Change.

I just had surgery on my jaw; more than three weeks have passed with the following destructive forces still in full force: my face is numb, my teeth hurt, my face looks like I am hiding food away for the winter, and I have yet to eat anything with any semblance of texture.

I just presented at a conference about a curriculum I designed and a curriculum I soon have to hand off to another teacher to eight people after having driven down a highway, in a near blizzard for two hours.

I just found out that I have to lose my classroom next year and seemingly downgrade into a small office down the hall, which will wholly and completely change the way in which I teach and am involved with students.

I just found out that I am no longer teaching the thing in which I have found passion: English Language Arts.

I have the opportunity to build a new class from the ground up and nothing has terrified me more in my entire career.

Next year, my school is getting a new principal.

I'm not explaining these aspects of my career as a way to garner sympathy. I don't need any sympathy. In fact, most times, nothing truly infuriates me more than receiving sympathy.

Damn. I'm in a mood.

I've only been teaching for going on four years now. I have changed rooms, positions, and roles within my building since then.

And yet, nothing has felt this way before.

In my classes, I feel fake teaching a class I no longer have a lasting presence in. You know how in teaching, you can't teach or change something until a year from then. It's the only career in which you have to wait an entire year to try something new--a new lesson, a new handout, a new method, a new activity, a new strategy.

Imagine not having next year to make things better.

We've already discussed the innate perfectionism of this profession, yes?

Imagine trying to use your last possible chance, in a curriculum you have developed, to make things as perfect as possible.

Imagine not feeling like you are doing your best.

I don't know where I am going with this. Maybe it's venting. Or complaining. Or getting things out that maybe shouldn't be out there yet. Or castastrophizing. Or coping. Or asking for help.

Regardless, some part of this matters. People in education accept too easily. Changes attacks us, and we accept.

We become disgruntled, sure.

We complain, always.

We smile and nod through the meeting and discuss immense hatred later, definitely.

But, we continue.

Because...?

The nature of education lies in change. We change because we think we can do better and because we want to do best for the students.

Schools change; they innovate.

And there are a million schools innovating in a million different ways, and they all think they are doing what's best for their students.

Who is anyone to say otherwise?

Today, I am sitting here writing maybe in hopes to illuminate the changes of one of those millions of schools looking to innovate and do what is best for students.

Because teachers do what we have to; we always do what we have to for kids.

At what point, though, do those changes stop being worth it?

Throughout these few weeks where these aspects of my personal and professional life have been spiraling around me, I have thought about quitting more than I ever have.

And, suddenly, I see what the problem is with teachers: change.

Millions of schools are changing, innovating.

Millions of teachers are being asked to accept changes far beyond what even I am experiencing now.

Millions of schools are changing what they see as great education.

Millions of teachers are leaving the profession.

Millions of schools lack the professionals to teach the next generation.

And, honestly, I wish I had a solution. I wish I had a solution beyond: "The kids are worth it."

Fuck that.

Not the kids, obviously.

Teachers should have enjoyable circumstances and stability beyond the students they teach.

And that's coming from me.

I don't have any solutions.