More and more people look at me and honestly want to know the answer to one question: "Why do you {still} teach?" My standard answer is: "I love it. I can't not teach. It's who I am." This used to suffice, and anyone who really knows me knows it's true, but not so much anymore. Today people are starting to see more and more teachers leave the profession and they recognize that teachers are leaving not because of the low pay and long hours (please don't tell me you still think teachers get every weekend, holiday and summer off---because it's simply not true), but for other reasons such as over testing, poor physical working conditions, disrespect from students and parents, government regulations, and a host of other reasons. I too face all of these things and after seventeen years I will be the first to agree that teaching has changed a lot in the last two decades. Yet I'm still here, in a failing inner-city middle school, and honestly can't imagine doing anything else. The true reason is related to my last post---perspective, and also choosing what thoughts on which to dwell. This week is a prime example: the class schedule has changed four times in two days, I'm finishing giving a four part standardized test while simultaneously preparing materials and filling out forms for the next standardized test (to start in two weeks), three of my students have received notice that their vaccinations aren't up to date, one student recently returned to my class after a stint in a juvenile detention facility, I was shoved and hit from behind in the hall yesterday and today I didn't get lunch because I spent it dealing with a student exhibiting unsafe behavior who then chose to threaten other students if I followed school procedure and reported the behavior to administration. All of this is in addition to teaching my regularly scheduled five subjects in a classroom with questionable heat, a leaky roof and 25% more students in my class than are actually supposed to be enrolled with 30% fewer books than students. If I chose to dwell on the negatives I would be in tears by third period and quitting by lunch. Instead I choose to focus on what really matters: the student who finally figured out how to subtract integers after six weeks of instruction, the student who came in with a smile on her face because she's finally back in school after three years of being out due to unrest in her country, the student who opened his locker by himself for the first time all year, my teacher-neighbor whose daughter got an A on her math test yesterday, the secretary who managed to find the last ream of paper for the copier just when I needed it..... Every day I have a choice and today I choose to remember the good and let the bad blur into the background.
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AuthorI've been teaching since 2000 and love what I do! Archives
May 2018
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