What I Miss About Being a Teacher

The new school year is in full swing, and you might be thinking about what your future looks like in your school. Maybe a leadership role has been calling you, or maybe you’re considering leaving the classroom to focus on instructional coaching or pursuing administration.

I moved out of the classroom two years ago to pursue a role with an edtech nonprofit, and while I love having an impact on students across the country, there are some things you can’t replace outside the classroom. If you’re thinking about leaving the classroom yourself, here are a few things you might just miss more than you’d think—I know I do.

Being the Adult Someone Needs

Many of us in education know how important the adults in our students’ lives are. One of the main reasons I pursued a career as a teacher was to become that trusted adult in a student’s life when they needed one. When I was a student myself, I relied heavily on my teachers for inspiration, motivation, and support, and I wanted to be able to provide that support for someone else.

In my classroom, I was honored to be a person my students could lean on, could cry to when they needed that, and could ask for help from. Showing up every day for your students with the positivity, openness, and care that they need impacts them far beyond your classroom walls. You can probably still name some of the teachers from your own life that had a huge impact on you when it counted. 

When you leave the classroom, you don’t have the chance to show up like that for students anymore. It doesn’t mean you stop caring about them or stop thinking about them, but it makes it a lot harder for them to know that.

Becoming Part of the Family

Your classroom is a community, and more than that, your classroom is its own kind of family. And it doesn’t just include the students who sit in front of you every day—it extends to the parents, siblings, grandparents, and guardians who help get each and every one of your students through the school year. 

As a classroom teacher, you get the chance to become part of each of your students’ families—they rely on you and they trust you. I looked forward to calling my students’ families with exciting news of academic, emotional, or social progress in the classroom and genuinely shared in the excitement those families were feeling.

Like being the trusted adult your students need, being part of the family gets a lot harder when you leave the classroom. Even if you take a role within the school, families might not reach out and connect with you when you aren’t in front of their students every day. 

Seeing the Impact of Your Work Every Day

Every role in a school and in the broader world of education is important. But when you’re in the classroom, you get to see the impact every single day, and that’s hard to beat. Whether it’s a student having an “aha” moment about a complicated topic, a student finally finding the perfect book to get them hooked on independent reading, or a shy student starting to speak up during class, there are small moments of success happening all around you in the classroom. 

I miss feeling proud of my students now that I’m working behind the scenes. Even though I know my work is helping teachers and students, I do wish I could see the impact. We all know how tough the tough days in the classroom can feel, but seeing the impact of your work can make them all worthwhile. Without the chance to see students succeed in front of you, those tough days you still face in the world of education can feel that much tougher.

The Silly Stuff

Finally, there is just no replacement for how absolutely silly the classroom can be. Whether you’re teaching elementary, middle, or high school, your students are going to make you smile and feel loved, and they are going to make you laugh. I miss hearing my sixth-grade students try to remember the punch line to a joke or recount a story from the weekend. Even if it would derail the lesson for a few minutes, I relished the opportunity to laugh with my students when someone said something witty during class.  

Even though my coworkers are wonderful, there’s nothing in my current role to compare to the joyous moments I got to share with my students. 

There’s are a lot of intangible benefits of being a teacher—you get the chance to see your students succeed academically, you get to watch them mature and become their unique selves, and you get to make a difference every day. And even though you can still have a huge, positive impact on students from outside the classroom, it’s hard to replace the magic of being a student’s favorite teacher.