The whispers start earlier and earlier every year.
They used to start after Spring Break. Teachers and students had a week free of deadlines and assignments, and that started thoughts of Summer Break. It signals that one chapter is closing, which means that another will soon be opening. That’s when the whispers creep in.
What about next year?
The whispers have already started this year.
Are you coming back next year?
Most of the whispers are curious and hopeful.
This would be such a great idea! Let’s try it next year when we can be better prepared.
There’s an opening in this position? I would love to be the next Resource Teacher, Instructional Coach, 2nd Grade Teacher, etc!
I hope I have Johnny in my class next year!
For many teachers, the whispers are more than just wondering about next year. We know the familiar whispers about the teachers that will return, move to a new position in the school, transfer to a new school, or even move to a new district. But now there is a new whisper, unwelcome and insidious that slithers around, eating away at the positivity and passion that once was overflowing from within the walls of classrooms.
Do I even want to keep doing this?
Increasing demands and decreasing time, a lack of respect for the profession as a whole from the public, staffing shortages, Aggregate Expenditure Limit worries, and more are eating away at the teachers who choose to remain in this profession. For some teachers this insidious whisper gets louder as the days go by and turns into a shout, pulling teachers from the classroom into other professions.
If that horrible whisper has made its way into your head, please know that you are not alone. The past few years have been especially difficult, and while I firmly believe that teachers are superheroes, we are still only human.
Let’s encourage and motivate each other. What keeps you going when things are tough?
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
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Caitlin Gawlowski
Caitlin was born to be a teacher, although she did not realize that teaching was her calling until she went to college. She has always loved to write, and began college with the mindset of becoming a journalist. Before beginning her freshman year of college, she changed my major to Elementary Education on a whim and has never looked back. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from Arizona State University, and won the Outstanding Student Teacher Award during her student teaching experience in the Cave Creek Unified School District. Caitlin spent 9 years in the classroom teaching 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. She became a National Board Certified Teacher in 2018, and holds a certificate in Early and Middle Childhood Literacy: Reading/Language Arts. The 2021-2022 school year marks the beginning of her 10th year teaching, where she will be working as an Academic Interventionist, and supporting other National Board candidates on their journey toward National Board certification. If she is lucky enough to have free time, you can find her traveling Arizona with her husband and son, spending time with her friends and family, taking group fitness classes, or enjoying a good book.
Comments 1
In Sense8 the villian is called Whispers, which I think is a great name for the bad guy. We had a lot of those same conversations, but they weren’t whispered so much as spoken openly – both between peers and at least with with admin – who was always supportive and understanding. And like your experience, the peers I work most closely with and I were most commonly talking about changes for next year instead of being held back by our frustrations this year.