So it's been almost four months since I quit my teaching job.

Here's #HowItStarted:

After ten years, I left not just because I felt unsafe going back; I left because I was not willing to have decisions about my health and safety made for me.

And here's #HowItsGoing

Four months later, I have my own business where I work with pods and individual students. I have my own "class," if you will, of 21 students, most of whom I work with virtually. I see students about 30 hours per week, and in my spare time, I work on my writing--and I rest.

Four months later, I have more energy than I've ever had and feel a sense of sustainability that I'm pretty sure I've never felt while in the classroom. I don't bring a ton of work home, and I hardly work on my weekends.

Four months later, I have written a new book and am creating a new path for myself in education. I am speaking at conferences, keynoting, and soon, working with schools.

Check it out here: https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/humanizing-distance-learning/book276703

Four months later, I make decisions for myself about how I teach, and I don't make pedagogical decisions to appease administrators or parents.

Instead, I do what I'm trained to do--teach. And I work with families who value me and my approach.

Four months later, I find myself feeling a drive and passion I thought I'd lost--one I felt when I began teaching. I find myself present with my students, undistracted and engaged with them wholly; and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I see our time together paying off.

We are so conditioned into believing that our only path as teachers lies within a school. I know I thought that, and if it wasn't for the fact that I was scared out of my mind to go back to school in the middle of a pandemic, I probably would never have taken this risk on myself.

But I'm so glad I did.

I've learned that it's not teaching that burns teachers out. It's schools.

And I learned that it's so damn worth it to take risks on myself, because when I do, I find myself content and without regret.

And that's worth more than anything in the world.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can--and we should--rethink the way we do school. While it's not nearly as simple as it sounds, we can make small changes in our classrooms and simultaneously push for systemic changes from a changing leadership in our government.

It needs to happen because what our schools expect of teachers is not only unsustainable, it's inhumane.

We've got to do better--and I believe we can.