"You know I'd like to keep my cheeks dry today..."

I am thinking about leaving the teaching profession. I have been considering it very carefully.

There are a lot of reasons for me to stay. Simply, I adore teaching.

The reasons I am considering leaving:

• The pay is awful. I have been dealing with furlough days, no contract, no medical, and other salary issues since I started teaching. I could not live where I do if I weren't married to my husband.
• I am lonely. Teaching is a lonely profession. There is no cubicle culture, no one to talk to about the game or what happened on American Idol or whatever. It takes a lot of effort to maintain social contact with my colleagues. 
• Due to issues with the union and my district, collaboration has become a structured nightmare.
• I am a professional. I am tired of people who have never been in a classroom telling me how I should do my job. I am tired of people not trusting that I can collaborate with my colleagues without providing proof and documentation in triplicate. 
• Why am I expected to throw myself in front of gunman? Don't get me wrong, I understand that teaching is taking care of a group of students. However there is a huge difference between making sure that they are safe in case of fire and protecting them while in the line of fire.
• I am tired of the never ending work. No one ever trained me on how to assign homework, to grade, to assess, to work in a classroom. I was taught a bunch of theory and how to deal with students who didn't want to be in school. Teaching is a profession that we seem to learn on the fly and I often feel like I am in way over my head.

The stress and frustration is having a negative impact my health. I had to take a month off last year. This year I have had continuing issues with stress. I know I would miss the classroom and the interaction with the students. I would miss summers, but I am not sure that those things are enough to keep me in the classroom.

I haven't made any decisions yet and I don't know that I really want to go back to the private sector. I just know that going to work doesn't bring me much joy or satisfaction and with a job like teaching, if you don't love it, it's not worth doing.

Today's song was one I heard on the way into work.