“ YOU'RE GOING TO BURN OUT”
My first year (…) there was this senior teacher (…) and I remember him coming into my room (…) and he said, ‘I see you in here, and you stay here till 9, 10 o'clock at night with these newspaper kids. And that's nice. That's good. But I want you to look around to the other teachers that are here till 8, 9, 10 o'clock. And I want you to ask yourself if they're happy. You're still young. Don't make this your life because you're going to burn out.’”
“All the teachers that were bitter, that were angry, that had a problem with everything that was going on in the school, that always had something snarky to say during PDs, or about everybody—administrator, kids, ‘This kid is a problem’ (…)—they didn't have a life. This was their life. They were here with me until 10 o'clock at night. They were here on the weekends. And I'm sorry, but they seemed miserable. They didn't have—I don't know if they had girlfriends or boyfriends or significant others at the time, but they didn't have families. And I wanted a family.”
“I kind of realized (…) you need to have a balance. So I literally made it a point. ‘Okay, I am going to focus on getting my life together—the life that I want—and building that just like I built my career.’ (…) ‘I need to kind of pull back now and focus.’ (…) It keeps you grounded. It keeps you with perspective. Having a family—having a husband, having something else—if you want to be successful, it forces you to put limits. I think to be a teacher, it is very, very easy to get sucked in, where you are only thinking about your students and your lessons. You're only thinking about your job. It's like any other job, right? It can consume. But teaching can really consume me because it's the type of job where you'll wake up in the middle of the night, like ‘Oh, I wonder where Johnny is? I didn't see him. I'm worried about him. I know his family.’ You know, it'll consume you. And if you don't put boundaries, I think it does affect your happiness.”
“I've had help. I have my colleagues here in the building. I have my husband. I have friends that will keep me in check, like ‘What are you doing here? You need to go home.’”
“I think it's that being able to balance that and get joy, that you can then bring to the classroom. I feel like being a mother has brought a new level of joy for me in my work with my students (…) I suddenly was looking at these students (…) and I'm like, ‘Oh. I know what's going on with you right now and I know exactly what you need from me.’ And it just took my teaching to a whole new level, once I had that other life and that other perspective, because now my practices have shifted a little bit more to understanding. ‘Okay, I'm also preparing you to to have a life to have partners and to have other things and balance’—especially with seniors, who are always focused on applications (…) Even giving them time in class for a breather. ‘Okay, let's breathe. In order for you to be a successful person, you need to have these things as well. And let me model that for you, so you understand. If I'm being a model for you, and you admire me because of my life—guess what? I'm not going to read emails on the weekend, so maybe you should try to do your homework before the weekend. So at least you have some time to relax.’”
“That's what I think made me a lot happier.”