Joan Cross taught art for grades K-8 for 20 years in the Lakes Region. But over the last few years, she noticed a change in her students. Many of them were struggling with more behavioral issues in the classroom. She didn’t understand why, but she did know that she wasn’t equipped to handle it.
“I'm not a school counselor. I'm not a psychologist,” Cross told NHPR's Morning Edition host Rick Ganley. “And it felt like those were skills that I needed in order to get through my school day instead of just teaching art.”
School administrators across the state are struggling to fill positions, and teacher morale is low. Cross says teachers are facing a variety of challenges, and they're not getting the support they need.
NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley spoke with Cross about her decision to leave teaching and become a commercial truck driver.
Transcript
So for full disclosure, I've known you for many years and you've always been a dedicated and passionate teacher. You kept some audio diaries while you were debating whether to leave in the past year. I want to play one where you discuss some of your feelings about leaving:
'I've spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to be an educator. I have a master's degree. I've been doing this for 20 years, and I don't recognize my profession anymore. Just the social-emotional skill level of these students is unrecognizable.'
What's your reaction now hearing that?
It was helpful to make those recordings instead of writing things down. I taught visual art, and that was my training. I have a master's degree [and a] bachelor of science in art education.
And you can't blame the pandemic for too much. You can blame it for a lot of things, but I felt like this was a slide that was starting to happen. Instead of the focus being on art, when the students came in the room, the focus was everything else. It was just falling apart. [They were] having emotional issues. I'd have kids wailing, or I'd have kids that are growling at me, literally growling. They will wreck a room, they'll just flip a table. And I'm not equipped to help them. I'm not a guidance counselor. I'm not a school counselor. I'm not a psychologist. And it felt like those were skills that I needed in order to get through my school day instead of just teaching art.
I would say to my administrators all the time, I just want to teach art. I don't want to be dealing with 'Do I keep this kid apart,' and 'Is that kid away from that child,' and 'Don't eat that,' and 'Please don't throw that,' and kids getting up and leaving and I don't know where they are. There were just so many distractions, and the students just seemed like there was so much going on for them.
These are behavioral issues that you were seeing before COVID-19?
Yeah, It just seemed to magnify.
What other factors besides behavioral issues led to your decision to leave teaching?
The pay is not keeping up with the cost of living. And there are people that are like, 'Oh, you get the summer off, and you only work ten months out of the year.’ Those ten months out of the year are like you have to jump onto a treadmill that's already going 75 miles an hour and you've got to run on that without breaking a sweat and smile while you're doing it and all these other things that happen.
And then in the summer, we're not getting paid. If I get paid in the summer, it's because I stretched out my paycheck that I already earned being on that 75 mile an hour treadmill.
Teachers, they need more support. Every time budget season came around, I would glibly be like, 'Can I have an assistant?' I need somebody to do all my office work, and all my email correspondence, and help me hang art shows, and label student work and student charts and grades. There's all this clerical stuff that teachers are doing besides teaching. Teaching is such a small part of teaching, which I know sounds insane, but it really is. When I can just close the door and have it be me and the kids and we'd be grooving with music on and everyone knew what to do, it was so much fun. That happened less and less.
Well, what do you think teachers do need in order to feel that they are supported and to make them want to stay?
Infrastructure [and] air conditioning, those are big ones. Our school buildings need a lot of help. Teachers should get more pay, they just should. It's a tough job.
And our students need more support in school. They need a place to go if they're feeling dysregulated, meaning they're just off-task or they're having big emotions about something because they're human. They have somewhere to go besides just two poor counselors that are in there trying to serve the entire building.
And I would throw in mental health support for teachers, as well. A place where the teachers can go. Not a teacher's room, but a safe space. A Zen space where there just aren't students, there aren't distractions, and you can just have two minutes to yourself and pull yourself together or have somebody to talk to. Because it's some pretty heavy stuff that we handle. And I think the mental health of teachers is ignored and very important. It just emotionally spends you.
I imagine you talk with your former coworkers. Are you talking to people that feel the same way, that they're debating their future?
There's a lot of people. There was one woman that came up behind me and was like, 'Take me with you' when I was leaving last year. And I was like, 'You know where the door is as much as I do, girl.' And I'm privileged to be able to move to a different career. Some people can't.
Everybody has their reasons for what they're doing. And there's a lot of folks that are toward the end of their career for real, not just like me where I'm like, 'I'm going to end my career and go do something different.' They're two, three, four years away from retiring. They've been contributing to the system so long they just want to finish and really give it their best to the very end. But it's getting harder for them to do that. And they'll make it because teachers are very tough, but they're still human.
And now you're looking for jobs as a trucker. That's a little different. Why trucking?
I chose to get my commercial license because I've always liked big vehicles. So people are like, 'But you're a teacher!' That's not my whole life. My dad was a retired firefighter, and I just loved any time I got to go on the truck with him.
And I liked that I can serve the community in that way. [With] teaching you get to serve the community. And whether you're driving a bus or you're driving freight, you are helping that community. And that is a really, really important piece of my work life. And honestly, you can look around your surroundings right now, including the car you might be in, everything that you have in your life a trucker was part of getting it to you. So it's a very important job, and that's something that I was attracted to.
And I like to drive big things.
