“…it all kind of just feels like, I’m laying down and people are just steadily stacking rocks on top of me.”

It’s another little insight. I’m getting here as to why so many teachers, at least partially why, so many teachers are are burning out and leaving the field, because you’re kind of thrust into this position where you have to make a decision – are you going to spend not only your 45 minutes planning period during the day, but also likely hours at the conclusion of your school day every day, just jamming your preparation just like just trying to get everything set up and good to go, and then still probably not feeling totally prepared, day in and day out for an entire school year. And I think you can come up with, you know interesting concepts and reasons from the outside, which I understand you could say things like, “Well, teachers only teach 180 days a year, so you may as well just go ahead and and go hard for those 180 days, and then you’ll get your little summer off.” And there’s some validity to that, to some degree. But 180 days is a long time. All together it’s probably counting, you know, just the school year what we get two or three months off in the summer. So it’s probably nine months of just a really impressive grind, and I frankly don’t think is sustainable, and just from chatting with a few of my co-workers I can already feel that weight on my shoulders and their own, where many of them are just stuck in this like perpetual space of “What can I do to get by?” Basically meaning here’s my curriculum, here’s how you employ it correctly. However, there’s no way I have the time to actually employ this curriculum correctly. So then you have to kind of get super creative and spend even more brain power figuring out how to parcel down your curriculum so that you’re still hitting the state mandated standards, but maybe without fulfilling the exact needs and expectations of the program itself, if that makes sense. And it’s crazy. It’s wild. I’m currently — a lot of you any of you who’ve already been working for years in education or otherwise, you’re probably like “Uh-huh, yeah, welcome to the Real World.” But like my email inbox is just drowning in in things all the time, you know last year, I took pride in keeping my inbox like nice and cleaned up, but that’s a lot easier to do when you have eight co-workers as opposed to whatever I have now, which is probably seven times as much. I’ve never seen so many people replying all to group emails, which don’t require a reply all. And you would — it all kind of just feels like, I’m laying down and people are just steadily stacking rocks on top of me, and I can try to scoot the rocks off to the side but just more keep on coming. And it’s a moment of weakness and it’s a woe-is-me moment. And I feel stupid because there’s such more demanding jobs out there that go year-round. So I’m trying not to throw a pity party but on the other hand, I’m trying to be real.