Why I left teaching?

Good morning, what’s up? It’s Seth from sethperler.com, and today I’m going to talk about why I left the teaching profession.

So what happened to me is that I was a horrible student as a child. Literally in first grade, my report card already had negative comments like that I was lazy, wasn’t trying hard enough, or wasn’t applying myself.

At the time, nobody knew I had inattentive-type ADHD or that anything was going on. So year after year, I struggled more and more in school.

In eighth grade, I started getting tested for learning disabilities. They found out I didn’t have learning disabilities—at least that’s what they thought—because ADHD wasn’t really understood then. Instead, they found out I was gifted and talented.

This confused my parents and teachers. They couldn’t understand why a “gifted” kid wasn’t performing or achieving. I was confused too. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I knew I wasn’t successful in school and didn’t feel rewarded by it.

The funny thing is, I absolutely believed in the power of education to help us build a great future. Whether education happens in school, through life experience, or elsewhere, I believe we need it to pursue our hopes and dreams.

I went through middle school and high school struggling. I went to college on probation, and I eventually failed out of Ball State University. I didn’t know how to be a student—it didn’t matter whether I was bright or not.

After that, I attended a community college in Clovis, Ohio, but I dropped out after two quarters before failing out completely. At that point, I felt hopeless.

Before I explain why I left teaching, I want to explain how I became a teacher in the first place.

After leaving college, I started working with kids by accident. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to turn my life around. I got a job working with children, and I absolutely fell in love with it.

I found meaning in it. I found that I was good at it. One day, about six months into that job in Indianapolis, I was driving home down Spring Mill Road in my Mazda 3, and I had a realization.

I realized this work was meaningful to me, and I wanted to work with kids for the rest of my life. That moment was rare for me—it was one of maybe ten truly life-changing moments.

From that point, I decided I would dedicate my life to serving kids and helping them have better lives.

I went back to college at age 25. Most of my peers were 18–20, so it was a very different experience, but I was mission-driven.

Eventually, I student-taught on the Navajo Indian Reservation and started my teaching career there.

My purpose was always service—to help kids have a better life, not just to get test scores or grades, but to inspire them and help them fall in love with learning.

However, over time I noticed that many teachers lose sight of that purpose. I was very lucky because I never did.

Teaching on the Navajo reservation was one of the biggest blessings of my career. We had almost no resources—no money, no textbooks, very little curriculum. I had to design everything myself.

At the time, I had fifth graders reading anywhere from kindergarten to seventh-grade levels, so the range of ability was huge. I had no prior teaching experience, so I was free to be creative.

To this day, I believe the most important thing in teaching is engagement. I call it “creatively differentiated curriculum.”

But before engagement, I believe the first priority is emotional safety. Students need to feel safe in order to learn. It can take four to eight weeks to build that environment.

After that, I taught in many places: New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. I worked in different schools—some very structured, some focused on gifted students, and some very rigid and test-driven.

In some environments, I had freedom to create engaging curriculum. In others, everything was standardized, data-driven, and focused on testing rather than learning.

In those environments, I felt stifled. I felt like we were doing things that were not in the best interest of kids.

Across all of these experiences, I also saw dysfunction—in administration, in school culture, and in how schools were run. In one school, we had seven or eight administrators in seven years, and every change shifted the entire culture.

I was trying to serve students, but I felt the system often interfered with that mission. I believe teaching is both an art and a science, and teachers should be empowered as skilled professionals.

Instead, I saw standardization, outdated grading systems, and constant changes in curriculum that disempowered teachers. Over 50% of teachers leave the profession by year five, which is heartbreaking.

Teaching is one of the hardest jobs there is. Many people think teachers have summers off, but good teachers work all year—creating curriculum, preparing lessons, recovering from the school year, and often working nights and weekends.

Despite this, teachers are underpaid and under-resourced.

I began to feel burned out. I felt like I was being asked to give everything, but I wasn’t able to serve at the level I believed students deserved. Maybe I was operating at 60% of my potential because the system took up the rest.

So I started asking myself what I really wanted to do.

I realized I loved working with struggling students—especially those with executive function challenges, twice-exceptional students, and kids who were falling through the cracks.

I thought about becoming a traditional ADHD coach or counselor, but those systems felt limiting to me.

I wanted to work with families, not just individual students. I wanted to create something flexible, meaningful, and holistic.

Eventually, I built my own practice where I help students and families navigate systems that are not designed for how their brains work.

In my current work, I can be honest with students. I can say, “Yes, this is busywork,” and then help them figure out how to get through it in the least painful way possible while still managing their life.

In the end, I left teaching because I felt my ability to serve was limited by systemic dysfunction and because I couldn’t maintain the level of self-care and balance I needed.

I loved teaching—the art of it, the connection with students, the creativity, the challenge, and the ability to change lives. But I did not love the system.

Leaving was extremely difficult, but I made the decision to create something aligned with my values.

Unfortunately, many teachers leave and never return to working with kids, which is a huge loss.

I believe education is one of the most important jobs in the world, and students today are facing extremely complex challenges. They will need strong education to solve the problems of the future.

But I don’t think we are currently preparing them well enough.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences—whether you’re a parent, teacher, or student. Thanks for listening to my story. Take care.