Toward Wholeness: Why I’m Leaving Public Education

My body knew I needed to leave before my mind was willing to admit it.

Perhaps all change starts this way: a sensation we feel before we can speak it. At some point, we’ve all felt the weight of wanting change but believing it’s impossible—at least for us, given our circumstances. It’s easy to think others have it easier, that their path is smoother because of who they are or the cards they’ve been dealt. But that’s simply not true.

Our culture fuels the belief that we’re prisoners to our circumstances and relentlessly pulls us away from ourselves. We’re urged to ignore our exhaustion in favor of constant productivity, busyness, and stimulation. Over time, the pressure to keep up, perform, and prove ourselves becomes so persistent that we begin to equate our worth with how much we do, rather than how we actually feel. Yet, this belief—that our value is tied to our output, or that change is out of reach—is a lie.

When I finally questioned that lie, everything began to shift. I started to reclaim my own authority and learned to approach decisions from a place of inner knowing rather than fear. The distinction between the two is profound.

Listening within completely shifted my perspective, both in my personal life and in my work as a public school teacher. This video isn’t about urging you to pull your kids from public school or claiming there’s only one way to educate. Instead, I want to share the reasons I have chosen to leave my job in public education and, quite literally, get a little Thoreau by teaching out in the woods. As Thoreau wrote in Walden, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” and in many ways, that’s exactly what this season of my life has been about: learning how to live, teach, and exist with greater presence, intention, and truth.

You know what’s best for yourself and your family. My purpose isn’t to prescribe a single path, but rather to offer my own lived experience and what has brought me to this change, and why it feels incredibly right. Maybe something I share will inspire you to make a change in an area of your life that feels misaligned, whether that is in how you raise your children or how you live your days. My heart and my words are not from a place of judgment of others, but from my own personal path to peace. Trust your own inner wisdom and always make decisions from there.

And if you’re new here, hi, I’m Allie—a mom, wife, teacher, and writer in the Midwest. I create content on slow, intentional living inspired by yoga, meditation, motherhood, and family life.

If you’re seeking simplicity, presence, and freedom from constant performance, you’re in the right place.

Here, I share practical tools for grounding, mindfulness, and authentic connection—to our children, partners, bodies, homes, and ourselves. My greatest joy is sharing what I’ve learned on this journey in an honest, deeply human way.

Where I’m Coming From:

There’s a lot of discussion about public education these days, often driven by assumptions from people outside the system—those who haven’t experienced firsthand what it’s like to raise and teach American children in 2026. I share my perspective as someone who has taught in one town’s public schools, and while federal policy creates some common threads, my experiences represent just one small piece of a much larger puzzle. What’s true for me may not be true for another teacher. My hope is that fellow public school teachers find some catharsis in what I share. Navigating this tense issue, with so many passionate opinions, is difficult, but I believe it’s important to share what I’ve witnessed and know.

To understand where I’m coming from, it helps to know how my journey as a teacher began. Being a teacher never felt like just a job I chose—it’s always been part of who I am. So I did what most people do: I went to college, got my degree, and started my training in the public school system.

But unlike most teachers, I didn’t follow the traditional path into public education. I first pursued a master's in English literature, and this background in deep literary study—not just teacher training—gave me a broader lens. Because of this, I was able to see how narrow the public system can be: teacher prep programs overwhelmingly focus on classroom management, state standards, and political issues, with little room for broader philosophies or real creativity. Through my unique experience, I’ve noticed that public education often values consistency and structure, which can sometimes come at the expense of deeper growth and authentic learning.

My perspective is shaped as much by life outside education as inside it. Growing up in the 90s, I spent summers at a camp with no technology—just handwritten letters, cabins in the woods, long hikes, and the challenge of making friends face-to-face. In my early 20s, I traveled through Europe with just one backpack and one close friend, learning to slow down and appreciate how people live more intentionally in other cultures. That same year, I learned meditation, and for over a decade now, I’ve practiced daily stillness. This habit matters: sitting quietly with my thoughts and with God has helped me know myself and recognize what’s true, even when the world feels chaotic. In addition to my own lived experiences, it’s worth stepping back to consider how our public education system began—and what ideals it was founded on —before I explain my departure and my own educational philosophy in depth.

Despite today’s challenges, it’s important to remember that public education was not born of ill will. Its roots “stretch back to the 19th century,” when Horace Mann championed “education as the great equalizer of the conditions of men” (Mann, 1848), and thinkers across Europe began to imagine a world where “education should be free and universal” (Cremin, 1957). Early public schools arose in response to a rapidly changing world—“the needs of an industrializing society,” as Tyack (1974) describes, “required a new kind of citizen and worker.”

The architects of this system believed in the promise of accessibility and equity. Standardized routines, age-based groupings, and the regular ringing of bells were not meant to stifle, but to open doors: an “ordered efficiency” designed so that “the doors of learning might be flung open to all” (Tyack, 1974). The intention, at its heart, was noble—a hope that every child, regardless of background, could step into a classroom and find both knowledge and belonging.

Over time, public schools became the heart of their communities—a shared space for children to learn and grow together. But as our world has shifted, it’s worth quietly asking if the system still serves children as well as it could. The pandemic, especially, revealed long-standing cracks beneath the surface. Reflecting on this isn’t about blame, but about seeing clearly and imagining what might be possible.

There is a lot I am thankful for from my years in public education. Still, after honest reflection, I’ve identified key reasons I feel called in a new direction—reasons centered on technology, the loss of independent thinking and emotional resilience, disconnection from nature, fragmented attention, and a deep desire to nurture not only the whole child, but also myself.

1. Increasing Reliance on Technology

From my perspective, technology’s presence in schools often does more harm than good—not inherently, but because of how it’s used. I’ve watched it strip away person-to-person connection, fragment our attention, and distance us from our hearts and souls. Instead of building towards what’s right, it too often turns our focus to what’s wrong in the world. I can’t say it’s all bad—after all, I’m here creating videos and posting essays on my blog, and I believe there’s real value in humans sharing their knowledge and lived experience with the world. But in classrooms, unless technology is used with deep and deliberate intentionality, I believe it’s rarely appropriate or fruitful.

After the pandemic, nearly every student I saw was glued to a phone. With no real tech rules in place, students felt free to use their devices whenever they wanted, often at the expense of learning. Watching this unfold, I realized I was struggling with the same addiction and anxiety as my students.

About two years ago, I spent a weekend in the woods with my girlfriends, camping by the river. Embracing solitude in a little renovated RV, I was excited to have the chance to read and ended up devouring Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. In his book, Newport, a professor at Georgetown University, argues that technology has crowded out essential human needs: solitude, deep creative focus, and true connection with ourselves, nature, and others. He writes: “The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your ‘likes’ is the new smoking.” Newport’s blunt comparison highlights that social media isn’t just a harmless distraction—it’s intentionally addictive and deeply corrosive to our well-being, much like cigarettes once were. As an antidote, Newport often turns to Henry David Thoreau’s philosophy on intentional living, reminding us: “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.”

Reflecting on that weekend reading Newport in the woods, I realized how much of my own life I’d been unconsciously trading for screen time—moments that could have been spent connecting, creating, or simply being present. That experience still shapes the way I think about technology: it reminds me to ask what I’m exchanging my life for, and to choose, whenever possible, a more intentional way forward.

That shift in perspective didn’t just stay with me personally—it changed how I wanted technology to fit into my life and my teaching. When I returned to the classroom, I began setting boundaries for myself and my students—teaching with pen and paper, encouraging real conversation and creativity. My students joked about “killing trees,” but many found it grounding and enjoyable.

Still, it felt like an uphill battle. School culture continued to push for more screens and online assessments, regardless of my instincts or the evidence of harm. I often felt out of step for choosing stories and connection over digital engagement.

Despite my efforts, the challenges persisted. It became increasingly clear that my concerns weren’t just personal—they reflected a much larger pattern playing out in classrooms everywhere.

The students feel the toll and have begun to vocalize their own anxieties and concerns. One of my students captured the impact beautifully in her writing this past school year. She described the constant anxiety that phones and social media bring to her generation. In one essay, she tells the story of a Saturday afternoon spent drinking sodas and having deep conversations with her mom in the car, when she realized that this digital anxiety was something foreign to her mother but, as she put it, “a normal thing that most everyone in my generation can relate to.” Her semester research project echoed her lived experience: anxiety rates for Gen Z have soared since 2012, right alongside the rise of smartphones (Haidt), with teens now averaging nearly nine hours of screen time a day (Common Sense Media, 2023). Experts are seeing more anxiety, depression, and trouble focusing as a result.

Most adults sense the impact our digital culture has on our children and ourselves, but changing course feels overwhelming. For me, though, the more I listened to my intuition, the more I knew I couldn’t keep teaching this way—or let my own children grow up shaped by these same forces.

I want to be clear: I don’t believe technology is inherently bad, nor have I tried to erase it from my own life. What I seek is intention—the ability to use technology as we would a paintbrush to add color, a knitting needle to weave a blanket, or an electric lawnmower to tend a growing field. I want it to be a tool that serves creativity and connection, not a substitute for real conversation or the spark of human imagination.

It is this longing for intention that drives my decision to step away. I dream of a classroom where human connection is the foundation, and technology, when needed, is only ever a gentle tool—never the architect of our days.

2. The Loss of Independent Thought and Emotional Resilience

Another part of my decision to step away from public education has come from reflecting on the emotional and intellectual climate many young people are growing up within. Adolescence is naturally a period of questioning, identity formation, emotional intensity, and deep sensitivity to belonging. Developmentally, teenagers are still learning to tolerate ambiguity, wrestle with uncertainty, regulate their emotions, and encounter differing perspectives without collapsing into fear, shame, or rigid thinking. Because of this, I’ve increasingly come to believe that education should protect spaces where students can explore ideas thoughtfully and develop the inner steadiness required for genuine critical thinking.

What I value most in education is not telling students what to think, but helping them learn how to think: how to ask meaningful questions, engage complexity with humility, communicate respectfully across differences, and remain intellectually open even when conversations feel uncomfortable. I also believe deeply that parents deserve respect in the educational process. Families come from different cultural, moral, political, and religious backgrounds, and I never felt it was my role as a teacher to persuade students toward a particular worldview. I believe my responsibility is to teach students how to read carefully, write clearly, think critically, and engage honestly with the world around them.

Over time, I began to worry that many young people are growing up in environments shaped by constant social performance, fear of saying the wrong thing, and pressure to arrive quickly at morally correct conclusions. While these dynamics are often rooted in good intentions, I sometimes wonder whether they leave enough room for the kind of open-ended questioning and intellectual risk-taking that real learning requires. Adolescents need opportunities to make mistakes, revise their thinking, encounter perspectives different from their own, and develop resilience in the face of disagreement. Without that space, curiosity can quietly give way to anxiety, conformity, or fear.

Authors like Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff explore related concerns in The Coddling of the American Mind, particularly the ways overprotection, binary moral thinking, and fear-based social dynamics may unintentionally weaken young people’s capacity for resilience, open dialogue, and psychological flexibility. Drawing on psychology and cognitive-behavioral therapy principles, Haidt and Lukianoff argue that many young people are increasingly taught to interpret emotional discomfort as danger rather than as a natural and necessary part of growth. They identify patterns such as catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, and the belief that disagreement itself is inherently harmful—patterns that can make it more difficult for students to tolerate uncertainty, engage thoughtfully with opposing viewpoints, or develop confidence in their own ability to navigate complexity.

Reading their work helped me reflect more deeply on what I was witnessing in classrooms: students who were often deeply compassionate and morally sensitive, yet also increasingly anxious, fearful of making mistakes, and hesitant to express ideas that might be misunderstood or socially risky. I began to wonder whether, in our effort to protect young people emotionally, we sometimes unintentionally deprive them of the very experiences that cultivate resilience, intellectual humility, emotional regulation, and genuine confidence. Real learning often requires discomfort: the discomfort of questioning assumptions, encountering conflicting ideas, revising one’s thinking, and realizing that growth rarely happens without uncertainty. Adolescents need environments where they can wrestle sincerely with complexity while still feeling fundamentally safe, respected, and supported as human beings.

My own reflections on witnessing rigidity in worldviews and political views in public education led me to teach Self-Reliance in my senior writing class this spring. I wanted students to encounter a voice that champions both the freedom and responsibility of independent thought. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string,” suggesting that human beings possess an inner capacity for discernment and conscience that deserves to be strengthened rather than suppressed. His vision of self-reliance is not a call toward selfishness or disregard for others, but toward intellectual and moral integrity. Self-trust is something I value for myself and for my students. The world is a complex place, with a complex history and an ever-changing future. Teachers should model for students what responsibility, emotional regulation, genuine curiosity, self-accountability, creativity, and respectful conversation look like. Teachers should not tell students how to interpret world events, other humans, or history itself. The mind should be guided toward asking questions, self-reflection, processing ambiguity, and learning, growing, and evolving while developing a deep sense of self-trust.

Throughout my years teaching, I tried to make clear to my students that hatred, cruelty, or dehumanization have no place in a healthy classroom. But I also came to believe that genuine education cannot exist without the freedom to ask difficult questions, wrestle sincerely with complexity, and arrive at one’s own conclusions with both humility and integrity. Emerson captures this beautifully when he writes, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” To me, one of the highest callings of education is not manufacturing consensus, but cultivating thoughtful, compassionate, and resilient human beings capable of engaging the world with both independent thought and genuine humanity.

3. Disconnection From Nature and the Body

Since the birth of my first daughter, I started having a disconnection from the way I was teaching. It would come almost as if I were having an out-of-body experience. I would look around my classroom and see students confined to uncomfortable metal desks—desks from which I often asked them not to get up. It wasn’t because I wanted to be strict or restrict their movement, but simply because managing 30 students in a classroom built in the late 1800s was nearly impossible otherwise. Even casual talking wasn’t feasible most of the time, unless it was a carefully organized discussion.

I do value structure, deep focus, and quiet. But I kept wondering: what are we really doing here? We spend our lives sitting down, indoors, and we’ve come to accept this as the best—or only—way to learn and to work. As my meditation practice deepened, so did my awareness of how uncomfortable my own body felt after sitting inside all day.

Between graduate school and my work in public education, I had a very short stint at a desk job at a liberal arts school. In the first week on the job, I felt important: I had my own office. But soon I realized I was sometimes expected to sit at that desk all day. Even then, I knew this sedentary job wasn’t for me. I missed teaching, where I could move around, stand up, tell stories, communicate, and engage with students all day long. Yet, after years in public school classrooms, I reached a point where even constant standing wasn’t enough. I wanted more freedom, more space, and the ability for all of us to move and learn in a way that felt alive and connected to our bodies and nature, not confined to a room where breaks were unwelcome and restless energy turned into anxiety.

About five years ago, I read two books that fundamentally shifted my perspective: Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff and There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather by Linda Åkeson McGurk. Looking back, I realize these books were instrumental in opening my mind to how much of our culture is confined to a sedentary, indoor existence.

In Hunt, Gather, Parent, Michaeleen Doucleff describes parenting practices from Indigenous cultures that encourage children to engage closely with nature, movement, and everyday family responsibilities. Rather than separating children from the rhythms of real life, these communities often allow children to learn through observation, physical activity, outdoor exploration, and connection with others. The book suggests that this deeper relationship to the body, the natural world, and community can foster calmness, confidence, and emotional well-being in children.

In the Maya families Doucleff studies, children are invited to participate in everyday life through embodied, meaningful practices. Even when toddlers spill flour, slow down cooking, or make a mess, parents still involve them because the goal is not perfection but connection, confidence, and belonging. Maya's parents do not constantly entertain children with child-centered activities. Instead, children are welcomed into the “real life” of cooking, cleaning, caring for animals, building, and observing adults as they move through daily rhythms.

Similarly, in There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather, Linda Åkeson McGurk argues that children benefit emotionally and physically from regular connection to nature, outdoor play, and embodied experiences in all kinds of weather. She also reflects on her surprise as a Scandinavian mother visiting the United States, noticing how few children were outdoors in parks or playing in nature. Her observations coincide with my own experience: often, in trying to protect ourselves and our children from discomfort, we unintentionally distance ourselves from the very elements that help the body become resilient, awake, alert, and full of awe.

As a yoga teacher and meditator, and through my own lived experiences, I know what is at stake when our bodies aren’t well. When we are disconnected—not only from ourselves but from our natural, birth-given desire to learn and create—it diminishes our spirit and can ultimately lead to sickness and disease.

Ultimately, I am convinced that cultivating a profound connection to our bodies, our environment, and the natural rhythms of daily life is indispensable to genuine well-being and growth—a truth that, in my experience, was too often overlooked within the public system.

4. Fragmented Attention and the Death of Deep Work

After reading Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism, I picked up another of his recent publications, Deep Work. I think, even more so than with Digital Minimalism, I felt seen with this book. In his book, Newport explores how our world is so full of distractions that the ability to truly focus has become rare — and because it’s rare, it’s incredibly valuable. He argues that most people spend their days reacting: emails, scrolling, notifications, meetings, multitasking. But the people who create meaningful work, master skills, and feel deeply fulfilled are usually the ones who can sit down and give their full attention to one thing for an extended period.

He defines “deep work” as the state in which you are fully immersed in a cognitively demanding activity—writing, creating, problem-solving, or learning—without distractions or fragmentation of attention. Newport contends that this deep immersion doesn’t just yield better results; it also cultivates a sense of meaning and satisfaction, because the mind is wholly engaged and, as a result, more resilient against the stress and anxiety that come from constant partial attention. Reading this, I began to recognize myself in Newport’s description. I have the kind of mind that can drop quickly into a state of deep concentration—a capacity Newport describes as both rare and increasingly valuable. But I also realized how vulnerable this ability is to today’s relentless interruptions.

When my focus is interrupted, I don’t just feel irritable—I experience a cognitive whiplash that lingers, disrupting my productivity and well-being. As both a teacher and a mom, I accept that interruptions are inevitable, but I have noticed the frequency and intensity of these disruptions have escalated in my professional life. For example, when my school adopted an e-hall pass system, every student restroom request required immediate teacher approval, systematically breaking my flow. While I tried to establish boundaries, interruptions also came from colleagues—administrators, counselors, support staff, drop-offs, and peers. Increasing differentiation meant students were often engaged in different tasks simultaneously, which fractured the classroom’s rhythm and eroded any sense of communal learning flow. The constant barrage of tech tools, assemblies, and logistical demands didn’t just inconvenience me; the relentless fragmentation began to feel physically and mentally corrosive—what Newport calls the "attention residue" left behind by each interruption. Newport illustrates this phenomenon with research from Sophie Leroy, which he cites in Deep Work: even brief shifts in attention leave traces of your previous task, making it harder to fully re-engage with deep, meaningful work. In my experience, the cumulative effect of these constant interruptions wasn’t just a mild annoyance—it fundamentally undermined both the quality of my teaching and my own sense of well-being.

And it wasn’t just my own concentration under siege—I saw my students struggling with constant interruptions, too. The shift away from laptops was one of the most effective strategies I found. With only a pencil, paper, and classical music in the background, my students began to access the kind of sustained focus Newport describes. The screens disappeared, and their engagement deepened. However, the institutional drive to use technology and implement new digital platforms made this deep work increasingly difficult to sustain. The pressure to keep pace with digital expectations often threatened to undo the progress we made.

I began to crave a more minimalist teaching environment, one that prioritized depth over distraction. As I intentionally created these conditions—for myself and my students—the improvement was unmistakable. Writing flourished, conversations became richer, and students were genuinely reading, thinking, and talking. Our relationships grew stronger, and space emerged for laughter and genuine joy. Newport’s central thesis came alive in my classroom: when the clutter of digital distractions fell away, deep work—and deep connection—became possible.

5. Why Waldorf Feels Like a Return to What is Human

There was a time when yoga and meditation stopped feeling like something I did for wellness and started feeling like coming home to myself. For the first time, my life felt whole—my mind and body weren’t separate, my emotions weren’t problems to fix, and nature wasn’t just something outside my window. I felt connected—to beauty, to rhythm, to stillness, to other people, and to something bigger than myself.

The more I slowed down, the more I noticed how modern life pushes us to trade our humanity for productivity. We’re rewarded for speed and efficiency, but our inner worlds are often left behind.

As a teacher, I found that tension impossible to ignore.

I was supposed to teach academic standards, but I watched kids struggle with anxiety, disconnection, overstimulation, nervous systems on edge, and a lack of real presence. We were trying to develop their minds, but parts like imagination, wonder, movement, creativity, emotional safety, connection to nature, and meaningful rhythm were often left untouched.

I don’t pretend to have the answers for fixing education at large. But I do believe change starts with the environments we create around us.

When I discovered Waldorf education, it felt like finding a philosophy that named something I’d always felt deep inside: children are whole human beings, not just brains to fill.

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, once wrote that “our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives” (Steiner 30). This idea reflects exactly what I believe education should protect: the unfolding of a human being, not simply the production of achievement.

Waldorf treats childhood as something sacred, not something to rush. It values beauty, storytelling, movement, art, handwork, nature, rhythm, imagination, and emotional connection. It isn’t just about producing workers or test scores—it’s about nurturing fully alive humans.

Steiner also believed that “the need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility—these are the three forces which are the very nerve of education” (Steiner 61). The longer I taught in highly technological, overstimulating environments, the more I realized how deeply children need these exact things: imagination, truth, beauty, rhythm, movement, and meaningful responsibility.

What moved me most is this: Waldorf doesn’t separate learning from living.

Children aren’t treated like machines. They’re seen as souls unfolding.

Honestly, my Waldorf journey started long before I heard the word. It began the moment I started reconnecting to my own humanity through yoga, meditation, slowness, and presence.

Once you’ve tasted that kind of wholeness within yourself, it’s almost impossible not to want the same for children.

Works Cited

Anderson, Monica, et al. Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023. Pew Research Center, 2023.

Cohen, David K., et al. Teaching and Its Predicaments. Harvard University Press, 2018.

Common Sense Media. The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens, 2023. Common Sense Media, 2023.

Cremin, Lawrence A. The Republic and the School: Horace Mann on the Education of Free Men. Teachers College Press, 1957.

Doucleff, Michaeleen. Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans. Avid Reader Press, 2021.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” Essays: First Series, James Munroe and Company, 1841.

Haidt, Jonathan, and Greg Lukianoff. The Coddling of the American Mind. Penguin Press, 2018.

Kelly, Anthony V. The Curriculum: Theory and Practice. 7th ed., Sage Publications, 2017.

Mann, Horace. Annual Reports on Education. Dutton and Wentworth, 1848.

McGurk, Linda Åkeson. There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom’s Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids. Touchstone, 2017.

Newport, Cal. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. Grand Central Publishing, 2016.

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Steiner, Rudolf. The Education of the Child and Early Lectures on Education. Anthroposophic Press, 1996.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Ticknor and Fields, 1854.

Topolewska-Siedzik, Ewa, and Jan Cieciuch. “Trajectories of Identity Formation Modes and Their Personality Context in Adolescence.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 47, no. 4, 2018, pp. 775–792.

Twenge, Jean M., et al. “Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time.” Clinical Psychological Science, vol. 6, no. 1, 2018, pp. 3–17.

Tyack, David. The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. Harvard University Press, 1974.