On Quitting

(Necessarily vague, because this is an at-least-mostly-anonymous blog.)
Lots of discussion in various forums lately about new teachers quitting, mid- or beginning-of-year. I'm not going to say I never thought about it, because urban teaching is really hard, and sucks in a lot of ways. Yes, the kids can be tough. Yes, the support can be lacking. Yes, the funds are often not there, and the expectations can be unreasonable. Trust me, I know.

But what I always come back to is the message quitting sends to the kids, who are young and impressionable and in a lot of cases already deeply hurt by the world. How can you essentially say to children, "You are hopeless of improvement, so I am abandoning the cause"? They might not be able to articulate to you that this is what they hear, but how else could they interpret it? Especially when they are young, and already prone to the "magical thinking" that they are somehow the cause of everything that happens in their lives. They don't understand things like faculty politics and funding and mentor teachers, but they do understand that they don't always behave themselves, and now their teacher is gone.

Children need to know that they can grow and improve, and that adults believe in their abilities and potential. They learn this when the adults stay and teach them, even when they are challenging.

Not everyone can be happy at every school. But unless there's actual imminent danger, I can't really understand a decision to leave before the end of the school year. This isn't a job you take just for your own happiness.