On Education

****I wrote this post in May 2013....but I never published! When I reread the draft, I knew it needed to make the final cut. Made me laugh and cry.....2 school years later. :)****

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all my fellow educators!

While the stress of my job is sometimes overwhelming and I often find myself counting down the days I have until summer vacation, (14) I wanted to take some time to reflect on why I chose this profession. Why did I become a teacher? Was it for the incredible pay? Was it for the lack of paper work? Was it so I could color all day? Surely, it was because of all the vacation time....

I knew from a very early age I wanted to become a teacher. I absolutely adored every single one of my elementary school teachers and I knew I was going to grow up and be exactly like them. I wanted to touch the lives of children and inspire them to live their course work. Of course, in my naive mind, I must have assumed every student would be just like me: a quiet, hard-working, suck-up.

As I was working through my major in college, reality slapped me across the face as I began to discover the truth of education. Poverty. Drugs. Homelessness. Hate. Disfunction. School was no longer the happy place of fun and learning I remembered, rather, it seemed to have transformed into a dismal, foreign land. Then there was the intimidating realization: had it always been this way? Had I been so ignorantly blind in my youth to such incredible delinquency?

I didn't know how I would ever be able to connect with students. And if I ever did, how on earth would I ever be able to keep up with the ever changing curriculum demands. The semester before student teaching, I knew I had picked the wrong career choice. I even went to my advisor to see what I could do to get out of this major. Already behind, I reluctantly went forward to finish my degree, as I didn't have the money to stay in school much longer. However, it was that next semester of student teaching that changed me.

My first placement was with kindergarten. Sweet, sweet, little babies that knew the "F" word and used it without even trying to be derogatory. I was very fortunate to have an amazing cooperating teacher. I could go on and on about everything that wonderful lady showed me what teaching was all about, however, I think the biggest change for me came when I found out one of my students had been caught digging in the trash after school. Why? She was hungry. Her family didn't have any food at home. That poor kid was hungry. I began to learn that teaching (no matter what any government curriculum EVER said) was a lot more than text books and letter sounds. It was about compassion. It was about trying to understand why a student might be falling asleep in class. Did he stay up too late playing video games....or was it because they were evicted, and they had to sleep in the car? "Teaching" became more of an ambiguous term in relation to my actual job.

I could literally go on and on about what I feel a teacher's job is in reality.


Ok. So do I do it for the pay? Ha. That's my favorite one. If I wanted to do something for pay....well, I would get a better paying job! :)
How about the lack of paper work? Please, come look at my desk. If you can find it, as it is buried under stacks of graded/ungraded work, CRA data, CFA data, DE Data, TCAP data, I-Station data, Compass Data, lesson plans.....oh, you get the idea.
Was it to color all day? If you mean teaching two-digit multiplication on a dry erase board? I don't consider that coloring, but I do enjoy doing that with a cool flex cam.
Surely, you must teach to get all that vacation time? Truthfully, in college, I never really thought about that. But hey, a perk is a perk---and if anyone ever has an issue with the time off a teacher gets, I have two responses for you:

1) You went to college too, yes? So you could have chosen this profession as well? Oh, you couldn't be with kids all day?....alrighty, well....what was the problem?
2.) There are 25 kids, 25 cupcakes, 1 teacher, 1 room, 8 hours. Suicide rates would increase without some kind of time off. Let's just be real.

Being a teacher is way more than text books and summers off. Teaching is more than a career. Teaching is reaching out and making a difference in a child's life. My wallet may be empty, but my heart is full.