Teaching Felt Like Digging Endless Holes

Do we have to do what we’re good at?

When I was teaching, I read each of my classes a book called Holes, completely unaware I was digging a hole of my own, deeper and deeper each day.

I leant against the art shelf in the tiny supplies closet and closed my eyes. Don’t cry, don’t cry. My class of 12- and 13-year-olds increased in volume from the room next door. Their voices rose, each decibel another shovel of dirt over my head. Weren’t new classes meant to be timid? Nervous on their first day? These kids were confident, outspoken, unafraid. They’d sat in front of me, long sprawling limbs and pre-teen sweat suffocating the room, rebellion sparkling from their eyes. I could feel them setting up the challenge: Can you handle us?

I hid in the supply closet to calm myself down. Could I handle them? Good question. My boss had been confident I could. Senior classes were never given to new teachers, like me, but I’d been a student teacher at the school the year before. He’d decided I could be trusted with a challenge.

“I’ve placed you with the Year 8’s,” he’d told me, handing me a class list. “It’s considered the third worst class this particular group of kids, but I know you’re good with the difficult ones.”

He placed his foot on the back of the shovel, and broke the ground where I stood.

I never set out to be a teacher. In my last year of school, when it was my turn to sit in the tiny windowless office and chat with the career’s advisor I said, “I want to be a psychologist.”

She shook her head. “You need experience first. A few years as a nurse or a teacher.”

It was rubbish, of course. I found out years later that some of my classmates had gone straight from school into psychology.

“I see you’ve been working with children already?” she said, scanning my work history. By 17 years of age, I’d already held five jobs, including swim teaching.

“If you’re good with kids, I’d recommend teaching.”

Introverted and chronically unsure of myself, I agreed and filled in an application form.

I enjoyed teacher’s college, but burning out in my final year of study should have been a clue. I was good with kids, especially the challenging ones, but should you do something just because you’re good at it?

I was good at it though. I was idealistic and well-read. I knew the evidence-based best practice; the research-backed child development theories. My “naughty” class needed coaching, not a harsh authority figure. They needed to know someone cared about them. Trusted them to do well.

When they got restless, I gathered them up — my thirty-six pimple-faced babies — and read to them until they calmed down. My favorite book, and theirs, was Holes by Louis Sachar. The main character in Holes is charged with a crime he didn’t do and sent to a boys’ detention center. There, the boys spend their day in the hot sun, digging large craters in the desert.

Perhaps my class could relate to the characters. School can feel like a detention center at times. Sit at your desk. Do your writing. Here’s another math test. Dig your hole exactly the size we tell you to. Tomorrow we’ll repeat.

I tried to make school feel less like that. The two class clowns, two intelligent boys who were disruptive if not entertained, sat beside me “doing the voices”. Getting them to help, kept the class engaged and the boys occupied. I felt clever having thought of that. You’re good at this, I told myself.

But new teachers aren’t always treated well. They’re overworked and given the worst jobs. My position was only for 6 months, then the permanent teacher returned from maternity leave. Then another school, another 6 months. A third school, another “difficult class”. I worked 70-hour weeks, desperate to be a good teacher. At each new school there were new procedures, new kids, new staff, new curriculums.

Breaking ground. Digging in concrete.

“I have to leave,” I announced in my boss’ office. I collapsed in the leather chair, deflated, buried under the stress. “It’s not fair to the kids. I’ve been sick half the term.”

“You’re a good teacher. I’m not letting you quit. Take whatever time you need to get better.” My boss meant it to sound comforting and supportive. It sounded like a prison sentence. Years stretched indefinitely, digging hole after hole across a desert. I needed to put the shovel down.

“I have to quit. I’m sorry.”

Diagnosed with two immune disorders, made worse by anxiety, I knew my teaching career was over. I was in my second year of teaching and my last. The stress was too much. Add a suppressed immune system and I was digging myself a grave in the classroom.

Yeah, I was good with kids — the career’s counsellor had been right about that. But I was also good at art, good at writing, good at research, good with animals. Do we need to make “work” out of everything we’re good at? Does every talent need to be a job or a side-hustle?

Can being good with kids just mean you’ll be a good parent? Can being a capable artist just mean you’ll have a hobby you enjoy?

Your work should be something you’re passionate about and good at, but it also needs to suit your personality, your temperament, your energy levels and stress tolerance. We need to be wary of turning every area of talent into work.

Teaching wasn’t a match for me and, even though I’d put in six years of training and work, I gave myself permission to walk away from it.

After all, we don’t need to shovel dirt just because we’re good at it.

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