Recovering From The Classroom- Part 1

In this episode, Rachel shares her personal journey of leaving the classroom, the emotional and practical challenges she faced, and how she rebuilt her life and work to thrive outside of teaching. This episode offers insights into burnout, recovery, and creating a sustainable life after teaching.

Chapters
00:00 The Decision to Leave Teaching
02:15 The Complexity of Grief and Healing
06:19 Packing Up Memories
08:59 The Transition and Grieving Process
13:42 Reflections on Teacher Value and Respect
17:00 Navigating Mixed Emotions
20:11 Learning to Thrive Beyond the Classroom

Resources

Recovering From the Classroom (Blog Post) 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Teacher to Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Siccioni, former classroom teacher turned entrepreneur and mentor to educators building their own unique teacher businesses. This is a space for teachers who are curious about alternatives to the classroom, exploring private practice and other multifaceted work, and for those who want to know what success can look like beyond the classroom. I'm glad you're here. Now let's get into today's conversation. Five. And I didn't send any of them. I didn't write them because I was being dramatic or because I didn't know what I wanted. And it was certainly not because I needed one more pros and cons list. There definitely had been a couple of those. I didn't send them because I loved my job. I loved so much about that job. I loved my students, the families I got to work with, my classroom. I loved being a French teacher. It's all I ever wanted to be. I loved the relationships and inside jokes and the moments when students swore they weren't good at languages and then suddenly realized they could say stuff in French. I didn't want to leave teaching. I didn't even want to leave that classroom. I didn't want to leave so many of the wonderful co-workers that I had the privilege of working alongside. When I started working there, I thought I would retire from there. I pictured myself staying in that classroom for the next 20 plus years. I pictured my students coming back to visit me during Thanksgiving break and Christmas break and spring break, telling me what they were doing with their lives and what they were studying in college. I wanted all of that. And I still left because there came a point where staying meant continuing to lose myself. I was starting to come home as someone that I didn't recognize anymore, someone my husband didn't recognize, and someone that I did not want to be for my children. And that is one of the hardest things to explain about leaving the classroom. Sometimes leaving is the right decision and it still hurts. Sometimes the right decision can still hurt. Sometimes you know in your body that you cannot go back into that building and you still grieve the life you thought you were building there. At least that's what it was in my case. I felt relief, gratitude, anger, resentment, grief, and excitement all at the same time. Apparently, healing doesn't like to organize itself into tiny little folders for our convenience. Quite rude that way. So today I want to talk about what it actually looked like for me to recover from the classroom. And not in a cute like, I quit teaching and now I drink tea slowly and glow from within kind of a way, which I don't know, maybe I do a little, and I definitely drink the tea from time to time. I mean the real recovery, the grief, the anger, and the disorientation of having freedom, so much freedom after years on the teacher hamster wheel. The ways I accidentally created the same burnout patterns I had just left, and the slow process of learning what kind of life, schedule, work, and business actually would allow me to thrive. Because leaving the classroom was not the end of the story. In a lot of ways, for me, it was the beginning of having to learn how to live without abandoning myself to be good at my job. So, like I said, I had written five letters that I never sent before I actually left. And by the time I sent the sixth one, I had done everything possible I could think of in order to stay. I talked to every person there who I thought might be able to help. I took advice, even advice that I didn't think would be helpful. I was so desperate. I tried everything. I tried to be reasonable, professional, flexible. I tried to go with the flow. I shut my door and did what I knew was best for students. I tried not to let people get to me. I turned myself inside out trying to make it work because there was so much that I loved. But the parts that were wrong were so wrong that I couldn't make it work. And after COVID, the way the school handled re-entry, handled COVID itself, and then re-entry, became the last offense that I just could not reconcile. It felt like one more demonstration of how little teachers meant in that system and how little our voices and experiences matter. By that point, my anger and resentment were too much for me to overcome. And I could not even think about walking back into that building without crying. So I sent the sixth letter and I chickened out. I did not reiterate all the things I had been trying to say for the previous three years. I did not send the here's how this broke me and here are the receipts kind of a letter. Tempting? Well, yes, I definitely wanted to send the like burn it all down letter, but I didn't. Instead, I said we lost our childcare due to COVID and that the cost of childcare would make continuing to work there not worthwhile financially. And that was true. It just wasn't the whole story. The whole story was that in spite of trying so hard to stay, I could not keep giving up so much to a place where I felt disposable. So I kept the letter as friendly as I could because I had a request to make. I wanted them to keep my email active through December so I could continue writing letters of recommendation for my rising seniors. As the only French teacher in the school, I taught some of those kiddos since eighth grade. I knew them very well. And we had already conferenced about their letters. They were depending on me. So because of them, I kept my anger and my resentment and everything to myself. And I made it as polite as I could. And then I had my exit interview, and it confirmed that I had made the right decision. When it was all over, the first thing I felt was relief. Just a huge exhale. Like my whole body had been holding its breath all summer until I finally realized that I could breathe again. Because that summer I cried every single day at the thought of going back. Every day. Then came the part of having to clean out my classroom. And that was a different kind of heart. I was packing up books and posters and supplies and five years of memories, five years of my children's lives. I was packing up. Because I had my filing cabinet. We called it the fridge. So when my students would draw things, I would put them on the fridge with a magnet, just like I did my own children's artwork at home. And I had my kids' artwork and pictures of my kids up in my classroom. And previous graduating seniors, I had their prom pictures up in my classroom. And when we left the classroom, it was March 13th. It was COVID. And so walking back in, it was like frozen in time. I still had student work up on the walls and I had drawings because I used to let my students draw, you know, little drawings in the corners of the boards. And we even had a class pet. If a student would draw like a little cartoon of an animal somewhere, then we would draw a box around it as it's like little home, and that would become our class pet. And we would name it and we came up with stories about our class pet. And then I would take pictures of the class pet at the end of the school year and then stick it up on my bulletin board because all the boards had to be washed to start over for the next year. So it was all of that that I was taking down. It was all of that, that all of those memories, all of the books, all of the stories, you know, the toys. I had so many toys in the classroom. Like I couldn't pick up a toy without thinking about the student that used to walk in every day and grab that toy off the shelf and sit with it in class. So I took pictures and I took video and I documented it because part of me needed to honor that space. I even had a little coffee shop in the corner of my classroom with a hot pot and it would have I had like hot cocoa and tea and some instant coffee. And my upper level students were allowed to bring in their own mugs. And so all of their mugs were still there because we didn't know we weren't coming back. And I reached out to them and let them know that, hey, I wasn't coming back. And I had their mugs and did they want them? And some of them did, and but most of them didn't. And so now I have their mugs on my shelf in my house. So I still think of them, you know, like I'll pick up Lauren's mug or I'll pick up Felicity's mug and think about them and the memories that we had in the classroom. And they're good memories now. Six years later, you know, they're they're happy memories. They're not bittersweet anymore, but they absolutely were in the beginning. They were really bittersweet. And because of everything that had happened there, the students had ownership of that room. It was our space. We, I worked so hard to build that, to build our community and our space. And I didn't realize how deeply they felt that ownership until the new teacher came in and tried to change things. And my former students were awful to her. I was so furious with them. I understood why they were protective of the space, but I was still furious because I told them. I told all of them that I had handpicked her for them. She was someone that I knew and I recommended her for that job. I told them how to find her for that job because I thought that she would be so perfect for it. And I said, I chose her for you because she has great content knowledge, but also a lovely heart. And I know that you would be in good hands with her. And they were still little brats about it, lovable brats, but my word, I was quite angry with them. And many of them I've had the opportunity to tell them. So they were also kids. But it was because they were grieving too. And we were all grieving. I missed them. I missed my classroom. I missed my little lunch group. I missed our inside jokes, our overheard in French class binder. I missed the everyday rhythm of being their teacher. And that grief did not just go away because it was the right decision, unfortunately. When the next school year started, and I got to put my own kids on the bus for the very first time. My youngest was starting kindergarten and my oldest was in second grade. And yes, it was COVID. So there were mess and social distancing and all the strangeness of that year, but I got to be there. I got to put my littlest baby on the bus for her very first day of school ever, her first day of big kids' school ever. And I got to put my big kid on the bus for the first time in our lives ever. My big second grader. And she and I both cried because there had been so many mornings, two years worth of mornings, where I didn't get to be there, where I had to be at school an hour before she did. And so I dropped her off of the neighbor's house. And my wonderful neighbor would give her a hug before she got on the bus. But that morning she got to hug her mommy. And it was huge for both of us. After the bus pulled away, and I walked a little bit alongside the bus until we parted directions with Yeti on his leash. And it was a gorgeous late summer morning, and I was waving and doing our heart hands that we do. I felt so much gratitude at the slow morning that we got to have, at the fact that I got to have breakfast with my kiddos and help them get ready and do their hair and give them hugs and kisses and just give them the very best possible start to their day. And then I got to have a little bit of downtime and walk my dog, and it was just a gorgeous, crisp late summer morning. And then after getting him home and making sure he had water and his good boy treat, and then I went off to my part-time job as an ESL aide. I just felt so much gratitude that I got to enjoy being present with my family and myself and my life, just walking and listening to the birds in the trees. I still am so grateful for that that I get to have that. I also got to come home early and get my kids off the bus. And we had snacked together at the kitchen table where they would tell me about their day. I had energy and patience. I could feel myself coming back to life. And the Sunday scaries, they went away almost immediately. I mean, I wasn't excited about having to like get back into the rhythm of a whole week, but it was nothing like what I had before. Nothing at all. Definitely not scary. And I even looked forward to Mondays because I knew that even though I would be under some stress and I'd have to perform, it was nothing like what I used to have to deal with on a regular basis. And all of that was enormous and wonderful. And I still miss teaching. I do not miss subplants, the workload, the stress, the disrespect, the micromanagement. I do not miss feeling like my worth was constantly being measured or how underpaid I felt. But I did miss teaching. And even though I was part of a school community as a teacher's aide, it was not the same. And I missed my students. And I miss, still miss who I got to be with my students. I have students now, but it's it's different. It's not the same as having a whole classroom full of students. And it was disorienting, all of it. It was really kind of disorienting. I was grateful and relieved and still grieving. I was excited about my new life and still angry about what I had to leave behind. I had chosen to leave, but it didn't really feel like a choice. I felt like the options were stay and continue losing myself in bitterness and resentment, or leave and build a new life that would work for my family and me. And of course I chose the second. But I was angry that those were the choices. For a long time, one question kept looping in my mind. How can teachers be treated as both indispensable and disposable? Because that's how it felt. The school I was in, anyway, loved to talk about community and how everyone in the community had gifts and how all of those gifts matter. They love to talk about how teachers are heroes and they're the backbone of the school, especially when all that hero language is cheaper than actually supporting us or listening to us or, you know, valuing us in any meaningful way. But when it came down to actual respect, trust, and just treating us like human beings, let alone professionals, the message was very different. I had done so much in my five years there. I started programs that never existed in that school before. I spent hours and weeks doing unpaid labor because I cared about the students and the experience that they were going to have and the opportunities that they would have as a result of our work together. I put myself through so much. And my kids, you know, their summers had to end early too because we had to log hours in my classroom. I have pictures of them in their little bathing suits in my classroom in August, telling them that once we got some work done in mommy's classroom, then we could go to the pool. And it hurt. And how they said, Well, we'll miss you, but I'm sure you won't be hard to replace. It hurt. And I was angry. But everything that I did, it mattered to the students and it mattered to the families. They have told me that. And I am really grateful. I am very grateful for the time that I got to have there and the people that I got to have that time with. And I wouldn't change it. Because if I hadn't been treated so poorly and disrespected and underappreciated, I wouldn't be where I am now. But this is six years later. That first year, I couldn't talk about any of it without seething. That resentment and bitterness and anger and hurt was so fresh and so close to the surface. Sharing space with all of the gratitude and joy and peace and presence and relief that I was also feeling simultaneously. But I couldn't talk to anyone about leaving the classroom without some of all that negativity bubbling up out of me. You know, people that know me now and the people who knew me before would never describe me as a negative person, but that's who I had been becoming as a result of being there. And that's that's why I left. And I remember talking to my counselor while I was battling these mixed emotions, these really intense, conflicting emotions. Because in the past, when I was wrestling with a decision for a while and finally made a decision, I felt good about it. Like I felt like I was ready to move forward, I was ready to move on, and I felt good about that decision. And this was the first time that I had made a decision that I knew in my bones was the right decision to make, not just for my family, but for me as a human was the right decision to make. And I didn't feel good. I didn't feel good about it. And so I was talking to my counselor. I'm like, what do I do with this? And she said, I want you to know that it is okay to make a decision that you know is right and is aligned with your values and not feel good about it. And I guess I just needed permission because her saying that sentence, it did that. It gave me permission. It changed that for me. Because I guess I had been waiting for my feelings to become evidence that I made the right choice. And once she said that, I didn't need it. I I was able to settle into the fact that I had made the right choice and that the feelings, but I just needed to feel them and I needed to honor them and let them, you know, run their course and work through them. So that was definitely a powerful moment for me. And since that time, I have thought a lot about why I couldn't tolerate certain things in that school, but other people seem to have been tolerating it just fine. And one thing I said to my former department chair was that maybe if I had not been treated so well in my previous teaching job, I would not know how toxic this situation was. Like maybe if I had gone straight from high school to college and straight into that school, I would have thought, okay, this is just how it is. And I would have been able to roll with it. But I had been treated with professional respect before. I had been treated like a professional and a human being, not just at other jobs I've had, which I have, but at another teaching job. And so when I went there, I knew what it could look like and what it should look like. And it made it impossible for me to tolerate that it didn't, that we as a school were not living up to our highest versions of ourselves as a school community. And I was kind of suffering as a result of that. That mattered to me. I couldn't convince myself that it was okay or acceptable for me to be treated the way that I was treated there. And that matters because sometimes when teachers are inside unhealthy systems long enough, they stop measuring their work environment against what is healthy and they start measuring it against what they have survived. And those are not the same things. And that is really not okay. So that was the emotional part of recovering from the classroom. There was another part that I did not expect. And this is the part that I try really hard to help my mentees bypass. I had to learn how to not recreate the systems that led to my burnout in the first place. When we're in the classroom, our lives are extremely structured. The teacher hamster wheel is real. Monday through Friday is scripted. The whole school year is scripted. Even the beginning and ends of breaks are scripted. There's the collapse at the beginning of the break, the tiny window where you feel human again, and then the dread at the end when your brain starts counting how much time you have until you go back. And so when I had left my part-time aid job and was fully self-employed as of January 2021, it was almost like being a high school student going away to college for the first time. I had so much freedom, I had no idea what to do with it. And so that's what I'm going to talk to you about next week is the logistical recovery from the classroom and how I was able to find a way to structure my life and structure my business in a way that I could thrive and not continue to live the cycle of burnout and recovery that I had become accustomed to after years of being in the classroom. Until then, I hope you have a great week, and I look forward to talking to you next week. Thank you for listening. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with a colleague or leave a review. This helps the conversation reach other teachers who may need it. You can learn more about what I do and how to work with me at the privatepracticeteacher.org. Best wishes always.