About my blog
Ok, so seeing as how I have a blog, I should probably do something with it besides assume it will work as my personal journal. So, I think I could probably devote it to my wonderful job as a sixth grade teacher. Yes, I have chosen a profession that is emotionally fulfilling while being horribly irritating, and it is also putting me in the poor house. Yay, and guess what folks: I got back to work in six days!So, I have to get myself emotionally and physically ready to go back. Financially, going back to work is one of the biggest strains. There are so many needs of a teacher that the schools simply do not pay for. So I end up shelling out about 200 bucks at the beginning of the school year in order to get started. I need markers (sharpies, they're the best). I need posterboard that I can do my own information on. I need stickers. I need construction paper for the first two days of school. If I waited for the school to get me these things, I'd get them in January. I need copy paper. I need chalk, and chalkboard erasers. Because I am a science teacher this year, I also need materials for science experiments. None of this will come from the school itself. So yes, it does cost a lot to be a teacher. And unfortunately, society doesn't place much importance on it's teachers, so I'm broke on a regular basis.
Getting ready emotionally is another story altogether. I keep thinking that someday those people that make laws concerning education are going to actually figure out that they are giving us impossible expectations. I have a notebook of forty pages things that I am "required" to teach my students before they leave my classroom. As a science teacher, those requirements are less than they were when I was a Language Arts teacher, but it still boggles my mind. I have 35 minutes a day with my students, five days a week. I'm supposed to fit 180 skills into 7000 minutes of instruction. Hmmm, that amounts to....one new skill a day. Right. ON TOP OF THAT, I am supposed to teach them test taking skills. There simply isn't the time. I spend ten minutes a day on a school mandated test prep program, which essentially leaves me with 20 minutes a day to teach. That isn't even enough time to set up for a lab. So while there are a ton of wonderful things that I do on a daily basis, I essentially do a job that sets up the employees for failure. At the end of every day, and again at the end of the week, month, and school year, I know that I missed something. Or that one or two children just didn't get it. It kills me. Everyday. There is so much more I could do if I had better resources, better administrators, and more time to simply teach. Instead I have admin that wants to ignore problems and use the same old, tired patch to fix the same breaks. It never ends.
So why do I do this thankless job? Five years ago when I got my first teaching job, I had a particularly difficult student named Kyle. He was violent, disruptive, vulgar, abusive, and incredibly intelligent. He threw a dictionary at me on the first day of school, and later in the school year he threw an entire student desk at me. He scared the crap out of me. But, he and I worked through it, and I developed a good relationship with his father and we managed to get his emotional problems some help. This year he is going into his senior year of high school. He calls me periodically and updates me on his life. He has straight A's, he plays football, and will be going to college on scholarship after he graduates. He says that my involvement in his life was the turnaround for him, and wants me to know how much he appreciates me. Even if he is the only one that feels that way about me, that makes it all worth it for me. There will be at least one student every year that looks at me with that face full of hope and awe because I am the teacher, and I am there to teach, and to them, to help. As long as that student sits there, I will be the teacher.
posted by lobo5747 @ 6:39 PM
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