This year, something felt… off.
Not wrong. Not bad. Just different.
Like I was moving through my days on autopilot, checking every box, following every pacing guide, and saying words that didn’t feel like my own.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t teaching the way I know I teach best.
I was teaching from someone else’s script — someone else’s stories, someone else’s sequence, someone else’s voice. And somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, I set down the thing that has always made me me as a teacher:
Creating meaningful, joyful units that connect kids to stories, ideas, and the world.
If you’ve ever taught from a scripted curriculum, you probably know the feeling.
When Teaching Starts to Feel Small
Curriculum adoptions can be exciting.
New materials. New resources. New possibilities.
But sometimes they also come with new rules:
- Everyone must be on the same page.
- Every class should be using the same materials.
- Stick to the script.
- Don’t deviate.
- Don’t redesign.
- Don’t reinvent.
And without noticing it, teaching starts to feel smaller.
I found myself creating a plan to fit the team, pacing through texts I didn’t love, and shaping my classroom around what the curriculum expected — instead of what my students needed. The creativity that used to fuel me turned into compliance. My spark dimmed a little at a time.
That kind of quiet burnout is real.
It doesn’t hit all at once.
It creeps in when you’re not looking.
Remembering Who I Was in the Classroom
For years, I taught through units I created myself.
In second grade, the seasons inspired us.
We read Too Many Pumpkins, dug into Gail Gibbons nonfiction, collected poems, and even dissected actual pumpkins right on our desks. Kids were reading, writing, inferring, analyzing — and they didn’t even realize how much they were learning because it was joyful, connected, and meaningful.
Every month had a theme.
Every theme had purpose.
Every lesson felt like mine.
That’s how I’ve always loved to teach — through stories, experiences, and cross-curricular moments that spark curiosity.
This year, I stepped away from that.
And I could feel it.
Realizing What I Lost… and What I Want to Reclaim
The truth hit me recently:
I miss my units.
I miss my voice.
I miss the joy.
Scripts are helpful.
Consistency is important.
Pacing guides have their place.
But they can never replace the teacher in the room.
A curriculum doesn’t know my students’ faces or their curiosities or the way they light up when we connect a story to something real. A binder can’t see when a lesson needs to breathe, or bend, or blossom into something unexpected.
Only a teacher can do that.
And that’s why I’m choosing to return to what I know works —
not instead of the curriculum, but alongside it.
The Joy Is Coming Back
I’m already dreaming up new units for third grade:
- A point-of-view unit with fractured fairy tales
- A folktale unit full of pourquoi stories
- A Read Across America unit where we “travel” to different states
- A Black history unit with books that matter
- An April unit on Rachel Carson, recycling, and environmental heroes
I feel the spark returning — that little thrill of planning something meaningful, something authentic, something that I know my kids will remember.
This is how I teach best.
This is where my joy lives.
And I’m ready to reclaim it.
A Reminder for Any Teacher Who Needs It
If you feel like you’ve been teaching from someone else’s voice,
if the spark feels dimmer this year,
if the script feels louder than your creativity —
You’re not alone.
And you’re allowed to find your way back.
Curriculum is a tool, not a teacher.
Scripts are guides, not identities.
Your joy, your ideas, your spark… those are the things that make learning come alive.
I’m learning that again.
And maybe you are, too.
Wishing you peace & balance today,
