How I Quit Teaching & Drastically Improved My Quality of Life

when teaching becomes unsustainable, You need to Quit

After eight years of teaching I finally made the choice to quit the teaching profession and it has improved my life. If you ask any teacher why they teach, they probably can quick-fire at least ten different reasons for why teaching is such an important and crucial job. Unfortunately, they can probably name hundreds of reasons why it brings them an insufferable amount of daily stress. In fact, 60% of teachers are stressed out all the freaking time. After teaching overseas in Japan and in Australia, I finally decided that the good no longer outweighed the bad and made a conscious effort to change careers. Teaching long-term was not sustainable for me. I’m not the only one.

What you will find here:

This post will tell you an honest account of the highs and lows of my personal experience teaching both overseas and in Australia. If you’re also a teacher and looking to quit the teaching profession, I’ve also put together a collection of possible careers so that you can leverage the many skills you already possess as a teacher. You will also find some helpful tips and tricks for landing a new job. My experience changing careers is within the context of Australia, however this isn’t the first time that I changed careers. Before starting a career in education in Japan I also worked in different sectors in England and New Zealand.

Teaching can help you travel, but it can also hold you back

My personal favourite thing about teaching (and let’s be honest – the main reason I even considered it as a viable career path in the first place) is the opportunities it provides you to travel. Teaching is a job that is sought after everywhere, and international schools have been established in many countries all over the planet. Teaching is a job where there is little career advancement and if you’re teaching the same year level and the same subjects it can get too comfortable. The only skill you’ll learn is how to fall asleep faster in your yearly professional development.

If you don’t have a teaching certification, there is also language teaching which can open some doors too. However, having a teaching certification improves your chance of finding a reputable or good standing school that will help with your visa and other moving costs. I would be very wary of any teaching job where the only requirement is that you be born in an English speaking country.

Some teaching jobs are better than others

Yet even with a good certification, a great background in teaching, and an excellent grasp on current teaching philosophies, you could still end up in a tough position. Even with the best intentions, you might find yourself locked into a two year contract at a school that makes you want to tear your hair out by first period. When I first moved to Tokyo I had no job lined up. It was the middle of December which is halfway through the school year. Anyone will tell you that is the worst time to find a teaching job. So guess what? I got a really horrible teaching job. A teacher had quit half way through the year and they needed a teacher ASAP.

But after a few years of having an anxiety attack every Sunday at the thought of going into work and teaching a high-needs class, I finally managed to find a better position at a really great school in Tokyo. We had never planned to stay in Tokyo long term. By the 6th year we were planning our exit strategy. Then covid hit. Like most teachers, I moved to online learning for half a year. I was very lucky that I worked at a school where computer literacy was high (the school had a BYOD policy). However, this time did make me reflect a lot on the actual impact that I was having on students. 

In 2021 we moved to Melbourne, Australia. I went into job-hunting mode quite naively. I had years of teaching IB and great experience teaching a range of ages, abilities, and subjects. Surely I should be able to find a job, right?

Teaching in Australia made me want to quit

Well, after we arrived we went into Melbourne’s longest lockdown. The job market was tight, but I also realised that the Australian teaching context is very different. Public school positions are very difficult to get within the city and inner suburbs, and most teachers are required to teach in rural schools for a few years before being put on a priority list for the inner city jobs. Furthermore, Australia has a very popular private school sector, with about a third of all students attending a private school. These schools are hailed as the best schools and located in the most highly sought after areas.

Considering I had just left Tokyo (the public transport city of the Gods), it was going to be very difficult for my carless self to get to any rural school begging for teachers. It was going to be a very competitive market for me to break into. With no religious background, no connection to any school as an alumni student, and no history teaching in the public school system, I experienced rejection after rejection. 

It took me a year to find a part-time, 6 month contract teaching role at a private school in Melbourne. After about four months teaching there, I was completely over teaching. I was subbing at least one class every day on top of my workload (which I discovered was normal practice in Australia). My position really only encompassed instruction, behaviour management, and supervision. So. Much. Supervision. While running from my senior art class to a lower primary Physical Education class I was given last minute to cover, I understood why the average Australian called the teaching profession glorified babysitting. But I was still desperate to find a permanent position to ease my nerves.

What made me finally leave

Getting a new job

With the start of the school year starting in February, I managed to secure a full-time art position at one of the highest performing schools in Melbourne. I thought my problems would be solved. So what if I had to catch one bus, then a tram, and then still walk thirty minutes through one of the biggest overpasses in Melbourne? The thoughts started to enter my head “How will I deal with it in winter?”. I tried to brush it off and just be thankful I managed to find a job. But a thought kept popping into my head: “What if, after all of this, I’m still not happy?”.

The truth of the matter was that teaching just wasn’t working for me. This was made clear to me when I went into my new school to find out my classroom was so incredibly small that students would not be able to stand or walk around. “Just have students leave their bags at the door and bring their laptops in”, I was told. The idea that this would be my daily life scared me. The sunk-cost fallacy was holding me back as I felt I had invested so much of my time and effort into continuing my teaching career. The honest truth was I was also scared to try something new. But I knew I had to quit teaching to be happy.

getting a new job… again

It took all my free time for two months to find the job I wanted. I spent hours doom-scrolling Seek.com.au asking myself: “can I see myself being happy doing this job?”. Next I made a spreadsheet with a link to every job description I could imagine myself enjoying. I put together different CVs and sent them out into the abyss, never to hear a response. I took data for every job that responded; the pay scales they would offer me with my experience, and the terms of employment. But until you know what you want, you’re not going to get it. So when I figured out what I would enjoy doing on a day to day basis, I took a free course and headed out for interviews. Now, I work from home in the EdTech sector. I get to make real changes that impact teachers and students.

How do I feel about it now, looking back?

When I decided to quit teaching, I really didn’t know if I made the right choice. But it has been over a year now and these are the biggies that have impacted me on a daily basis:

• My work/life balance is so much better
• I don’t have the Sunday scaries
• I get to work from home (which is the obvious winner haha)
• I don’t have teenagers yelling “”HEY, MISS!”” when they want my attention (Australian students aren’t known for their manners, thats all I’ll say…).
• I get to spend far more of my time and energy on things that matter to me (my lovely partner, travel, fostering cats, blogging, and art!)