Jessica Gentry, 34, from Harrisonburg, Virginia, shared a post on her Facebook account to reveal the reason she quit her job at Stone Spring Elementary School after 12 years of teaching.
Jessica is the mother-of-one and she revealed several things that gave her reasons to quit her job, including no support from children’s parents, the emphasis is placed on using technology to teach, and the overall feeling that ‘kids deserve better’.
Jessica also works as a lifestyle coach for other teachers, explained that she didn’t leave her teaching job because of the ‘lousy pay’.
She explained: ‘It was easier for my former HR director to believe it was because I found something that I was more passionate about. Some would allow them to assume that… let them be comfortable in their assumptions because your truth may lead to the discomfort of others. Well… I’m not some. That ain’t me,’ she added.
Jessica shared five main reasons that drove her to leave the job, she started with the fact that she believes society and new parenting ways have changed so the children’s behavior.
She wrote: ‘The old excuse “the kids have changed”. No. No friggin way. Kids are kids. PARENTING has changed. SOCIETY has changed. The kids are just the innocent victims of that.
‘Parents are working crazy hours, consumed by their devices, leaving kids in unstable parenting/co-parenting situations, terrible media influences… and we are going to give the excuse that the KIDS have changed? What did we expect them to do?
‘Kids behave in undesirable ways in the environment they feel safest. They test the water in the environment that they know their mistakes and behaviors will be treated with kindness and compassion.
‘For those “well behaved” kids – they’re throwing normal kid tantrums at home because it’s safe.
‘The kids flipping tables at school? They don’t have a safe place at home. Our classrooms are the first place they’ve ever heard ‘no’, been given boundaries, shown love through respect. Cue “the kids have changed”,’ she added.
Secondly, she explained that an over-emphasis on the technology being used to teach children at school added to her reasons for leaving the profession.
She explained that such regular use of technology to teach children new skills diminishes the ‘basics of relationship building’ and ‘hands-on learning’.
‘In the midst of all of this… our response is we need to be “21st Century” schools. One to one student to technology. Oh. Okay. So forget the basics of relationship building and hands-on learning.
Third, there are many planning and assessments that teachers have to attend that take time away from teachers spending time with their kids.
The fourth reason for quitting her teaching job was that she believes the relationship between teachers and parents has become like a customer service attitude.
‘Instead of holding parents accountable… and making them true partners, we’ve adopted a customer service mindset,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the Facebook rants about attendance and getting “the letter”.
‘Well, here’s the thing… I can’t teach your child if he’s not in school. I was cussed out by parents who wanted to attend field trips but missed the THREE notes that went home–and when they did attend a trip, sat on their phone the entire time. ‘
Finally, Jessica said that her mental and physical health was suffering each day she was working as a teacher as a result of her feeling like the children she was teaching deserve more than they were getting at school.
‘Sitting in one meeting after another, begging for more support, only to be told “don’t lose sleep over them”… when you LOVE your kids and are PASSIONATE about your mission… these messages tear you apart.
‘Watching them come in… dirty clothes… chaos at home… and knowing they need more than you can give them in a classroom of 21, with less and less support, multiple [sic] languages spoken, several different disabilities… it breaks you. We become emotional eaters. We become couch potatoes to zone out. We become so short-fused that our families suffer..’ she said.
Concluding her viral post, Jessica said she realized ‘you can’t save them all’. ‘You can’t even help 21 if you aren’t healthy yourself. If your mental and physical health isn’t a focus, you aren’t even good for the 21,’ she said.
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