Around this time four years ago, a seismic event was rippling across education.

In April 2020, teachers were beginning to realize that their schools’ closures would not be all that temporary. They’d need to make do with haphazard plans for distance learning through the end of the school year — perhaps longer.

For most educators, the pandemic was a defining moment in their careers, a situation more disruptive than they could’ve imagined.

For first-year teachers, it was baptism by fire.

In summer 2020, EdSurge profiled nine first-year teachers to understand what it was like for them to launch their careers during the pandemic year (2019-20).

Now, all of them are (or would be) in their fifth year in the classroom — a year by which about 44 percent of educators have left the profession. We checked in with them this month to see how they’re doing, what they’re up to and where they are now.

Six of the original nine responded to our queries. Of those six, one left teaching during her third year, and another will resign next month, at the end of the school year. The other four are still teaching and plan to continue.

EdSurge asked them to share about the challenges, rewards and lessons from their first five years — and, if they left, to elaborate on what drove them out. Their written responses are below, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Read the original story, from August 2020, here. Or listen to some of the teachers reflect on their first year during an episode of the EdSurge Podcast.