WORLDS THAT NEVER WERE

This post marks the beginning of this blog about my passions, and chronicles the ups and downs of life after the classroom. I learned that, like me, nearly one thousand teachers leave the field of teaching every school day. What happens to those thousands of teachers? Why do they walk out the classroom door, never to return? And why don’t we hear about or from them?

I had a successful career as a middle school science teacher. I was esteemed by parents, administrator and peers as an expert science teacher. I spent hours preparing hands-on activities and labs designed to spark interest in my students. I watched their love of science grow and overheard their conversations out of class where said that they had fun in my classes. I had fun teaching them.

And then a couple of years ago, while scrounging for materials in the science equipment room for an energy lab, I realized I was dreading the class. With that realization the dread became fear. In that equipment room, my heart pounded and perspiration beaded on my skin. I dropped the glass beaker that I held, my hand clammy with perspiration. When had teaching become drudgery, so filled with the administrative duties, parent-teacher conferences, grading papers and report cards that had always been just part of the job that I loved? My heart fluttered again as I asked myself, “When was the last time that you had fun in the classroom?”