Every so often I have to take a break. While on a break once I walk out the school doors I am no longer a teacher. I go home, talk to my wife and play with my daughter; I take no work home. I leave the edu-blogs alone and try not to blog on education. Sometimes that means not blogging at all. I might even talk to a friend who is not a teacher or have any connection to the teaching world. I get reconnected to the real world we are always talking about in the classroom.
Lately "Every so often" is more and more frequent. I am falling behind with my work. I think I have senioritis. The problem is I was a senior 15 years ago, and I don’t think I can get away with walking out of class on a two hour “bathroom break” anymore. I need a change, something to relight the fire I had so many years ago when I decided to pursue teaching for real.
I am still passionate about youth issues. I still go into slack jawed awe when the intense light of learning burns brightly in a student’s eyes. I am just loosing my grip on why supporting this dying and increasingly irrelevant system is good for kids or our country. Last year I thought my problem was my state's middle school structure. This year I teach secondary kids and I’m starting to really believe that it is not the education level but our current bitch-slapping of the education system itself. Testing, AYP, pushing the bad ones out so we are not held accountable for dismal test scores, one more accountability hoop to jump through, one more hour of non teaching related work to do after or before school to prove that I am doing what I get paid to do, blaa, blaa, blaa, whine... We -those of us in the trenches- agreed to this crap. We may not have signed the orders but we danmn sure carried them out sans protest. I'm either going to start fighting...hard, or step out of the system and hoemschool my kid...I think I'm more of a fighter.
Or maybe I have a “brain cloud”... Anyone know a good doctor or a better volcano?
Education
5 comments:
We all have senioritis now. I am ready to shake the dust of this year from my sandals and stroll into a summer of ease in a quest to honor my inner child....
but I have three kids of my own and am already looking ahead to next year, plus I have a new class for which to design curriculum and whatnot. So the chances of that happening are about as good as of me owning a horse which wins the Derby.
Give yourself another break. It is required for soul's sake. But don't go 'way from US...
Go ahead. Take a break. But like Ms. C said, don't leave us in the lurch.
Ms. C is right on a 'nother count as well: it's time. We all need a break.
But you said that you're "either going to start fighting...hard, or step out of the system and hoemschool my kid...I think I'm more of a fighter."
I think you're more of a fighter, too, and if I were there, advising you in your corner, I'd urge you to coast the rest of the way through this round: just get through it.
'Course, I might be wrong. Or right.
I appreciate the words folks. Honestly my break has been taken, along with many many others. I'm not sure I'm looking to bow out of education, I just need a view change. New school, new path (admin), new gig outside of a school, raging union rep, caounselor...the point is, while flibbertyjibbet in me is getting all flighty I ain't goin' nowhere yet.
Or maybe I am.
What counts is the one element that you have control over in all of this: what happens in your classroom.
I hate the testing. I hate the paperwork. I hate the red tape. I hate the public mis-perceptions: "You're so lucky - you have your summers off!" OR "You people are all lazy and over paid! When I was in school....(now fill in your favorite inane comment)." I hate how we get beaten up by the right-wing media all the time as being the source of all evil in the universe.
But when my class starts, I get to make magic. I get to use my intellectual can opener to open minds.
I get frustrated. I get angry. Sometimes, I am sad. And I get cynical by this time of year. And tired. Very tired.
But in September, 100 clean slates will walk into my life, and I get to try again.
We have the best job in the world. But we have to focus on what counts. And that's what happens in our classrooms.
That thought is what has kept me going for 25 years, as of this June.
For The Smithie and anyone else who reads this. I have left teaching never to return to education four times in my overly lengthy career. I'm sitting in my room now as my journalism class waits for the "senior issue" of the school newspaper to be delivered so we can distribute it. I've done lots of different things in my life, run a half way house for delinquent boys, owned a pizza restaurant, an office building, sold insurance, and worked in public education. I've been a teacher, cosch, principal, asst. supt. (I did that twice and the second time it damn near killed me, really) Now at 64 years of age I get to torment teenagers and get paid for it. (meagerly but paid anyway) Quaker Dave is right. In August school starts again. I won't sleep the night before because of anticipation and I'll be hoarse at the end of the day. I really love this, and I'll do it as long as I am able and can identify with the kids. Hang in there guys, just a few more days.
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