:17:31] I've had a shower. What am I gonna get dressed? I'm probably not gonna leave the house for the rest of the day. I'm strictly athleisure wear so you know what I know it sounds superficial but you know what once in a while put in your clothes get presentable you know fix your hair and go out in the world turns out that was important to me.

[00:17:48] But here's the biggest piece I miss which I I kind of knew it was going to be an issue but I didn't realize how big an issue it was going to be and that was the purpose piece. Okay, you know I have studied a lot of positive psychology, life, all the things right? I know the building blocks for happiness.

[00:18:12] I teach about them, I write about them, I know one of them is purpose. And I felt that my Purpose in this point, rather than working with kids, would be to, you know, work with adults. I could have more impact, is what I had told myself. If I only really had a few more years teaching, you know, how many students is that?

[00:18:31] How many lives of students am I gonna Touch, you know, 100, I don't know, but if I could work with teachers to be more just more empowered in their role and happier and, and, you know, not worn out and burnt out and all the things like that impact of that eventually would be. transformative. It will be way more impact than I could have working with kids.

[00:18:56] And that's what I had told myself and that's what I believed and that is what I believe. And so the fact that I have not worked directly with as many teachers as I would have hoped was kind of weighing on me and I was kind of missing the purpose piece. And I didn't realize how much until, and I should be embarrassed to tell you this, but I'm just going to be honest.

[00:19:19] So last year, I was presenting at a conference, the CTA, California Teachers Association, new teacher event. And I was hosting a breakout session called Balancing the School Life Balance Myth, which I've had podcast episodes on, right? But one of the things we did was I facilitated an exercise there. And it's kind of the deep work, the personal work, and it's not the kind of work that people are going to share out.

[00:19:47] And But it takes 20 minutes for people to go through this exercise with me. School of Real Life Balance. This is kind of a long story, looking at different areas in your life and answering questions about them and seeing where you might be out of balance. And so I decided, hey, like, we had some dead time, it was kind of awkward, I didn't want to walk around the room like I was giving a CASP test, right?

[00:20:08] Like a state test, watching what people are doing. But it's weird to be at the front of the room. So I just grabbed the papers. I said, hey, you know what, I haven't done this exercise for a long time. I'm going to do it too. So, sat down and started, you know, filling out things. And I could hear a few gasps.

[00:20:23] It's really a tool for people to find awareness. And, and all of a sudden I realized one of the gasps was my own. And that gasp came around this, this area that I was looking at. of purpose and needing validation. And I was so surprised how low I scored in it. Well, when we were kind of done, I asked everybody, you know, kind of how did that feel?

[00:20:48] But I don't ask people to share it. Again, it's very personal work. Like, you know, like one of the questions about finance, you know, finance is about Habits about sleeping, you know, do you need, I hate to say it, prescription drugs, non prescription drugs, recreational drugs to sleep, like all those things.

[00:21:06] So I didn't want people to share out, but I said, how was it? People were like, oh, I learned so much. I learned so much. And then someone said to me, well, you seem surprised. I said, I was. I said, I really scored very low in the area of validation. Now, I'm almost 60 years old at this point. I should be self actualized.

[00:21:30] I shouldn't need external validation, but you know, especially when you work with young kids, there was a lot to that and I miss it. I miss being everybody's favorite teacher, whether it was the kids or whether it was the parents or the co workers who like, oh my god, you're so funny. We love working with you.

[00:21:48] Whatever. Just those good feelings, the connections with the kids, those days when you laugh and you're like, oh my gosh, today I really nailed it. Like, I have not had that feeling since I've left the classroom. Now, there's probably other ways in my life I could get it. You know, yeah, I play pickleball. I'm never going to be like, I'm not the world's greatest athlete, right?

[00:22:09] I, I, I spent a lot of time. By myself, I live with a quiet man, he's very quiet and he is a very solid steady citizen whose love language is acts of service, not words of affirmation. So that's a nice way for me saying that he is super reliable and he shows me how much he cares for me. But you know those words like, you know, you're great or I appreciate this about you do not come naturally to him.

[00:22:39] So I. Totally was missing this validation and this purpose piece. And so I got to the point where I was like, okay, I need to do something different here. It had been coming up to two years and I felt some things in my life were lacking. And when I looked at my options, one of them was to go get a real job.

[00:22:58] Like, no, I am not willing to give up my flexibility at this point. I don't need it that bad. The other was, okay, well, let's volunteer. Let's do some things. And then when I started looking at all the volunteer opportunities, they also required kind of the things I was looking at, you know, hospice care, elder care, all of them needed a kind of long term commitment fixed to a schedule, which I understand, but that isn't what I was interested in. Also, so here's something funny. I went one time, I was like, okay, well, I'll go to the the shelter. Like I could, you know, help clean out where the animals are. I could take them for walks.

[00:23:41] I could, you know, pet them, clean up, do all the things I need to do. You know, the, the. People need in a shelter. Well, just even going to inquiring, I came home with a kitten. So, like, no, I cannot volunteer at a shelter. I'm just gonna bring the animals home. I just can't. Right? That's just me. Well, let's not be doing that.

[00:23:59] I, but I'm pretty sure if I went back in a classroom, I knew I would not be bringing kids home. I had a 20 year track record of working with kids who had been in pretty bad circumstances. Some of them, you know, never occurred to me to bring one of them home. So, all that to say, when I looked at it, I'm like, you know what, substitute teaching could really get me what I want.

[00:24:22] What I wanted was flexibility of schedule. What I wanted was to interact with kids. Now I know it's never going to be that connection, that magical thing that you have with a class unless it was a long term summing permit. position, but I'm really willing to explore. Can it still be fun if I keep going back to the same school over and over?

[00:24:43] Because I'm just going to say it. Listen, if you want to sub and you have the opportunity to have a teacher who's taught for 20 years, come on, wouldn't you take that? Like, that's kind of like a no brainer. Like, you're going to take that sum over somebody who, you know, has no experience in the classroom, doesn't really know what to expect, even with every good intention.

[00:25:03] Like, the person you're going to gravitate towards and keep calling back is the person you know who's going to take care of stuff and not get you in any kind of legal trouble or anything else, just to be perfectly honest. Okay, so I was interested in that. And like I said, I am interested to get into a variety of schools, working with a variety of ages, because there's a lot to education out there and I really am passionate about wanting to help teachers and I feel that I could do my other job.

[00:25:41] which is serving teachers better if I get exposure to more things. So that's what I had in mind the process was pretty simple. Now in California, there is a limit as to how much you can earn in a state school, a public school, if you take a state pension, right, as there should be. So I elected instead of getting hired on through a school district, applying to certain school districts, I applied to a third party company who has been very professional where a lot of schools just contract out directly to them.

[00:26:18] They don't have the resources, manpower to want to manage that themselves. So that's what I've been doing. And so far, yes. I went from a half a day assignment was supposed to be a roving sub. I'm like, this would be perfect, right? Roving subs, we know do not teach, right? We're just babysitting for one period at a time and going around the school just to get my kind of teaching muscle back.

[00:26:40] Well, of course, when I got to the school, they were desperate for a somebody to teach TK. Would I fill in for a couple of hours? Sure. So I went in that room, then they came in, would I stay for the day? Yes. And then of course it went from there. I ended up being there two weeks. Could not have loved it more.

[00:26:58] Oh my word. , those kids. So fun. So fun, so beautiful to see children playing and just getting along just nicely. They are so good, such good routines and yes, just a lot of fun. So I really, really enjoyed that. So that's where I'm at. We're gonna see where this adventure takes me. So I'm gonna kind of sum it up for you.

[00:27:26] Congrats if you, you hung in there. Maybe it gave you some things to think about. But I would say if you're feeling really burnt out, I would love that we normalized more people being able to take longer sabbaticals. Not, you know, if you're like, Oh, well, if I leave and I try something else and then I come back, I've lost my tenure.

[00:27:47] I've lost my place on the pay scale. Like we, we need to make those things. Very much more accessible sharing contracts, all those things, because I feel that having been away for two years and remembering that my job. Every day for those two years has to talk about teaching, think about teaching, still think about teachers, but I couldn't wait to get back in the classroom like I was chomping at the bit.

[00:28:13] I felt like I'd won the lottery again when I was busy there with my attendance sheet. And I feel like that's an energy that a lot of us still have to give. But if you are thinking of, you know, stay or go, you gotta make the list. Pros and cons funding your own insurance if it is not going to be in a full time capacity that you are going to want to work if you are under 65 is a huge part of it, right?

[00:28:41] I, I just, I don't know why I kind of glossed over that part. I knew it was going to be important, but I didn't realize how expensive it was going to be. The other thing is, you know, any job has stress, like no jobs are easy, but You know, teaching is a different type of stress. So okay, sum it all up. Is my life easier without teaching?

[00:29:01] A hundred percent. It is a hundred percent easier, but it is not as full. And, and that's just the truth of it. So, hopefully this has given you some things to think about. If you are in the San Jose area, San Jose, Campbell, Los Gatos, Milpitas of San Francisco, and you use a third party for your subs I'm on there.

[00:29:26] I might show up and have you classroom. How fun would that be? But in the meantime back to our regular scheduling content next week, and in the meantime, create your own path, bring your own sunshine, and I will talk to you next week.