For the entirety of my school-attending life, and especially for the past 19 years as a teacher and most recently, school principal, August has been the most dreaded month of the year. As an educator, August means that summer vacation is over and it’s time to start another school year. This is especially true for the school in which I worked. Teachers were required to come back for teacher workdays the very first week. We started much earlier than the public school system, and since we’re in the south, we always start before Labor Day. This year, at my former school, teachers have their first workday on August 1st which means that this is their last weekend of summer break.
Since making the decision to leave my job (still do not regret that decision one bit and I don’t expect to start anytime soon), I have known that when back-to-school season came around, I would feel some kind of way. And I do. I was at Walmart last week and saw the aisles of school supplies that would always draw me in and fill my cart. This time, I did not go down a single one of the aisles. Didn’t even pause to contemplate looking to see what they had.
Instead of feeling the familiar angst about the end of summer and the start of another school year, I feel contentment. I think that’s the word I have settled on for how I feel. I always enjoyed summer break because it was a two month period in which I did not have to spend time at home doing work (lesson plans, grading papers, etc.). I was free to spend more time knitting/crocheting, reading non-school books, staying up later on Sunday nights because the Sunday scaries had gone away knowing I didn’t have to work the next day. Summer break was fabulous! And when August came, it meant that time was over. The time to myself. The time to not feel stress and anxiety. The time to not worry about emails from angry parents. Every year I would tell myself that this school year is going to be different. I am going to bring less work home and make more of an effort to engage in my hobbies on the weekends and in the evenings. And every year, it was the same. Nothing changed. I never fully enjoyed holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas because I knew that when the holidays were over, I would have to return to the classroom. The dread would start several days before the actual end of the holiday break.
Now that I have been unemployed for almost a full month and have put that world behind me, I see the approach of August and I feel sorry for my teacher friends. They are posting funny memes and reels on social media about summer being over and having to return to school. It’s all funny, but it’s funny because it’s true. Teaching is an intensely stressful job. I look at my friends about to go back and I understand why they’re going back, teaching is a calling of the heart. We don’t do it for the money or recognition, it’s about teaching the kids. I could go on and on about why teaching is truly not for the faint of heart these days. So many reasons! But I look at teachers now and I feel without a doubt that I made the right decision to leave.
In this season of ads for school supply drives and sales at various places, my heart is at peace with the fact that I am no longer a part of it all. This month of unemployment has been amazing. I have allowed myself to detox from the environment that consumed my life for so long. Detox is an accurate word for what I have done because toxic is an accurate word to describe where I worked, even if I was the leader of the school and did my best to not allow it to be so negative.
I’m tempted to buy some school supplies and donate them to a local school or other organization. You know, for old time’s sake. I haven’t quite decided yet. What I have decided conclusively though, is that I am finally at peace and my heart goes out to all of my friends and teachers in America who are about to return for another year of fighting the good fight in the education system. I pray for their success and their mental well-being, because what they do is truly thankless and quite honestly, soul-sucking. Thoughts and prayers aren’t always the answer, but this time, I think they are.
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