If I’m being perfectly honest? I’m not feeling like an awesome teacher these days. In fact, I’m feeling far from it.
Maybe I’m just run down because it’s the end of the year. Maybe there’s just too much talk in the news about educators and how we should be doing our jobs. Maybe there’s just too much pressure to do things a certain way–your own beliefs about how things should be done be damned.
I don’t know.
But I know that my heart has been heavy since the meetings yesterday where we looked to next year.
My heart is heavy because I teach with my heart. From my heart. With all of it. All the time.
And sometimes? I feel like that isn’t enough.
It isn’t enough because politicians who’ve never spent a DAY in a classroom or had a conversation with a teacher say it’s not enough.
It’s not enough because parents who haven’t done what I do say it’s not enough.
It’s not enough because pundits on television who have no knowledge of educational issues at all say it’s not enough.
It isn’t enough because students are jaded and disengaged and they don’t see the relevance and their body language indicates to me that my passion for this job–for their betterment–isn’t enough.
Save This Post for Later
Drop your email into this box and I'll send you this post so you can read it when you're ready.
And at some point, I start to believe it’s not enough. That I am not enough.
And y’all? It’s only going to get worse.
There is so much that I want to say about this. So much that I want to write about where education is headed and why I think it’s headed in the wrong direction. But I worry.
I worry that parents and administrators will find this blog and think I’m criticizing THEM. Or that they’ll think I’m just a disgruntled public servant whining because I think I should get something for nothing.
I worry that y’all will lose interest if I wander too far away from our usual subjects around here.
I worry that I won’t be able to adequately convey the pain in my heart when I think about how I’ll make it for another 25 years in education when this is what I love.
At the end of the day, I do love it.
But I love my son and husband, too.
And sometimes I wonder how I can love both of these things and give of myself to both of these things indefinitely with neither of them suffering.
Oh, wow. I totally could have written this post.
I, too, feel extremely run down. (I teach 12th grade English.) I was attributing it to the end of the year shuffle but I know that is not all.
The direction in which education is moving is makes me incredibly sad… I love my job but these days I just do not know if I will make it beyond the four years that I have been teaching!
It’s so hard to not know if I’m going to make it. If I’ll be in this for the long-haul like I thought I would five years ago when I started.
I completely understand this. I did let it get to me, and I couldn’t do everything without something suffering. I feel like a failure because of that. To this day, I think I’ll never go back to teaching because I wear my heart on my sleeve and couldn’t handle the constant criticism from everyone. I feel, I KNOW, that I was a good teacher, but for some reason people don’t come around much to say that. They are willing to let you know any wrong move, but rarely go out of their way to tell you if you’ve helped their child, inspired them, raised their test scores on those tests they keep shoving down your throat. I gave up and my heart hardened against the profession I once loved, but you are much stronger than I am. I hate that teachers have to fear speaking up about what is wrong, and I hate that it also makes it hard to say what is right.
The criticism, especially from those who don’t have a direct stake in the field (as in parents, other teachers, etc) is so hard to take. It’s so hard to KNOW that there are some teachers out there who DON’T care and to be lumped in with them when I’m one of those, like the majority, who DO care.
As you know I’m not a teacher, and I never could deal with that many kids. Teaching Sunday School once a week is enough exposure to 20 children for me.
That said, you know we live in a not so great school district, and I always have mixed feelings about why that is. Is it because Fulton County is too big? Is it because Atlanta is a freakin’ mess? Is it because there isn’t enough money? I know it isn’t because of the teachers. So many of my friends are teachers, and they are amazing people {you included…obvs}.
But as a parent, it sucks to open the newspaper and see week after week how behind ATL is in education.. I can’t speak to the rest of the counties obviously, because while I peripherally care about them, I focus on Fulton County. I just read on a school ranking website that less than 30% of the schools in Fulton County “meet standards.” The dropout rate in Fulton County is over 50% says the AJC. As a parent that is not good news, but I have no idea why…and I always take into account that it includes inner city Atlanta.
I don’t have a solution. I just wish that politicians would listen to teachers a bit more. I get that this all has to be regulated and funded and blah blah blah, but I want to know what the educators would do. Would they do merit based pay? Do they need better computers? Do they need smaller classes? I just don’t think the people sitting under the Gold Dome or in DC really know. Sure some of those people were teachers at some point, but it was probably years ago when teaching was so different.
That’s all my long way of saying that I think more parents understand the system is failing students and teachers than we sometimes realize. As you know we’ll homeschool at least for a while, and that decision is almost completely dictated by the school district in which we live. I’m excited about it, but that’s because it is one kid…and he’s mine…and he’s awesome.
Oh, and also as a parent, I think the obsessive standardized testing that goes on is bullshit. We did IOWAs 3 times while I was in school. This nonsense of testing every year or almost every year deprives kids of learning just to learn and teachers from being as passionate as they can because they have to worry that a kid can pass a freaking test. end rant.
Long comments are totally acceptable. I’m happy to see people fired up and passionate about this topic who AREN’T in the field. And you’re right. The problem with your “district” is that it’s SO HUGE and includes so many different areas. I think you have to look at your district as being comprised of several mini-districts and go from there. If you want to talk more specifically, we can.
As for funding, I saw a completely left-leaning article (which, let’s face it, is the way I lean…) that talked about how big business (Target, Wal-Mart, etc) find the loopholes in the tax code that makes it so that they DON’T have to pay state taxes in the states where their stores are located. Which means that the money that COULD be going to help public schools? Isn’t. The article show figures where in Mississippi, big business was skirting around paying over $200 MILLION dollars in state taxes.
And the obsessive standardized testing? Totally bullshit. And I have my Master’s degree data to back that up.
Also wow that is a long comment.
Sorry.
🙂
No worries.
Oh my Miranda! Mama has always said, do the best that you can do and at the end of the day all you can say is I did my very best. Sometimes the stresses of life can cause us to feel inadequate in the things that we do, but just keep on doing what you do and one day you will reap your rewards!
Mom, your comment made me tear up this morning.
I’m trying to do my best, but I feel like I can’t adequately give my best in both areas sometimes, and that’s where the feelings of inadequacy come in. If I give my best to Joshua, I don’t give my best in the classroom. If I give my best in the classroom (and out, since work would then have to come home with me) I don’t have my best left for Joshua.
But I’ll keep plugging along because I’m a fighter like that.
write it. people (like me) need to hear it & understand it from the perspective of those of you that live it every day. And if you write it with love, you don’t need to worry about any of the things you mentioned because everyone will know your heart is in the right place.
This is such awesome advice. Perhaps when I’ve got my head around what it is, exactly, I want to say, I’ll write it. There’s so much I want to talk about and so many issues floating around in education right now.
As a professor, I can say with some confidence that if you didn’t worry about these things, you wouldn’t be a good teacher. The fact that you do certainly says something about your dedication to the job. As a woman I can say that you’re obviously tired and you had a bad day. Keep your head up. One teacher really can make all of the difference in a child’s life.
It wasn’t necessarily that I had a bad day. It’s just that when I start to think about everything? It all feels incredibly overwhelming and sometimes I just feel like I’m not enough.
I know teachers can make the difference. Mine certainly did. I just wish that the powers that be would remember those teachers who made a difference and praise them instead of lumping us all together as lazy and unmotivated and whiny.
Oh my goodness I hear you. When I was a bright eyed young thing, after a faculty meeting/communal beat down, my mentor teacher said to me once “Just close the door and do the right thing,” and those words have always stuck with me. Having worked in a few schools since then, I’ve had some wonderful administrators, and it makes a world of difference, but when you don’t, all you can do is your best. I think it was Maya Angelou who said “I did what I know, and when I knew better, I did better.” That’s been a comfort to me in my parenting lately and I know it applies to my teaching too.
And on days when you don’t feel like a very good teacher in earnest and not just because someone tried to make you feel like crap? The best thing about school was there was a tomorrow, and you could walk back into class and say to those teenagers “My bad, can we try that again?” And if your heart’s in the right place, they’ll know that. And they’ll help you out.
The former department head always told us to “teach from the heart.” And I do. God, I do. And my administration is really great. But when I think about changes being made to education as part of some pet project that got someone somewhere elected who has never met me? Who has never met my kids? I want to scream.
And tomorrow really is another day. I’d do well to remember that.
Totally feeling this post!
(((hugz)))
That meeting on Tuesday, which was all day for me, really took a lot out of me.
You know from my recent fb letter that I feel the same, sad, hopeless way. I don’t know what to do anymore, but im losing my passion and terrified for the future. I don’t think ill last in the field, which sucks for me and my future students. I have…no advice. Just hugs.
I’ll take hugs and reciprocate.
I know that educational trends are on a pendulum, but I don’t know if I can make it until the pendulum swings back into the favor of teachers.