I have wanted to be a teacher since the third grade. I knew it from the start of Mrs. Coy’s lesson on fractions. She pulled out a bag of oranges, and we had to divide them up for the class in equal parts. This may also have been the only time I ever enjoyed math.
I should have seen the signs long before. My mother told me I was insane to major in English because my only hope was teaching English. I laughed at her because I had fooled her; I wanted to be an English teacher.
Of course, I wasn’t always sure I wanted to teach English. When I was young, I wanted to inspire little minds. It took about two years of practicums in first and second grade, and I knew I couldn’t handle it. They were so touchy, and I found myself picking up a variety of messes, from wet pants to potting soil. And the cutting and pasting and PAINT….no, I couldn’t do it.
When I discovered my love for the middle school rascal, I knew I had found my spot. In middle school, the kids still are still pretty relaxed. They are not afraid to be odd because they couldn’t help it if they tried. My students start getting mature and serious about the last couple months of eighth grade. At this point, they no longer think I am even a little funny or cool. Regardless, I knew that I had the mind of a middle school student.
During my first years as a teacher, I was surprised, of course, by the multiple levels kids were achieving at in class. My first assignment, although remote, I taught sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. This was during my student teaching; it was a trying time for the school I chose. The principal had recently left and was never replaced while I was there. In addition, my mentor teacher switched jobs after the third week of school and left me to teach illegally alone. I persevered and did the only thing that I could manage as a first month teacher; I taught the same thing to every class. My sixth graders sometimes outperformed my eighth graders, and vice versa. Still, I never even considered giving up, while the other adults seemed to be doing just that. I should have accepted their rush to leave as a warning. I didn’t; I was falling in love with my job choice.
Furthermore, I continued to be disillusioned in my first real position. My principal was as crazy as I was. Everyone worked late hours, and we all blended into each other’s social lives. Because it was truly a neighborhood school, there were no buses. Everyone walked to school. Students never left. Often I would have to beg for them to let me go home at five. I always had two or three students there that wanted something to do. I was hopelessly in love for sure.
I wanted to experience all the facets of teaching. I wanted to teach diverse communities and learn every day. I wanted to save every struggling student. I don’t know why I chose to return to my Mid-western hometown to teach. Before I was looking into a classroom of a true blue melting pot, now I was looking into a class full of white kids. The kids looked different, but it wasn’t really them that made it change my career choice.
I guess I should explain. I did my student teaching through an exchange program. Because of this, I spent my student teaching in the desert teaching on a reservation. Yet, that wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t want to go home after that experience, so I accepted a job in Los Angeles teaching at a school that was seventy percent Asian. Between those two schools and seven years of experience, I probably had about twenty-thirty white students. In the same amount of time in my Mid-western school, I have probably seen twenty-thirty students of any other race. Surely after fourteen years of experiences, I can honestly say, the color of their skin doesn’t change much about the classroom. MTV has a bigger affect on the changes in the students than race. One noticeable difference in the Mid-west is that lower income families struggle more emotionally than the immigrant families of California. Ironically, in the Mid-west I have seen more drug use and unemployment than I ever did in Los Angeles.
The kids haven’t surprised me in my profession on either side of the country. Even the parents haven’t surprised me really. Yes, I have had multiple parents curse at me. I have had parents swear their child would never do anything like that in public. I have had parents that don’t participate at all and parents that can’t stay away from school. On a positive note, I have seen more parents at school events in the Mid-west. However, I often noticed that Asian parents may be quiet on my side of the experience; they are very present in their child’s life. In fact, I would say that my California parents were more eager to solve problems and issues on their own. They did not need me to notice certain behaviors for them or offer solutions to obvious problems. I don’t know how many times I am asked how parents can possibly get their kids to do homework or study in the Mid-west. Uh duh, make them sit down and study in front of you. Participate in your child’s life and school work? School work in the Mid-west definitely plays second fiddle to sports and outside activities compared to California school. Still I love my job!
These issues have never really bothered me as a teacher. Sure, I get frustrated or upset at the times, but I know these are just part of the job. What I don’t understand about this job is the politics! They put tears in my eyes and keep me on edge every moment of the day.
Why does the government think that they can cut resources and achieve better results? The state is asking us to put every student on a computer at the exact same in school for a state test. Sounds great! We don’t have enough lab space for this. The internet doesn’t even work well enough with six hundred computers sharing the same internet line. Our school does get money for technology, but the middle grades are like the little sister in the family. You get to share the high school’s hand-me-downs. And you don’t get anything new for yourself. My school actually gave the teachers laptops a couple years ago. The teachers’ computers, of course, were handed down to the students. Two years later, the district has not continued the upkeep of the laptops. If they don’t work, then teachers are out of luck. They don’t intend to fix them, and they don’t have an alternative solution at this time for your lack of computer. Our first real possession and they are not going to keep them working for us.
Why would the government want to over reward good school and punish poor school with less money? The city that the school is located in can be very important. If my school is in a good neighborhood, the parents are going to be a stronger present in their child’s lives. The kids do better. They have better values. The state gives them more money because they perform better. The lower income cities don’t have parents as an asset. Their parents are working two jobs trying to keep it together. Their parents are suffering from unemployment or drug abuse. The school is punished because their scores are low. Shouldn’t we be trying to make those kids that have bad parents overcome their parents’ mistakes and be better adults? Sure, we can be selfish. Let’s make the rich kids smarter. Or we can make the poor kids be more successful, making cities even greater. Our best teachers should be working at these poor schools. At the rich schools, the parents can manage the kids. In the poor schools, the kids need every ounce of love and attention they can find because when they go home they are just home alone or home with their four siblings. Some of my students only eat at school; thank goodness we serve breakfast. How can some of these students even show up for school with what they are dealing with at home? Let alone take an hour long multiple choice test over the most uninteresting reading material ever to be found in the world.
Why does the government feel like teaching to a multiple choice/short answer test would be beneficial? Where in life does your boss EVER ask you to sit down and take a multiple choice test? When in life are you only given your brain to do a job? When in life are you given a task with only one correct answer? I can’t imagine training the future to think in this manner is going to help us achieve any fabulous future goals. Unless of course, they plan to make a Nobel Peace Prize SAT exam version.
Why would anyone with a college degree have a competing salary with high school graduate? Was my mom lying to me? I always thought that if I went to college and got a degree, I would then make more money in my more meaningful job. Meaningful evidently is code for stressful. The janitor makes ten grand more than me; he doesn’t take his work home, needs no sense of urgency unless someone pukes during passing periods, and isn’t evaluated based on how much trash the kids put into or out of the proper receptacle bins. I think I got a bad deal. I work twenty hours at home each week. I get ten grand less, and the MAN is still telling me I make too much. How hard could it be to teach kids? An administrator told me once in response to a student who wouldn’t turn in his homework, “Just make him do it. You’re the adult.” WTF? Yes, my job IS that easy. I give directions, and kids take notes over the directions, ask for help when they need it, and turn all their work in on time. If my dumbass administrator in my same Hell doesn’t get it, how could some bald rich dude sixty miles away going to have a clue? They probably had parents at their house.
Why doesn’t the government hold parents accountable? This year alone I have had students in my class: lose a parent, catch a parent using drugs, find a parent abusing pain medication, bring a parent’s arrest report in the newspaper for a current event, got a call from a parent telling her to stay at a friend’s because she had a new out-of-town boyfriend, and probably a number of other things that thankfully they have not shared YET. We have certain alienable rights as Americans. We take a test to graduate from high school, to get a driver’s license; we have to be eighteen to vote and twenty-one to drink. There is no test or age requirement for parenthood. No one is held accountable as a parent. Good parents are not rewarded. Poor parents have no consequences. If your child CANNOT pass state standardized test, you should not been given your tax deduction for your child!!!! You are CLEARLY not doing what you are supposed to be doing as a parent, so why the fuck should you get a tax break for being a parent? You were NOT a parent that year. Because that is what they are telling teachers everywhere, they will cut our salaries if our students cannot grow from year to year, no exceptions. Each student that does not grow takes money away from the schools. I only have these students one or two years of their lives, yet I am held accountable for their educational growth. My livelihood is at stake.
Why would the government want to push good teachers out of the profession? Who wants to be teacher if you can’t support yourself on teaching and still have a life of some kind? Who wants to be a teacher if you are stressed into depression? I can’t even imagine what people with their own children face each day. I just come home to me. Even with my family close, I do not have responsibility to see them daily if I don’t choose to. The profession continues to stack paperwork on top of paperwork to get and keep a teaching license. For a forty grand a year job, in order to keep my license, I have to purchase six college credit hours every five years. Or I can collect more paperwork proving the activities they made me do to earn enough points to then pay more money to continue teaching. My mom is nurse; she does not have to do any unpaid professional development. I would think the medical field would change more swiftly than education. In most cases, they even make more money compared with the hours they work.
My Master’s Degree is a joke. I would rather clean up vomit than work this hard with this much pressure for little gratitude from adults for an average amount of money. Or would I? This extra added pressure from the government has to go away at some point. I loved loved loved my job a few years ago. I love the kids now. The parents are just plain entertaining because there is no use worrying about something you cannot change. BUT the politics are killing it all. Do I hold out or run away?
Mishaps Today 