52. Advice for Changing Grade Levels or Teaching Positions

What do you do when you want to change grade levels for the next school year?  Is it a good idea to switch teaching positions if you're feeling burned out and want to try something new? You may be considering moving to a new grade level, content area, or programmatic level for the upcoming school year, and spring is usually when jobs for the new school year are posted. If you are second-guessing your desire to make a change or aren't sure where to start, you don't want to miss this episode! I'm sharing what went into my decision to change teaching positions 6 years ago (in the middle of the pandemic!) and advice to help you make sense of what you're feeling and need at this stage of your life. Listen for some heartfelt tips and insight about why change may be the best thing for you, your colleagues, and your students.

Get your copy of Teachaholic: The 7-Day MindSET Shift to Conquer Burnout, Build Life-Changing Boundaries, and Reignite Your Love for Teaching at www.erinsponaugle.com/book. 

You can download the Teachaholic Action Guide to begin your journey back from burnout here. 

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Transcript

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Being the teacher isn't what it used to be. The good news is, you don't have to figure it out on your own. If you're looking for truth, inspiration, and tips for success in the classroom and beyond, you're in the right place. It's time to turn the page to the future of the profession. This is the next chapter for teachers podcast. Hello everyone, this is Aaron Spinagle for the next chapter for Teachers Podcast, and this is episode 52. So we are still in the throes of March madness when this is being recorded. We've been talking about student behaviors, some of the less than desirable things that the kids in our class tend to do this time of the year and the lead up to spring break. But we're gonna circle back around now and start talking more about you, teacher, and some of the things that you might be thinking about or dealing with internally right now that may have nothing to do by the kids in your class. Maybe they do, maybe it's being influenced by other things in your teaching context. But our episode today and next week's episode, to put it out there, just as a lead up, is going to be about if you are thinking about making changes. Because it's March when this is being recorded, but this is the time of the year when we start thinking about next school year that decisions are are being made about what you'll be doing in the future in your school or what positions might be opening up in your district or in surrounding areas, and you're starting to think about if you want to switch things up next year. Now, maybe you have had a bad year, or it's been a bad couple of years, and you feel like something's got to give at this point, or it could be that you've just been thinking about what it would be like to change things up, to switch grade levels, or to change positions, or content areas, or programmatic levels, like if you teach elementary, maybe you want to move up to the middle school. These thoughts may have been ruminating, and the job boards are starting to post things for the upcoming school year, and it's staring you in the face. Do I want to make a change? Are things bad enough, or do I want a change bad enough to go off course? And those feelings can sometimes make us a little stressed out, they can make us a little sad. They might even energize us too, but there's a lot of emotions that go on, and there's a lot of things to consider. But here's one thing that I need you to consider before we even get this started. It's okay to want something different. You know, as a teacher, sometimes it's like we cut we get stuck in our roles, and it's not that being stuck or choosing to stay with a grade level or a content area for your entire career is not a good thing. That's that's great if you really are intent on doing that. But we're not meant to stagnate. We're not meant to keep hitting refresh, refresh every year if that's not where our heart is. And in the traditional classroom sense, in the traditional like public school system, we are kind of limited as to how we can move around. We're gonna talk a little bit more about this next week in a broader sense, but it's like if you can be in the classroom, you can be in the classroom. If you want to completely leave the classroom, you can go into administration. But there's not a whole lot of room to move diagonally, if you will. So if you're thinking about making a move to do something a little bit different, you gotta make a decision at some point whether you're gonna try something out that's going to be varying from what you've been doing for the past couple years or what you've always done, even. But let's talk about what the advantages of staying put, right? Because we can have bad years or bad weeks or a bad day and say to ourselves, I'm done with this, I'm not doing this anymore, I am changing things next year. I can't, I I get it. I've been there. I have been there and I have felt those things. We all have those moments where you vent to our teacher friends about you just can't take it anymore. Oh, I can't believe that happened again. Yeah, it's all good. It's all good and it's all normal to feel that way. But let's talk about the positives about staying with a position or a grade level or a content area year after year. You do get to the point where you really know your stuff. You know the content area, you might know the age level of the students very well, and you are an expert. Even if you are not treated or you don't feel like you are respected as an expert, you are. And it's there is a comfort of being able to repeat what you are doing year after year, even if you have to switch it up for the kids you have that year, make it adaptable for who's in your room or for the variations in the content that you have to adjust to for the year. There is a level of knowing that you don't always get with every job that exists in this world. It's like you know, if you teach fifth grade, and this is what they do in social studies every year, and you have the content and the resources for it, and you can pull it out year after year, and you can make it better, and you become very good at what you do. We need teachers with that proficiency. It's not that everybody should be moving all over the place, but it is important and it is an advantage, and I'll even say that is a reason why I stayed in the classroom as a fifth-grade teacher for as long as I did, because there was that ability to just be at the expert level. Not that I was necessarily the most expert teacher as a fifth-grade teacher, but I knew what I was doing after a while because I did it year after year. There's also ways that you can move up the ranks, even in a respect in to the respect of like maybe as a team leader or maybe within committees, if you're chosen for different things in your school district because you are recognized for being very knowledgeable in that area or in your content. Like if you're at good at math, then you're you know, you might have moved up to being the head of things in your math department, either in your school or in your district. So there's good things in staying. I am not knocking anyone who chooses to stay and do the same thing for many, many years or for their entire career. That's great. But here's the reality. The reality is that we are people, and people do not stay the same their entire lives. We grow, we change, and at some point we may want or need different things. That's okay too. It's all okay. We are all different, and we are all made of different stuff, and we're meant for different things to happen to us. And you shouldn't deny what you're thinking or feeling because you think it's wrong or it's not the best way to go about doing things. There is no best way about going about and doing things. We are constantly triaging this whole teaching thing, you know? We really are. I mean, you never know what's going to happen day to day sometimes. So, yeah, triage all the way. So, what else is out there? What can you do? What are some of the jobs that you might be seeing posted in your district or in your state or in your area? That would be a way for you to change things up if you are feeling teacher burnout coming on, because sometimes this is the change you need. Sometimes you just need something a little bit different to get things back on course, to make you have to uh rearrange your schedule, to make you have to set better boundaries, or be able to create a different dynamic, which we're gonna talk about in just a minute. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. So things that you might see out there, things you can consider. There might be interventionist positions. Perhaps there's an unified arts job that comes on the line that you're interested in. That was my case, which we'll talk about too in a minute. I'm getting more ahead of myself. Maybe it's a different grade level. That can make a big difference too. I can tell you from teaching fifth grade for a long time, when the kids are almost middle school aged. And now, as an art teacher, I teach students in grades three, four, and five. The third graders are very refreshing. They have a innocence, an innocence, and an excitement about learning that you don't see with fifth grade. Not that I don't like fifth graders. Fifth graders have their good points too. I love the independence. It's just that that switch, getting to be around third graders, it's great. It was, it is, it was in it's been enlightening, put it that way. Anyway, there might be a content area. Maybe you want to go from teaching world history to US history, or maybe you want to teach a different level of math, or as I already mentioned, you might want to get to a different level from elementary to secondary because there are differences there as far as changing the change of schedule, seeing different kids throughout the day instead of having the same group of kids all day long. The options are out there if you look for them. And if you are looking to get out of the traditional classroom, there's also coaching, mentoring, administration positions for being assistant principal or principal, if that's where your head is looking or thinking towards. The choices are out there and they are going to be made available in the next couple weeks as we get closer to scheduling and hiring for the new school year, if not already. So these are all things to think about. But let's talk about hold you back here. That comment. Oh, this comment gets you every time. But you're so good at this. Oh, oh, I got you. I know, I know. Because it was said to me, oh, but you're so good at it. Why would you want to leave? Oh, you've got it down. This is great. We knew you're dependable. What will we do without you? And the guilt, the guilt, the guilt, the guilt, the guilt. I get it. Now, you can't let that keep you from what's in your heart. Okay. I just want to say that right now. You cannot let how other people feel about what you should be doing influence what you ultimately, ultimately choose to do with your time in your life. Okay, you get one of these. You need to follow where you feel your head and your heart is going. It is also very hard. Let's talk about the cons of staying in the same position year after year. Boredom. You can get tired, even though it's nice to be able to know your stuff. You can get tired of doing the same thing every year, the same lesson. And yes, you can change things around and you can find new ways to teach things. That's great too. But you can get tired of the same thing. That's normal. That's normal to feel that way. It's not that you are getting an attitude or feeling um things that aren't nice or not good about your kids. It's okay to say, I'm bored. We're gonna talk more about boredom next week. I keep, I'm so excited about the interview I've got to share with you next week. You can get into a rut. Sometimes this happens a lot with teacher burnout. I can speak to this, where you are just in a rut, you've done the same thing year after year, that comfort level kind of gets into a point where you can't really see out of the rut you've created, out to the see the other possibilities that exist, and then you kind of start to lose your edge and lose your joy for teaching. You can also get typecast, kind of like an actor gets typecast for a certain type of role, and you start seeing them in that same role on TV or in movies over and over again. Maybe you get typecast as always getting the, I don't know, the AP students, if maybe that's something that you like, or maybe you get the students that are remedial on repeat because quote unquote, you're so good at it. Or you get certain students that have behavior issues, and you always seem to get those students because, oh, they know they can depend on you to handle them well. And wow, that is a compliment! Yes, you're good at it. You can just feel like you are always being handed the same deck of cards, and that can really wear down on your joy, and it can make you less effective over time because you don't get the variety that you would if you would get a mixed bag or get an different uh set of things to teach or students to work with. It kind of limits you when you always get the same kids or the same subject area year after year, because you don't get to expand and try things out and learn new things. And along with that, you might be developing some better boundaries. Maybe you are someone who's coming back from burnout or you're trying to stay in teaching and you are trying to have a better connection with your job and home, and you are changing things up as far as what you are taking home or not doing anymore, and that boundary making is creating a clash and maybe not making certain people happy. It's not that that's a bad thing, because sometimes we have to deal with discomfort to get to a level of uh equilibrium, but that also goes along with you do the same thing year after year, and then you decide you need to make some changes with that. It's hard to take. And I am speaking from experience there. It's not a fun thing to recognize, but it is the truth. So I have gone through this, I have made a change after some time. I taught fifth grade for 15 years, and before that I taught a year of third grade and fourth grade. So I had been a general ed teacher for 17 years, and prior to that I had started to think about what what else what else would I like to teach besides fifth grade? What what if I had the opportunity to teach but not teach what I've been teaching for so long? And that's how I ended up as an art teacher. Now there's a little bit more to this story, and I'm gonna share that with you now, because based on my experience, I can give you some insight. So a couple years before I ended up becoming an art teacher, I pretty much decided that I was not gonna teach fifth grade forever. Yep. If someone's listening to this and they're thinking, oh, she's telling all how it is. Yeah, I am telling how it is. Um it's coming from me. Listen up. I had decided that I didn't want to teach fifth grade forever, that there had to be other ways to have an impact on education, either in the classroom or out of the classroom. And it didn't have to be teaching fifth grade. I really just didn't see myself teaching fifth grade for 30 years. Okay, and that was based on just because with teaching fifth grade, like I said, I love the independence of fifth graders, but it was a lot of the angsty stuff that goes along with teaching fifth graders, the middle school behaviors, the drumsy rumsy, that I was really feeling like I am this is not going to work for me for a couple more decades. No. So I was looking around to see what else could I do besides teach fifth grade. And I considered going to, I know I just said the angst of teaching fifth grade, but I I did consider going to the middle school. And I weighed the options, and this is very important. If you are thinking about making a change, it's important to look at all the options or the pros and the cons that come with moving, and the pros and the cons that come with moving to not only a new grade level or a new content area, but potentially a new team of colleagues or a new school. Those are all things to consider as well. And I did that. I looked at other middle school jobs. I even went to a middle school and interviewed and learned about the schedule and the classes and what I would be doing if I were to take this job as a sixth-grade teacher. I went and I learned and I decided that that was not the pivot that was for me. That it would just kind of be more of the same. Now, it would have been great if I just wanted to get into more of a middle school format of, you know, how the kids rotate through your classes throughout the day. But I could, after doing that interview, after going to the school, I felt that wasn't that wasn't it. I wanted to change, but that was not the change for me. And I'm very glad I did that. It wasn't just me going in, signing up for the new thing and saying, peace out, this is where I'm headed. I did some evaluating. And I declined to move on after that. So not a lot of people know that part about me that I did consider and I was seriously um looking at going to the to a middle school position. So that took me back to square one. Okay, so I'm still teaching fifth grade and I'm still feeling like I can't do this for the rest of my career. And one day I just happened to be looking at the pictures that my students would draw me pictures. They still draw me pictures, and I would put them on the wall behind my desk, and I looked at this, looking at this really nice portrait that one of my fifth graders had drawn of me, and had I had put it on my wall because it was fantastically done, very accurate. And something just a light switch went on my went off in my head or turned on in my head, and I thought I could be an art teacher. And as I at that point had written and illustrated my first children's book, and I I it's like a switch went on and it clicked that I could teach art. What if I taught art? And I hadn't thought about it before that point, but it lit me up and I couldn't let it go. Now, the only problem is that wait a minute, I wasn't certified to teach art. Now I could have easily moved on to a another content area, I could have gone to the teach middle school, but I wait, I did not have an art certification. So I had to do some research, and that's another thing you have to do too. If you if there's a type of position that you are really interested in, you have to do your homework and see what it is that you need. Because you can get hyped that, yeah, I could do this, I want this, and then you gotta think, wait a minute, what do I have to do to get there? So I did my research and learned what I would need to do to pass the praxis, or what materials would I need to study in order to pass the praxis? Obviously, I have a teaching degree, but I don't have an art education certification, so I had to work on obtaining that. So that was a little bit of work on my part, and I had a lot that I had to learn, but I couldn't let this idea go, and I was willing to do the work. It meant enough to me to put the time in to get certified and to learn what I needed to know in order to make the sleep when the opportunity arose, if the opportunity would arose, because art jobs are not quite like fifth-grade jobs or sixth-grade jobs or any, you know, con grade level specific position. They're a little bit harder to come by. But that also gave me some time to learn more about how to teach art. Because although I was a good artist myself and I could teach fifth grade content, I did not have any background at that point on how to teach other art media. So I had to, I had to learn. But that was good for me too, because we should always be learning and challenging ourselves, regardless of where we are in our careers. So, like I mentioned, I needed an opening. But I wanted to let the people who needed to know know that I was interested in an opening. You know, in particular, I w I was hoping to be able to stay at my own school. So I did let my administrator know that I was. Interested in moving to an art position. Now, this can be a tense subject. I understand. Because some people, depending on your rapport with your administrator, you might not feel that you should let them know how you feel. So I really feel that this is something that is you gotta go with your gut and go with how comfortable you feel at first. But I told my administrator administrator at the time what I was thinking. I think I was excited enough about this possibility that I wanted to just I wanted to say to say it to somebody. And I didn't want to tell everybody in the whole school that I was thinking that I was interested in being an art teacher. And if the art teacher position at our school were to open, I would be interested in it. I did share that. Now the position did not come open for another three years. Actually, it was probably more like two and a half, but I let I let someone know that this is where my head was going, so that if the opportunity made itself pre you know available, I they would be thinking of me. Because that's how badly I wanted it. And I did start looking for other positions as well in case that wasn't going to work out. But like I said, art positions are not as plentiful as other positions are. One thing that I didn't do that I would leave this up to the person and the type of job you're looking for, is I didn't ask to observe other art classrooms. And I think there is value in getting to see each other teach, getting to see other classrooms and how other people do things. And if you are interested in making a change and learning more about what would go into or how a new grade level or a new content area would be like to teach, I think it would be very helpful to observe and to see that. The one thing that I kind of question if it would be helpful or not is asking other teachers if they like teaching that content area or that subject or that grade level. I think there could be some value in it, but I also think you have to consider where people are at in their lives as well. Because I could have said to somebody who was an art teacher, hey, I'm thinking about teaching art. What do you think about it? And they could have said, It's awful, don't do it. I could have said, No, you don't want this because of how they were feeling or what they were going through at that time or where they were in their careers. I did not, I went into it blind. I went into it with my own idealistic view and what I could see in my school about what being the art teacher would be. But if you are interested in doing something that you don't have a lot of uh context for, or you've never seen up close and personal, there would be value in watching, but I don't know so much if asking people if they like it is that's gonna be super helpful. What might be helpful is maybe phrasing questions is what do you like about teaching second graders? What do you not like as much about teaching second graders or AP English or geometry or whatever it may be? But not just do you do you because some people can feel differently about things, then you wouldn't, you don't want that to color what you are destined for. Okay, but I just especially this time of year when we're all a little stressed out, I think observing is good, but maybe absorbing someone else's energy is up for grabs as far as how helpful that could be. So, what's the reality after you make a change, a big change, after you've done something that you have done for a long time, been pretty good at, kind of known for, what's it like when you flip the script? What's the reality of that? I want to share that with you now. So, when you make a change from a grade level, there's a little bit of grief, honestly. There's a letting go period where you have to kind of grieve what you're letting go of. And for me, I think this was kind of amplified because the pandemic was going on, and I didn't really get a chance to really say goodbye to my traditional classroom that I had been a part of, my dynamic that I had been a part of for 15 years. You know, the pandemic happened, I didn't get to say goodbye to my last fifth grade class, except on Zoom. It's like, see ya, have a good summer, hope this is over with in a couple months. And I didn't get to have a have the closure with my colleagues, which also was not the best scenario, too. But it was the pandemic where we, you know, there's a lot of things that weren't ideal. But you there is a sadness of like, oh, this is over. That doesn't mean that it's bad. It doesn't mean that what you are choosing for yourself is bad or not good or that you shouldn't do it, but it is a reality. There is a grieving process, and it does kind of make this kind of make you sad. Also, something that's a little scary. You are going to lose sight of the shore. You are letting go of familiar familiarity. Sorry, I'm gonna keep that in there because that's funny. Familiar familiarity. You're all the things you were used to, better to go with, wouldn't it? They're gone. Okay, you are often rebuilding from scratch, whether it's a grade level change or a content area change, you are going to start from zero and you are going to rebuild. And that is a little frightening, especially when you have that comfort level of doing the same thing year after year, and that is gone. So for me, going to art, I'd never taught art before, and I was, I wanted something out of the box. Boy, did I get it. And there were some moments where I was like feeling like I was making it up as I was going along. And I probably was making it up as I was going along, but that built a level of strength in my teaching that I didn't know existed. Like I didn't know I could be, I knew I could improv, but I didn't know I could improv like that. And I could sell it to the kids, and they didn't know that I didn't know what I was necessarily doing at first, but I figured it out and I learned a lot of a lot from that. And it also it built up my confidence in a way that I had not had in a really long time because I had had been coming back from burnout, but I still didn't feel 100% about myself. And just giving myself the ability to figure this out and do something new, it was a shoot of confidence and it gave me my self-esteem back that I desperately needed. Now, this is no joke. Setting up a new room and coming up with new routines and cre and getting used to a new flow, it's no joke. That is hard. It was very hard to when I finally had the opportunity to set a classroom up again, an art room that I had never done before, and obviously would be using in a different way instead of having the kids with me all day long and having them have to use communal supplies. I had to learn and I had to get adjusted to that. And that that was a lot of energy. That took a lot out of me at for a year trying to get that figured out and work out all the kinks. And I I did not always get it right, but I did figure it out. That's the important thing to you. You may not always get it right when you make a change and take on something new, but you will figure it out. You just gotta give it some time. You gotta give yourself grace though, because you are starting from scratch in a lot of instances. You're also starting with a new rapport with a new set of colleagues, possibly, a new team, and that takes a while to get used to, too, to learn how to contribute in a different way, or to be able to just work with people that you have not worked before. For me, I it takes me a while to get used to people. I'm kind of inert I'm very introverted. Let's keep it that way, let's keep it real here. Very introverted. It takes me a lot of warm up to people, and you gotta learn how to work with people again that you've never met before. That is hard for me. It may not be hard for everybody, but it can you can make it work, and it can happen. It's just you gotta give yourself time to let it happen. Nothing happens overnight. It's a trade. Let's talk about this. We're all stressed and all tired by this point in the year. There is a level of stress and tired that is is occurring at this point before spring break. And when we look at other things that could be available to us job-wise, we often think, oh, that would be so much easier. We want something easier, we want a release from the stress we're in. And I can say, in some respects, when I thought about teaching art, I thought, oh, that would potentially be easier than teaching fifth grade. I can say six years in from teaching fifth grade and now teaching unified arts, it is not necessarily easier. It was a trade. I exchanged what I was dealing with with as a fifth grade teacher for what I would be dealing with as an art teacher. So how is art different, or how is even unified arts in more to be in more general sense different than teaching a grade level or content area? Well, it is physically more intense. There is no sitting down. I don't sit down while the kids are doing independent work or working in small groups. I am on my feet pretty much the entire day, except for when I take a lunch break. And there's a lot of up and down, getting things out, putting things away, prepping materials. I am on my feet a lot. My feet hurt at the end of the day, a lot more so than when I talked fifth grade. And like I said, there is very few opportunities to sit down. I have a nice little stool in the front of my room. I hardly ever use it for myself. I use it to hold my materials more than anything. There's also way more talking because I see the kids less, so I have to review the things more, and I have to be there's a little more direct teaching with elementary art more so uh than maybe teaching middle or high school art. And there's there's no work on this, and I'll check back with you in a minute or observing them. There is some once they get started on a project, but there's a lot more talking involved, and I've had to be more conscientious of not blowing out my voice or losing my voice, especially this time of year. Because in the lead up to art show, it can happen. But the prep, um you are teaching all kids. You are you might in the past, if you teach just a subject area and you have the same 20 couple kids every year, I mean all year, you you've got this that this that's your class. I get all of them. I couple up to 600 plus kids all year long. And that's a lot of different personalities to interact with. I will say that my behavior management, classroom management has been all 100% finessed since I've started teaching art because I am learnt, I have had to learn how to deal with everybody on the fly. Every behavior issue, every um ability level, you get it all. But it has made me a better teacher, and that's what I was getting at. We need a challenge. We don't necessarily we don't necessarily need easier, we just need to use our brains differently. And this has definitely been a way of using my brain differently. And then along with that, there is overstimulation as an art teacher because it is constant stuff all day long. It is scissors, crayons. Well, I don't use crayons, I don't really like crayons, but uh pastels, glue, glitter, color. It's just it is in your face all day long. And I do get a little overstimulated by it all by the end of the day, and I have to decompress and I have to find ways for myself to destimulate when I come home in the evenings because it is a lot, and if I want to keep doing it and not let it wreck my uh ability to do my job to the best of the ability to best to my of my ability, I can't let it get to me. But yeah, it's a trade. All of that to say you are trading one thing for another, decide which thing you want. And if like I may I have no regrets, but I am just being honest and realistic. Because on the other side of this, I now feel more in alignment with who I am at this stage in my life. I needed to change. And this is the change that I sought out, and I'm much better off than if I would have just stayed somewhere and stayed stuck. Teaching art fits my perspective on education. My personal passions and my educational passions, it's a good fit for who I am right now. When I taught fifth grade, that was a good fit for who I was for a long time. I love the rapport I have with my kids in the entire school, all 600 plus of them. I love creating. I love that my job is more relational because I feel like we're losing that a lot in the traditional classroom with the emphasis on standardized testing. And as an introvert, I mentioned just a few minutes ago. I'm a good party of one. Even though I have a unified arts team, I am the unicorn only art teacher in the school, and I'm I'm good functioning as a single person. So that helps too. So I will reiterate this again: whatever you're choosing to do, whatever change you're looking to make, see it as a trade, not as a something getting easier, because often easy is not the solution to how you're feeling or what you're wanting. Things will settle down. So whatever upheaval you create by your change, or whatever you're feeling on the inside, the fears, the chaos, it does settle down. And it often doesn't take too long for it to settle down. You know, there might be the initial shock, but this time next year, you could be in an entirely different place, not just physically, because you'll be doing something different, but emotionally, and uh you'll be a lot happier. You could, you know, this is what we're aiming for. We're looking aiming for that alignment and that happiness. I will say this sometimes change is hard on your colleagues. And I don't think I uh realized that as much as I did, especially if you work with your the same set of colleagues for a long time. But time does heal everything. Okay, and eventually things do get back to an equilibrium. You will get better at what you're doing. Whatever you choose to do differently this year or next year, you will get better at doing it. Even if you have a rough year, even if rough two years, you will often get better faster than what you did when you first started teaching and you were learning how to teach because you have the classroom experience, you just have a new context that you have to learn. And you might, like I mentioned, you might have strengths that you didn't realize you had, like when I said about having learned how to teach art online during the pandemic. I learned a level of resiliency that I had within me that I didn't know existed. And that has carried on into so many other areas, not just in the classroom, but in my life. So think of yourself as a whole person that is capable of doing a multitude of things that can impact people in education. I don't want to give too much weight because I've got a wonderful, awesome interview to share with you next week. That's gonna be so empowering, and I need to keep my mouth shut because I want it to be extra special. Anyway, so to close this off, because I need to kind of wind this down here, don't downplay how you feel or what you want. Because most of all, we need teachers or we need uh educators, if you choose to go the coach or administrator route, that are happy and feel fulfilled. And often once you make a change, you realize that you should have done it a while ago, or that you're gonna wish that you would have done it before you already did it. If you're not where you want to be, you don't have to stay there. You can make a change, you can make good decisions, and your good decisions will impact a whole host of people, big and little, that you may not even realize need to see you doing something or being something else. You have to allow yourself to grow, you owe it to yourself to let yourself grow. You don't know who else is watching you right now. No, sorry, I know you're listening to this podcast, you're like, wait, someone's watching me. No, but someone might be struggling with making a change, and it may take seeing someone else do it to recognize their own need to pursue their own fulfillment and happiness. Whether it's your own kids, your spouse, your colleagues, you cannot doubt your ability to impact anyone. So to close this up, it's got a little bit longer than I anticipated, but it's a topic that I I think is really important. I think, especially now in education where there is a lot of we're dealing with a lot of teacher burnout, a lot of big feelings as educators about how things should be or what we should be doing with our knowledge and talents, do not deny yourself happiness and do not deny yourself your purpose because you never know who is going to be blessed by your decisions. So that's all for this week. I hope that if you are thinking about making a change, that this episode helped you. We'll talk more about making changes in our next episode. And I wish you a good week where you believe in yourself and believe in your ability to choose. I'll talk to you next time. That's all for this episode of the next chapter for teachers podcast. If you like what you heard, be sure to rate, subscribe, and leave a review. Join us next time when we turn the page to the future of. The profession. Until then, remember to be different, but more importantly, be the difference. And I'll see you in the next chapter.