Through sharing her experiences in teaching, Kelli Brown provides valuable insights into why some teachers may be leaving the profession. Right after college and the completion of her teacher certification, Kelli became an assistant and then an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher at an inner city public high school in Columbia, South Carolina. Only two and a half years later, she felt overwhelmed and burned out, and  was relieved to leave the profession to start a family, which did not seem possible while teaching. She is one of a third of new teachers who quit their jobs within the first five years.

In this episode, Kelli vividly describes the overwhelming expectations, the eye-opening disparity in access to facilities and resources, the pressures from the administration without enough support or autonomy, and how much she juggled as a 23-year-old ESOL teacher with 5 sections of seniors and 1 section of juniors and varsity girls’ soccer coach, with very little compensation. Her experience raises the question, "What more could we be doing for teachers?" As you will hear from her stories, there are many factors that contributed to her burnout, and no easy answers. 

Ultimately, however, Kelli credits the experience with developing her sense of empathy for students (“you never know what somebody has going on”) and teachers (“I think people’s minds would be blown to hear the ins and outs of what each teacher goes through on a daily basis”). Now she makes sure her kids know that “You can learn something from everyone…if you will give them the opportunity to teach you.”

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