I always knew there would come a time in my career when I should give up on teaching. I felt that time had come a few years ago, but I have kept pushing on thinking perhaps different levels or different circumstances will make it better.
After spending a full semester away from the classroom doing work that I excel at and that truly takes advantage of the skills I have, I felt that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have a part-time teaching gig along with this other kind of work.
Now, I am back in the classroom full-time and have the opportunity to teach students in a major. Yet, after just five weeks in the semester, I am more convinced that I should no longer be teaching. I can no longer find a way to ‘care’ about the students or what I am teaching. Although the groups of students I am teaching are fairly good and by far an improvement on the type of students I had when I first arrived just over 6.5 years ago, it is still not enough.
So, after some contemplation and consideration I gave notice for my potential resignation come January for the end of the academic year. Of course, in a few more months I may find myself thinking that everything is grand again. I may find myself back in the other department doing the work that I was doing last semester and convince myself of a future that works in academia, but I am less and less convinced that I want to stay in it.
Perhaps it is the influence of M or others I am meeting through him, but I am finding that financially academia is not fulfilling (of course, this was no real surprise). Even more so, I’m finding that my idealism and inspiration for bettering the future is dissipating into complacency. I don’t want to live in complacency and since I cannot change my environment at the moment, I need to find a better way to make it all work for me.
Thus, I think that we have determined that enough is enough in education for me. What happens next is yet to be determined and perhaps it will just be in academia on a different path or it may be a whole different route altogether! π
-T
