Although this is primarily a knitting blog, my intro blurb claims to “weave my knitting and teaching lives together”.  I haven’t written about my teaching self for some time, due to the fact that  I’ve been on a one year, unpaid leave this year.

Full time teaching  with my own classroom that is.  I’ve  still been teaching part time, as a substitute, but that’s nothing like having your own class and your own ‘kids’.

My leave came about because of some long standing health problems that needed more than a couple of weeks to sort out and because of my feelings of professional burn out.

I was terrified of becoming one of ‘those’ teachers.  You know the ones.  All the joy and excitement has gone out of their teaching and they show up for work everyday putting in time until they have their magic retirement number. They’re tired, bitter and completely out of touch with why they became teachers in the first place.

Once  I felt myself inching down that slippery slope, I knew it was time to leave, at least for awhile.  Luckily for me, due to hard work and planning with my husband for the past 28 years, we were in a financial position for me to take this year of renewal.

When I left my classroom at the end of June last year, I fully expected never to be back in any capacity other than a substitute teacher. I cleaned everything out and gave anything useful away to the younger, still enthusiastic staff around me.  I walked out with 3 small boxes to show for 20 years of teaching.  One box of teaching books, one of kids books for future grandchildren and one of art ideas for subbing.

Early in the year, I set some groundrules for myself:

- my health is my #1 priority and now is the time to get it back, before it’s too late.

- I must do something that scares me everyday; wise words spoken by Eleanor Roosevelt, which I remind myself of every morning.

- do lots of what I love; take care of my  family, walk my dogs, knit and spin, knit and spin, knit and spin.

Miracles do happen, personal groundrules work and I’m now preparing to return to my former school and a new classroom in September. And,  I can hardly wait to get there.  I’ll walk in with my 2 little boxes and start all over again, without the baggage.

This year has enabled me to recapture the joy and satisfaction I felt in my early years of teaching.  It has enabled me to break out of familiar patterns and look at new ways of doing and viewing things. Most importantly, it has taught me to take myself, and the multitude of issues that teachers face everyday, far less seriously, while looking for joy at every turn.

Posted in classroom, knitting