Monday, November 3, 2014

Setting the Record Straight: Why I DO Miss Teaching but Will Likely Never go Back

I read a great article last night posted by a friend Why Good Teachers Quit. It got me thinking about a lot of the reactions I get when I say I used to teach. My instructors seem to respect that, and even will engage me in questions about whether I will pursue teaching within the field of nursing down the road. The overall reaction I get from classmates and acquaintances though is one of understanding disdain. More often than not, a reaction such as, "Oh wow. I could never work with teenagers!" Or something along the lines of, "I have a friend (cousin, brother, ex spouse's nephew...) that teaches, and is very unhappy." I am not putting anyone down, people want to be nice and to understand. What I am pointing out is that no-one ever says, "Oh, you did? Do you miss it?" It is as if the entire field of education has gotten a bad rap. There are politics galore, un-involved parents, and attitudinal snotty-nosed kids.

And there are those things, but I personally didn't leave because of those factors. I left because I was bored with my subject matter (something I likely brought on myself by specializing a bit too much), longing to be a nurse, and wanting more time with my family. I LOVED teaching Biology, Health, and Anatomy & Physiology (absolute favorite!), and not so much love was to be had for Physical Science, Math or Life Science (that was purely because the subject matter was similar to Biology but very watered down). I got to be pretty creative in how I ran my classes, much more creative even than when I was teaching elementary school, but I couldn't just decide to do Art one day or to switch over and teach high school literature (something I'd have loved to try).

The reasons I left teaching never had anything to do with the students. I loved them!!! I still do. I keep in touch with lots of my former students. I adored my teens, and you know what? I miss them. I really, really do. Sometimes I get wistful and teary-eyed thinking of my favorite classroom memories. My last six months teaching I worked with the hardest of the hard teens. These teens had criminal records or drug problems or absent parents (or all of the above). It would have been an easy job to walk away from and never look back...but sometimes, I regret leaving.  They touched my heart, and they depended on me, which was the reason (above salary, employment or anything else) that I stayed with them until the very last day of school-completing my contract though I knew I was moving on.
Sadly, not an exaggeration!

The reasons I left teaching were not the parents. I had my share of lousy and overbearing ones, but most the parents I dealt with cared, and were willing to help. I had parents involved simply because they knew that I cared about their child. Yes, some were not helping matters much. Some were adding to the situation their children were in, but most were trying. You see, it is SO easy to judge. It is so easy to say that students and their parents don't deserve the time of day when they won't help themselves. But have you been in their shoes? The kid that never finishes work and falls asleep in class everyday is exhausted because he is working long hours after-school to help his dad pay the bills; his mom left when he was a baby. The mom that shows up to every meeting, but never seems to really help make any changes at home-she is battling a terminal illness and just the fact that she is there is so much more than many others would do. The teenage girl that talks only about her boyfriend? Dad has never been around and her mom is too occupied at home with a special needs son. Most parents want to help as much as they possibly can. Some do not know how to help, most are overwhelmed, and some I have seen so grateful that a teacher cares about their child, they were hugging me and crying because no one else had seen the value in their kid.  Which makes me angry. How does a kid make it to 10th or 11th grade with not a single teacher telling their parents that they have the ability to succeed??!! Sometimes, sadly, it is the system.

Teachers are asked to do far too much in too little time. Some would add for too little pay. I never cared a ton about the pay, even when I needed it, but I understand that the pay is pretty dismal. Most teacher's have a Master's degree which takes 5-6 years of college. This means student loan debt of anywhere from $50-100,000. That's insane right there. When I was teaching full time, I could barely make my minimum student loan payment, but that is another issue altogether. I left partly for my own desires to do something else, but I left partly because of shear exhaustion and burn-out. To be the type of teacher I wanted to be, the type my students deserved took way more than 40 hours a week!!! There was never a day without planning, grading, implementing or learning new things myself. Sometimes I enjoyed that. Sometimes I am asked how I can leave a career with such good hours for a career in which I will likely work my share of night shifts, weekends, and holidays. I want to laugh. I already worked all of those.  I honestly put in 50-60+ hours a week easily, and everything above 40 was uncompensated. If I work over 40 hours a week as an RN you bet your butt it will be paid.  Oh, and don't get me started on that little "perk" that teachers of older students get. The mythical prep period. It is supposed to be 45-50 minutes a day of time you get to do teacher things like grading and lesson planning. In reality that will not happen. You may have another class using your classroom during that period, if budgets are real bad, you will be pulled to sub for someone else during your prep, or you will inevitably have to go talk with administration- "come see me during your prep." Prep period is a lie.

 Society sees teachers as having so much time off. You get a WHOLE summer they say! Umm no. Summers are spent prepping for the next school year, attending mandatory training classes during your "time off" and taking college courses required to keep your teaching license current.  I have the utmost respect for my former colleagues still in the field. You do work that matters.


On the other hand, can you blame me for wanting a career in which I can still help people, but at the end of my shift I can clock out, go home, and not think about work again until my next day??  It is not the students, it is rarely the parents, sometimes it is the system, but usually it just the pure expectations and devouring of time.

At the end of the day, I do miss it. But at the end of the day no matter how much my career is a calling or full of helping others, it is still a job.  It was full of too much time worried about other people's children, and not enough on my own.  It was time spent away from my family-time I will never get back. The #1 reason I left a job touted as being family friendly? It was anything but.