Maybe by now, some of you are asking, “If you loved teaching so much, why did you quit?”

Unfortunately, there is a side of teaching that every single teacher out there feels that is anything but glorious.

For me, teaching 4th grade, there was tremendous standardized testing pressures. 4th graders are tested in Reading, Math and Writing.

By my second year of teaching, I had pretty well established in my own mind what I needed to teach when so that everything that the students needed to know for testing would have been taught by the time testing rolled around in early February (Writing) and early March (Reading and Math).

While those test scores are given to the students, they are also “given” to the teacher. And while my students always scored well, it wasn’t without hard work from both my students and myself.

Since leaving my school, not a year has gone by that I don’t think about and pray for my co-workers who are teaching and getting students prepared for the big tests in February and March. The pressures teachers (and students) feel concerning these tests has gone a little overboard in my opinion.

It is good to have standardized testing, to some degree. However, I believe my state has taken it too far and it is contributing to the early burn out rates for teachers.

While “burn out” was probably in the near future for me as a teacher (unfortunately so), the reason I quit really had everything to do with the way I thought my life would go!

We were married in May of 2007 and planned to start a family very soon. I hoped I’d get pregnant right away. One of the first conversations Dave and I had about family when we were engaged was about the fact that we both felt it extremely important to make any necessary changes so that I can be a stay-at-home-mom to our children. For us, this meant adjusting our budget so that I could stop teaching.

Now looking back almost 2 years later, I see that I could have continued teaching another year or two considering pregnancy has not come as quickly as we would have liked.

However, this is just another example of how God takes care of us.

There is absolutely no way I could handle the emotional tolls and stress of both teaching and infertility treatments. I know there are women out there who do both, but for me, it seems almost impossible to balance my roll as wife, teacher and infertility patient!

God certainly knew what He was doing when I said goodbye to my last set of students, packed my classroom up and turned in my letter of resignation.

And He still knows what He’s doing and I trust Him to continue to lead the way as we embark on the next phase of this journey through infertility!

My very last class on the very last Field Trip I took as a teacher. I wasn’t a big fan of field trips. I felt like it was way too much responsibility and the only thing I did was constantly count heads! However, I did enjoy being with students outside the classroom environment.

My classroom in action!

This picture was taken towards the end of the school year of my last year teaching when the students were working on Report Writing (which was one of my favorite things to teach students besides fractions using Math Investigations!).

Four years and approximately 80 students forever imprinted on my heart!

- Elaine