Burned out at 23 working at an afterschool program, Now I'm 27, should I give teaching another shot?
In 2022, I was working at an elementary afterschool program. I was 23 and had wanted to see if I would want to get my teaching credential and become a teacher. So I wanted to get some experience in the field and began working at an afterschool program. The program was very unorganized and my supervisor was such a mess and tbh just such a mean and petty person. I did love working with the kids, my class was TK, 1st grade and 2nd grade. We had 18-22 students depending the day. I was working with two other "teachers"/leads, and it just felt like we never really got a good balanced footing. I didn't feel like they prepared us well for handling a classroom, we had basically no assistance or help when it came to classroom management and all the things you would need to run a classroom.
In the summer of 2022 I ended up quitting, I had just been so over it. I was not emotionally regulated and was just a mess mentally tbh. And working at the program was just so overwhelming and overstimulating. I wanted to stay but at that point I felt so done and didn't feel like I wanted to become a teacher. After that I applied to trader joes and I have been working there ever since. I do love my job but I don't want to become a manager and don't see any growth for me within the job and I want more. I have been reconsidering going back into teaching, I am more emotionally stable now and am now 27. I have always been drawn to children and just feel like I get along with them and am always told how well I get along with them. I don't think I would want to teacher high school or middle school, I liked working the age range of elementary school. I feel much more level headed and just have grown up a lot since 2022.
But I want to ask of any advice. Do you think that just because I had felt overwhelmed and overstimulated in 2022 at an afterschool program dictates whether I will feel the same way If I become a teacher? I know teaching can be tough but I did feel like the students felt ever more so rowdy with having been in school for hours and were then forced to be in the afterschool program for another 4 hours. But a part of me wants to give it a shot, I feel like I won't know unless I try. I also live in California, so although I know teachers pay is a big issue, in LAUSD they did just raise the starting salary to 77,000, so things could be worse financially! Any advice would be lovely!
Posted May 2, 2026, 4:09 AM UTC