Bachelorette’s Michelle Young Makes Emotional Decision to Step Back From Teaching: I Was in ‘Survival Mode’

usmagazine.com:

Making a big change. Michelle Young denied rumors that she and fiancé Nayte Olukoya have split, but there is one thing she’s leaving behind for now: teaching.The Bachelorette alum, 28, announced that she’s taking a break from her job as a fifth-grade teacher after this school year wraps up. “I’ve decided to step out of the classroom,” the Minnesota native revealed during the Tuesday, May 31, episode of the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast. “Because I need to make sure that one, I’m taking care of myself, but two, teachers and those who are in the profession know that teaching is a profession that is completely built on passion.”The reality star explained that she began thinking about the decision when a coworker asked her how long she’d been in “survival mode” at work. “My response was two years,” Young recalled. “I’ve been in this survival mode [for] two years, where I have just been flying by the seat of my pants but really not necessarily living.”The former basketball player noted that the pandemic had only exacerbated feelings of burnout that she began to feel even before she joined the Bachelor universe, making her first appearance on Matt James‘ season of The Bachelor in early 2021.“I think you can talk to pretty much any teacher and they’ll you that these last two years have been really difficult with the pandemic,” Young said. “Even before the pandemic, the foundation was already starting to crack.

And these things keep piling and piling and piling, and honestly we kind of call it this, like, big game of Jenga.”The Bachelor Nation personality indicated that she doesn’t want to completely leave the world of education behind.