GREENVILLE, N.C. — The last few years, Jamie Carlson had a thought in the back of her mind. What would life look like if she wasn’t teaching?

“The first year back from COVID, I brought in seeds to teach the kids how to plant,” Carlson said. “Then I started thinking, maybe this is what I can do instead — take lessons I learned from the classroom and share them with other people.” 

Although plants aren’t part of the fifth-grade curriculum, it was a hit with her students. 

“There were students who said, you know I don’t really know what we were doing with plants, and now that we have been talking about them so much, I’m asking for plants for graduation,” Carlson said. 

This summer, plants won’t just be her part-time hobby. They will be her full-time job. Carlson finally made the jump, leaving behind teaching after 11 years.

“It got to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore,” Carlson said. “It kind of took some of that fire from teachers who were really passionate about their students, and took a lot of that away.”

Book bans, politics and pressure from outside the classroom factored into her decision. 

She felt her classroom was no longer a safe space for children.

“Teachers just want to make their students happy,” Carlson said. “They want school to be a happy place for kids.” 

Walking away after more than a decade of service wasn’t easy for Carlson.

She said she was invested emotionally in every student who entered her classroom — so much so that she saved every keepsake from a student. 

“Pictures, letters, cards. I feel like I’m going to cry, but it’s OK. Apparently I’m the best teacher ever,” Carlson said, holding up a picture from a former student. 

What Carlson has learned from the last month is a huge lesson. As much as she loved her students, she knew she needed to value herself and her mental health as well. 

“It’s the kind of thing where you take care of yourself before you can take care of other people. If you’re not able to do that, then you have to take a break,” Carlson said. “It’s not to say I can’t ever go back.” 

While she won’t be in the classroom this fall, Carlson says she will continue her passion of teaching others about gardening, while finding herself. 

“I can do my own thing, I can be happy,” Carlson said “I wish everybody could feel this happy about not having to go back to school.”

The RAND Corp., a nonprofit research organization, found in a 2022 survey that 73% of teachers feel frequent job-related stress, and 28% of those teachers have symptoms of depression.

Carlson said she is offering a helping hand to other teachers having a hard time navigating their future, and plans to keep expanding Sugar Bear Farms, her startup plant company. 

She said her biggest piece of advice to those still in teaching is prioritize mental health and happiness, and speak up for help when you need it.