Those who can't....

As mentioned previously I used to be a Primary School teacher. I did this job for 7 years, which in today's day and age is a fair acheivement. I had, pretty much, an iron clad job for life and I could've stayed in that position until the reaper came calling. As far as jobs go, it doesn't sound all that bad, especially with 12 weeks holiday a year and I was normally home by 4:45 in the afternoon. But it was what happened between 0830 and 1630 every working day that just wore me out and squeezed my life energy to below that of single celled amoeba. My first few years I was a classroom teacher. I had 25 young minds to help shape and send forth upon the world. All my old students would likely still remember me and I'm probably glad that I have had some influence on these young people's lives. You could probably say that these were my 'happy teaching' years. I have to admit, I did enjoy classroom teaching. Kids were always full of questions and when you see that lightbulb go on in their heads it gave me a real sense of satisfaction. Then I went to England and taught there. I'm not dissing the romantic idea of teaching in another country and soaking in its atmosphere, but I never met a happy teacher over there. You can read countless ads in newspapers calling for teachers to teach in the UK with these big pay cheques, which is great but they fail to mention that even though you might be earning quite a decent amount of cash, you end up spending it just through the cost of living alone. And then there are the kids. Badly behaved kids in Australia don't even come close to what I came across in England. The fact that I ended up crying on my way to work one day says it all really. I came back to Australia and took up my teaching post again, but honestly, the spark had gone. I was just going through the motions really I think. Then I took up the physical education position which was okay, but it just accelerated my fed-up-ness. teaching PE had its moments. But they became fewer and farther between, and the weather just got either hotter, windier, wetter or colder. My fatigue just got worse and I would get home and sleep for 12-14 hours a night. And the workload just didn't let up. My lunchtimes were taken up with sport training, any spare time I had was taken up with admin stuff, try-outs, getting equipment ready for lessons and so on to the detriment of actual proper lesson and curriculum planning. It's funny because I dropped in on the school last week and everyone there is dead jealous of the fact that I got out. I'm (apparently) looking much happier and relaxed. And my present boss doesn't believe me when I say that my current job is far less stressful than teaching.