I Hope You've Had the Time of Your Life
Moments throughout life are MEANT to stand out, where we’ll NEVER even forget the date when it rolls around. May 22, 2010 – I got married! February 9, 2012 – my son was born! August 10, 2016 – my daughter came into the world! June 24, 2022 – I never knew this date would be on my radar of one I’d never forget…my LAST day as a teacher.
My throat closes and my eyes well up as I read this to myself. I left teaching. I am no longer a teacher. I cannot accept any of these statements as fact, and I’ll explain why shortly. The fact remains, however, that I did indeed leave the teaching profession. And it absolutely broke my heart, but once again, in this new season of my life, I’m prayerfully building my dreams!
To Know Where You're Going, Look to Where You've Been
While I don’t recall the date, I’ll never forget the day I decided to BECOME a teacher. Believe it or not it wasn’t until junior year of COLLEGE! That’s right – I was more than halfway done with carving out my life’s plan and BAM – I changed course. I was a Psychology major, and I didn’t abandon that, in fact, it drove me to focus on what type of teacher I would be. As I sat in my parent’s office, rummaging through old high school tests, I found my AP Calc scores and thought, “I miss Math!” For a psych major, I hadn’t done Math SINCE high school. I was genuinely sad about this. I pondered the many paths I could take with mathematics, but my affinity towards adolescent psych made the whole picture clear – MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH TEACHER!
I double majored, Psychology and Mathematics, and earned a Secondary Education certification as well. The rest is history but I’ve spent the last dozen years profoundly shaping the lives of ten through 14 year olds. THIS was my calling. The classroom, my stage. The minds and hearts of all sorts of children, mine to leave an everlasting impression on. NO PRESSURE right? Well, I ROCKED it!
I’ve said before, nobody will EVER see me the way my students do. Our interactions, the relationships we forge, the confidence and mutual respect we build – it’s like no other. Not with my parents, my husband, or even my own children. I am so proud of who I get to be for those kids, and they’ll never truly know who they are to me. It fulfills me. And I walked away, tearfully. Naturally the next question is simply – WHY?
The Answer to the Ultimate Question - Why Quit Teaching?
Let me ask you – did you ever feel like you were drowning? Physically NOT BREATHING during your day to day tasks and activities? Wading through the crap of life, waiting for the precious moments, only to find that you were treading so ferociously you forgot to stop and enjoy it – then the moment had passed? That’s where I found myself.
This was not BECAUSE of teaching itself. When “my kids” and I were inside of those four walls, I was INVINCIBLE and nothing could convince me I’d ever want anything else. But add in what was going on on the outside – keeping up with finances on Long Island, political and bureaucratic pressures and educational mandates creeping into my classroom, raising children of my own with needs of their own, maintaining a personal life, marriage, friendships, self care…the list goes on and I KNOW you are nodding your head with me right now! We, as a family, needed a different way.
Then there was COVID-19 – I can and probably will write an entire blog on how the educational climate changed through Covid, and that was a major impetus for having a chance to RECOGNIZE the need and ability to change. But it really does come down to my children – their needing me as a mother and my personal acknowledgement of not being there in the way I NEEDED to be. We hear as mothers all of the time – “You’re superwoman! How do you do it all? You’re so inspiring!” What we need to hear sometimes is, “Are you ok? What do you need RIGHT NOW?” Especially in a market of being the person always tending to OTHER’s social emotional well-being during Covid times – how were our students coping? Were their families healthy and stable? Did they need more resources and support from us? Unfortunately, it was rare, if at all, that we as teachers were asked and served on what we needed through these unprecedented times. This truly was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.
I gave EVERYTHING to my career, and I was falling short at home, and I could see the repercussions through my children. Sure, I was packing the lunches, I was signing the permission slips, I was washing the clothes and cooking the meals. At the end of the day, though, I was NOT my best self, to be honest, in ANY area of who Gina Kuehne was – teacher, mom, wife. To sum it up, my daughter, 4 or 5 at the time, told me during one of my impatient fits, “I never want to have kids!” Naturally I gasped and asked why? Her response still cuts me, but I’m grateful she opened my eyes. “Well, I don’t want to just SCREAM at them all day!” Heart. Broken.
A Chance to Realign Myself for Our Next Chapter
I quit. My husband and I committed to an idea that we’d had years prior – move South! Start something new. Make a HUGE change – climate, quality of life, priorities for our kids, and me being able to sculpt exactly what I want my life to look like. We sold the NY house, bought the TX house, and I was in my principal’s office the next day to cry my way through my plan. Then I pretty much cried from April through June as my colleagues and students found out my big news! I was met with a lot of the same responses, but my favorites were “You are SO brave!” and “I completely understand and I’m so happy for you and your family!” My principal and assistant principal both actually spoke almost verbatim the same words that I’ve kept with me through the internal conflict that was this move – “Anytime you’re doing what’s best for your family, you’re doing the right thing!”
So now I am home, and home is in Houston, TX! I still make the lunches and sign the papers, but I also get to sit right down on the floor with my daughter for the hard conversations and the cries, and answer all of the TOUGH adolescent questions my son has as a pre-teen, rather than rush them off to independent tasks because Mommy is working her 2nd job, or grading papers, or trying to sneak a meal in peace. Now I do me WHILE they are at school, and in the morning before school, I’M 100% WHOLE HEARTEDLY THEIRS! After school, I’m there for pickup, I hear all of the day’s events, and I’m PRESENT through bedtime. We play games, we read, we cuddle. I volunteer in PTO and see them AT school. And I can see my kids are truly loving this version of me, I’m loving this version of me! I couldn’t be happier for the opportunities this season of my life is giving me!
How long will this season last? I do not know. I am embracing it moment to moment. I have plans for myself. My future might include a NEW season of being a classroom teacher in Texas when this current one doesn’t serve us anymore. Only God knows that plan for me, but I have never been so ready to receive it!
My passion is and always will be educating and serving others! The list of ways I plan to fulfill my service to others is now long and ambitious and I’m eager to bring my heart into the lives of those who can use it most. When I just swirl it around in my head it goes something like this…
Teacher Mentor
Student Mindset Coach
Lifecoach for Working Moms/Aspiring Mompreneurs
Math Tutor/Homeschool Math Specialist
Educational Podcast Host
Education Resources Creator
Motivational Speaker
I have already begun quality work on a handful of the above, and as you can see I’m motivated by everything that’s been in my heart since the moment I declared “I MISS MATH!” I fully intend to infuse my psychology expertise with my educational and life experience to help others balance the must dos and the big desires. Part of me feels this WAS God’s plan all along, and He’s helped give me the opportunity to carry out the next level.
There is a common denominator (pun FULLY intended) between everything I’ve listed. Do you see it? It’s the HUMAN factor! This society and rat-race that we live in ignores so much of who we are at our CORE, our HUMAN necessities to thrive. The heart, soul, and emotional wellbeing that we all must tap into from time to time. I’d like to think that by pursuing it for myself, I’m creating the chance to pay it forward and help others in a time of need to RECONNECT to what’s inside, and get PSYCHED about who they are and what their path is!
Leaving the entirety of my career did and still does have me feeling completely broken at times. Rather, I’ll choose to move forward looking back at the experiences as a skin that I’ve shed and emerged from. Stronger, wiser, ready for more. Still a giver. Still a source for inspiration and motivation. Always a teacher at heart!
