This is the second in a series of posts by Angie Reid. You can read her first post here.

William Shakespeare famously penned, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” in his famous poem, “The Seven Ages of Man.” So what happens to a woman on the cusp of middle age who wants to abandon her acclaimed role as English teacher but still wishes to remain on the grand stage of academia? This was the question that was on my mind as I wholeheartedly packed up my high school classroom and exited stage left in hopes of a less stressful, simpler life.

If you were to ask William Shakespeare, or at least read the poem, you might reflect on the subsequent line, “One man in his time plays many parts.” What was to be my part now? I had just said goodbye to my high school classroom, but I was unsure what to do next. It seems that as the years go by there are many teachers who leave the profession either because of burn-out or because they seek a career change, but many of them find that there are few employment positions for education majors outside teaching.

I began to weigh my options. I still wanted to play a role in education, but I was confused as to what that would be. It was in my soul-searching and contemplation that I decided to pursue my MA in English at Central Michigan University. I had always wanted to earn my masters, but I had been unwilling to take on additional student loan debt. A graduate assistantship seemed to be a good solution. In the English Department at CMU, graduate assistants play quite a few roles in the department, including teaching English 101 and working in the writing center. In return, the university pays the GA a small stipend and waives tuition. It was a perfect fit for me, and when I got my letter of hire in early spring of my final year of teaching high school, I felt as if I’d been cast in the role of a lifetime. I would teach English 101 in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and I would be free in the afternoon to pursue my degree. Continue reading “New Role New Audience: My Experience of Moving from the High School to the College Classroom”

This blog is the first in a series of writings that will chronicle Angela Reid’s decision and subsequent experience of leaving the high school classroom to become a graduate teaching assistant in the English Department at Central Michigan University, only to unexpectedly return to the very same high school classroom one year later.

When I turned my keys in to my former principal on that warm summer morning of 2013, I had no intention of ever teaching high school English again. I felt it in my bones. My soul was exhausted, my body defeated. I felt a bit like Bilbo Baggins when he remarked to Gandalf, “I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.” Yes, in my “heart of hearts,” I felt exhausted, unproductive, and uninspired.

In addition, I felt something else even more damning and downright terrifying. I began to feel what teachers fear the most, that perhaps my teaching was becoming ineffective. The characters of my beloved novels, such as Catcher in the Rye and O Pioneers, who had once leapt off the pages, heartily introduced themselves to my students, and pirouetted and pranced around my room now suddenly felt cold and flat. I felt like a fraud, and I could not in good conscience stand before a class of students and feel as if I wasn’t giving them the education they deserved. Continue reading “Reigniting the Fire: Why Teacher Burnout Doesn’t Have to Be Forever”