What do you say when someone tells you they want to be a teacher?
You’ve probably had this conversation: some starry-eyed young college graduate starts to tell you about how he’s going to become a teacher so he can inspire his students and help the parents and do all these great projects and…
I remember when I was that young teacher how deflating it was to hear veteran teachers grumble about how things have changed and all the joy has been taken out of teaching. As a novice teacher, I vowed to never get all bitter and grumbly.
And now?
I’m about to start my 18th year of teaching. I guess that makes me a veteran in the profession. And just the other day I had a conversation with an idealistic future teacher. I wanted to grab her and yell, “NO! Don’t do it!” To encourage her to find something else to do. Something easier. I was tempted to tell her about all the changes to the profession in the past decade. About all the meetings and mandates that do more to frustrate us than they do to improve our practice.
I did manage to stop myself before I popped her idealistic, Crayola-colored bubble. Because all that dark reality isn’t the whole story.
Today is one of the first warm days of our very grey summer and guess what I’m doing? I’m thinking about the few short moments that remain before I have a new group of first graders. And I’m excited. Butterflies in my tummy, stars in my own eyes, brain buzzing with new ideas. Excited.
Even though I think teaching is monumentally, impossibly, exhaustingly difficult, I still love it. I live for those moments when the light of understanding goes on for a struggling student. My eyes still tear up when one of my little ones begins to really read for the first time. I delight in their brilliance and creativity. I laugh at their nonsensical jokes. I love watching them push boundaries and find safe places. I love teaching.
The year ahead does not promise to be an easy one.
We will watch our state once again debate the merits of charter schools.
We will be working out the kinks in a new teacher evaluation system and rewriting our curriculum to align with Common Core State Standards.
Our televisions and mail boxes will be flooded with politicians of both parties making campaign promises to fix our failing schools and oust all of the “bad” teachers.
Huge federal budget cuts could be coming our way soon.
It’s going to be a tough year. It is the kind of year that invites our participation. There is a lot to learn about evaluation and Common Core. There will be moments in the political process when our voices will matter. There will be tough decisions to make and we can choose to participate in the conversations and shape their outcomes.
While all that is happening in the grown-up world, we will still have rooms full of children. Children who need to learn to read and add and think and work together. Children who depend on us to create a safe, magical place for them to learn and grow. In the middle of an often hostile national conversation about education, our students keep us grounded.
There are 1,040,000 students enrolled in public schools in Washington state. Twenty-eight of them will be in my classroom. Their curiosity and resolve will remind me every day of what is really at stake, and why this matters so much. It isn’t about policies and data points, it’s about their lives. It’s about how their day goes today, and how what they are learning prepares them for tomorrow.
I have lost the idealism of my first year in the classroom, but in its place is something better than just the hope that what we do matters. It’s the certainty that it matters.
Teaching is hard. It is complicated. And I still love it.
I’m with Kristin, it’s a tough job, but I love it. That said, changes are happening pretty fast right now. I don’t mind change as long as it comes gradually.
Personally, I’ve never told someone not to go into teaching, and I don’t know that I ever would.
Personally, all the debate and policy and new stuff on the horizon is energizing to me after seventeen years. When new evaluations were rolled out in my district, or we started moving toward new standards, I didn’t roll my eyes and sigh, “What are they throwing at us now?” I thought it was cool that we’re in a profession that keeps evolving.
If I could get away with being the same teacher I was in 1996, that would not be energizing. I’m expected to do better, incorporate more information into my decisions, and out-perform my teaching-ancestors. Hooray! It’s a career that keeps pushing me to play my A game.
The charter school discussion? Bring it on. Great charters are doing some really smart things, as are some of our local schools. Let’s talk about it. Let’s vote on it. It’s not the end of the world and it certainly doesn’t weigh me down or make me feel victimized.
The media? We don’t have it as bad as lawyers. At least your average citizen always says something like, “You teach? I don’t know how you do it. You’re a hero.” Maybe we’re a people who need a whole lot of praise and have a hard time with criticism.
You’re right to encourage your bubble-holders. After seventeen years, I look forward to September. I go to bed Sunday night really excited for Monday. I love my students, I love my colleagues, I love the content, and all the static that surrounds us is just that. I can deal with it, and the next generation can too.
Like you, my first thought is “Run Away!”. But then, like Mark, I catch my self and encourage them to go into it with open eyes. The ones that can handle the disillusionment by maintaining their love of students and the craft like you have are the ones we need. Ultimately they will stick it out and love doing it. That is the teacher I want my first grader to have!
One benefit of being a teacher? We are on the front lines of all the policy issues you mention, which gives us some valuable perspectives. As you say, “It is the kind of year that invites our participation.” It does invite our participation, and as teachers, we have got to get out there and share our classroom experiences!
I have had to catch myself from counseling some of my own high school students out of becoming a teacher. What I find interesting is the “kind” of kid who ends up telling me they want to be a teacher: they tends to be the kind of kid who says he wants to help “kids like himself” who have a hard time dealing with all school is about. They are often my C- kids with gigantic hearts. I have mixed feelings about this, since heart and passion is so critical and in my opinion trumps “formal” training or book-learnin’, but I wish I’d hear it more from my kids who are stellar scholars as well. Unfortunately, kids who are highly successful are coached to pursue professions “better than” teaching. We have one young woman who passed through our system a few years ago–had both the heart and the dispositions as well as the impressive smarts–and is presently at a very prestigious Ivy League school. At one point I heard that she was planning to become a teacher (which everyone who ever met her would tell you is a perfect match!), and it was sad to still hear my colleagues talk about how she was wasting her potential by choosing to “squander that kind of opportunity [going to an IL school] just to become a teacher.” I hope she ends up in a classroom someday–she’ll be a good one.