What They Don’t Tell You About Teaching
What They Don’t Tell You About Teaching
Teachers are constantly giving.
Teachers are constantly learning:
learning how to teach better;
learning how to teach better;
learning how to reach their students;
learning how to start up programs;
learning how to adjust programs;
learning how to be what each student needs.
Whether its by 30 or 130, a teacher is constantly in demand by his/her students.
There are so many aspects in teaching that no one sees. Now, this is not a post about anti-education or trying to dissuade someone from being a teacher. But, this is about lessons I’ve learned in my first 5 years of teaching.
It. Is. Tough.
Learn to say No!
Have boundaries.
As a teacher, I can promise you this:
You will be frustrated with yourself some days.
You will be frustrated with the politics most days.
You will be frustrated with your kids some days.
You will be frustrated with the whole system some days.
You will be frustrated that it seems like you are a part of the handful of teachers at your school that care about the students and not scores or want to help make it a better overall experience for the students.
You will cry over your students.
You will be sick over power trips.
You will be more worried about student and/or parents’ accusations than you are a school shooting.
You will want to take some kids home with you.
You will worry about them when you aren’t with them.
You will constantly feel unappreciated and surrounded by ungrateful attitudes.
You will face more bad attitudes than Judge Judy.
You will be exhausted—emotionally. intellectually. physically.
These things are true.
But there’s hope---
Because I can also promise you this:
The frustration you feel will be eliminated when you reach “that kid.”
The frustration with politics will subside when you shut your classroom door and do what you know is best.
The frustration with the system: be a part of the solution, not the problem. You will be small in number, but don’t lose heart.
Care. Care until it hurts and then care some more.
Teaching is tough. While teacher burnout is real and it’s a fight, there are so many joys of teaching.
No one prepares the teacher to be the secret keeper. The battle fighter.
They tell you how they keep their black boyfriend a secret because their dad is racist; about a handsy cousin when they were six; about a neighbor last week; about how immigration came last week and they were scared; or how they save the crackers from lunch in case their little sister gets hungry tonight because they don’t have any food.
No one prepares you for all the pressure of testing and how that is the focus of the state and district. What’s worse is how that pressure trickles down into you, your classroom, and each desk in your room.
It’s the returning week after Spring Break. We are in the home stretch of the school year. The home stretch means testing and even more teacher burnout. So, as you read this or share it or pray over your meals, remember the teachers and their students. We are fighting a battle---a war---and most of the time it feels as if we are alone on the battleground.
To Future English Teachers
On those days
when you doubt where your heart has led you,
when classes seen an eternal lunch duty,
and driving home you feel like Willy Loman
lost between Brooklyn and Boston,
may you be able to recall for your soul’s sake
at least one student. The one with live eyes
who’d stay after class to ask one more
question, whose face among rows of faces
hinted your lesson of the day might seed his life
of learning, one who met Whitman’s verse
and began to make poems of his own.
May this student, like a good song,
visit you again and again, may you be blessed
with seeing him grow older and join hands
with you in adulthood. May you be dazzled
and a burger. And may you be wise enough
to learn what he’s learned on his own, save it,
like a gift from a son, for all your future
students waiting in the years.
-Edwin Romond, from Dream Teaching
Until next time dearies, here's this little nugget of humor:
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