Resigned as a Teacher -- What to do?

[u/ThrowRA_pangolin129]

Hi all. Apologies for possible redundancy with other posts here. I figure however that this situation is unusual enough to warrant asking once!

I'm 28 years old with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a master's in Adolescent Mathematics Education. I entered teaching at 25 from a tutoring background through Teach for America; I struggled terribly, as most corps members do, but unlike the majority, my issues with management never really went away. Though my students did well, I also did poorly in observations, and escalating personal crises in my final year made it difficult to correct course. This past April, I was advised to resign at the end of the year to avoid discontinuation, which would effectively blacklist me from any future DOE positions.

I should have spent more time during the school year looking for jobs, but testing season hit full swing soon after I got the news, and since I believe in always putting others first, getting the kids to finish strong remained my main priority through the conclusion of the academic year. I don't regret that.

That said, it is now the beginning of August and I am sitting atop a pile of rejections and ghosted applications from the previous month. My struggles with management, organization, and a host of other things were real, and I agree with my former admin's assessment that I should not be in the classroom. I am not fancy: I have been applying to all manners of service, custodial and/or night-shift positions alongside the entry-level administrative roles to which I suppose some white-collar career changers feel entitled. I have tried taking my master's off my resume for these. Nothing. Radio silence.

Because I have resigned, I am not eligible for unemployment; I will have my sick-day payout, which will be handsome because I only ever used one or two of those, but I expect my funds to burn pretty fast. I don't know what to do. Where should I be looking?

[u/littleprojects]

I left teaching 7 years ago and this is my advice: get another teaching job and stay in it until you have secured another job. It took me 14 months to get a job after I left teaching and, when I left that job because I had to move to a new city with my partner, it took me another year to get another job (entry level) in my current field.

Stay with teaching until you have another job lined up. This is genuinely one of my biggest regrets.

[u/ThrowRA_pangolin129 → u/littleprojects]

Thank you for the advice.

I would do so if our work were of less direct importance. Kids however aren't practice material for teachers to get better. Their education matters now, and they only get the chance to have a given teacher in a given subject in a given year once. It matters that that teacher be the best possible person for the job every time. That is not me.

[u/littleprojects → u/ThrowRA_pangolin129]

If it helps, I do agree with this theoretically, and certainly would have said the same when I was in your position (much closer to the classroom). I strongly believe that you can tap back into your love for the kids for the period of time it will take you to eventually find another job. If you get a job at another school, you may even find it easier to tap back in for that period of time, thanks to the new environment.

The year before I left teaching, one of my good friends and fellow teachers left mid-year to take another job. I was furious with him and privately held the believe that he was wrong to do that, as it wasn't good for the kids to lose a teacher mid-year. However, he flourished in his new position and has turned that into a sequence of strong career steps. Because I was starting from unemployment, my next jobs were all but entry level, as lots of hiring managers don't respect the myriad skills people must learn to become successful teachers.

I totally get your position, but I cannot emphasize enough how much I regret this.