Parker Palmer, author of The Courage to Teach and other books on the vocational lives of educators, suggests that the vocation to teach has seasons.

Teachers often describe summer as a vocational season during which they truly enjoy the weather in their teaching lives. Teachers in vocational summer often say they have found their stride, enjoy the pace, look forward to going to work everyday, and report very little stress related to teaching. 

Teachers in vocational spring tend to describe the excitement they feel about new initiatives, new teaching responsibilities, fresh starts, and clean slates.

Teachers often feel that they are in vocational fall for several different reasons. Some say they are in vocational fall because they are in a time of transition. Others say they are in fall because they see themselves finally harvesting the fruit of seeds planted many springs ago. Others say fall because they no longer can keep certain programs, approaches, or collegial relationships “on the vine” any longer. Some in vocational fall say that they have come to realize that it is time to let things they have cherished and championed now die.

And then there is vocational winter. Some teachers claim to be in vocational winter because they find themselves in the midst of a very introspective time instead of a creative one. Others see themselves in winter because they are resting a bit—much like the ground lies fallow under the snow in preparation for a new growing season. And some say they are in vocational winter because the weather of their vocation is so cold they no longer care to get out of their vocational bed.

Parker tells us to take some consolation from all this. If you work with teachers who are in vocational spring and you are in a different, less satisfying vocational season, you don’t have to resent them. Nor do you have to think that there is something vocationally wrong with you. And you can take heart in the fact that a new season is coming.

For the teachers among us who are enjoying glorious vocational seasons, we say “God bless you.” And for those of us in a more challenging period, it helps to remember it is only a season.