What happens next?

[cassiopaya]

I've spent nearly two decades involved in education and in the past two years I've come to hate it.  In 2017 I was placed in a classroom that was violent everyday with no means of escape.  I required urgent medical care on four occasions and was hospitalized twice due to assault and battery from students.  The medical, social, emotional, and financial fallout from that time are still rippling through me.  I was without wages and insurance for 9 months.  I became homeless for half a year.  I lost a great many of my pets.  I lost my joy in teaching.  I carry rage and resentment for what I was put through and I never want to be put into those situations again.

So what comes next?

I've always enjoyed going to school, but how do I use what I have to gt to the next level?  I do not want to be a principal and I do not want to write curriculumn.  I enjoy research.  I can see myself being an educational researcher: reading, analysizing, collecting data, etc.  I do not want to spend a majority of my time dealing with people.  I want to be the person in the background crunching numbers and writing pedantic research papers with pithy footnotes.  That's the direction I am going to move in - eventually to work full-time in a university or a think-tank organization; someplace where I can use my accumulated knowledge in education to still make a positive impact.