Miseducation
This time last year, I felt dread when I entered the grocery store and saw cheery signs reminding parents that school would be starting back soon. Now, I just feel sad. It's only been two months since I ended my incredibly brief teaching career, and the wound is nearly as raw as the day I walked out of the high school and into uncertainty. I once described teaching as an abusive relationship, and I still think that's true. I was encouraged to put tons of my own money, free time, and emotional energy into teaching "for the kids," My success depended on how much of myself I was willing to give to a profession that didn't value me as a person or as a teacher, and no minute of the day ever really felt like my own.
Now that I've been free for a few months, it still feels like an abusive relationship. When I see school supplies or a reminder of my former life, I feel a pain and an emptiness. I start to question if I made the right decision or if there's something I could have done to be successful. When I think about it with a clear head, there are certainly things I could have done. I could have been stricter. I could have micromanaged. I could have spent much more time managing behavior and much less time making history interesting. I could have spent hours and hours each day working for free and becoming a better teacher and a worse wife and person with interests outside of her job.
My failure to succeed comes down to two facts: My personality and values were incompatible with my district and I was given very little support. As the days went on after I had my own classroom, I felt like everything came down to coddling students and moving them towards graduation so the school could maintain deceptively high graduation rates. We couldn't fail a student without proof we'd managed to contact a parent, many of whom didn't have working phone numbers. I had 12 students out of 25 that had either an IEP or 504, meaning close to have the class needed modifications that could take hours to prepare and provide. I had multiple classes that I was supposed to teach to Honors and Non-Honors students at the same time. I didn't have a mentor for the first month of my first semester, and was assigned a new one for my first full school year that wasn't in my department and had far too much to do to help a first year teacher.
I "taught" students that could become violent and argumentative on a dime. I had no recourse but to tell them I'd call their parents or be giving them a write-up. Half the time, they could talk their way out of this write-up and would receive no repercussions. The students who did attempt to fight would be taken out of my class for ten minutes and then be sent right back in, again with no repercussions. Actually, that's not true. I'd be told if I was a better, more engaging teacher, they wouldn't want to fight in the first place. If they were sleeping, it was my fault. If they were skipping, it was my fault. I spent more time each day monitoring cell phone usage than anything else. Every day, I had to hold the attention of 90 students for an hour and a half at a time while using a projector that was slowly pixelating more by the day. No matter how much I differentiated or tried to make lessons fun and interesting, it was never enough if I couldn't reach every student.
I eventually found there was no way at all to succeed and keep any semblance of myself or my values. I would get emails from the counselors every semester begging me to give a student who'd missed a month of school "make-up work" so they could pass and be another successful statistic who would then fail in college or lack the reading comprehension to succeed at any job. It got to the point where I would vomit every day before work, and even two months out and in a new profession, I still feel the same nausea each day before starting.
Teaching robbed me of my mental health and my confidence. I miss being paid to talk about history, but the realities of the job made my life impossible. I commend any teacher who can continue in such working conditions, but at the same time, nothing will change as long as teachers are willing to martyr themselves for a profession that doesn't respect them. American education can never be successful until those in charge are willing to educate themselves.
Now that I've been free for a few months, it still feels like an abusive relationship. When I see school supplies or a reminder of my former life, I feel a pain and an emptiness. I start to question if I made the right decision or if there's something I could have done to be successful. When I think about it with a clear head, there are certainly things I could have done. I could have been stricter. I could have micromanaged. I could have spent much more time managing behavior and much less time making history interesting. I could have spent hours and hours each day working for free and becoming a better teacher and a worse wife and person with interests outside of her job.
My failure to succeed comes down to two facts: My personality and values were incompatible with my district and I was given very little support. As the days went on after I had my own classroom, I felt like everything came down to coddling students and moving them towards graduation so the school could maintain deceptively high graduation rates. We couldn't fail a student without proof we'd managed to contact a parent, many of whom didn't have working phone numbers. I had 12 students out of 25 that had either an IEP or 504, meaning close to have the class needed modifications that could take hours to prepare and provide. I had multiple classes that I was supposed to teach to Honors and Non-Honors students at the same time. I didn't have a mentor for the first month of my first semester, and was assigned a new one for my first full school year that wasn't in my department and had far too much to do to help a first year teacher.
I "taught" students that could become violent and argumentative on a dime. I had no recourse but to tell them I'd call their parents or be giving them a write-up. Half the time, they could talk their way out of this write-up and would receive no repercussions. The students who did attempt to fight would be taken out of my class for ten minutes and then be sent right back in, again with no repercussions. Actually, that's not true. I'd be told if I was a better, more engaging teacher, they wouldn't want to fight in the first place. If they were sleeping, it was my fault. If they were skipping, it was my fault. I spent more time each day monitoring cell phone usage than anything else. Every day, I had to hold the attention of 90 students for an hour and a half at a time while using a projector that was slowly pixelating more by the day. No matter how much I differentiated or tried to make lessons fun and interesting, it was never enough if I couldn't reach every student.
I eventually found there was no way at all to succeed and keep any semblance of myself or my values. I would get emails from the counselors every semester begging me to give a student who'd missed a month of school "make-up work" so they could pass and be another successful statistic who would then fail in college or lack the reading comprehension to succeed at any job. It got to the point where I would vomit every day before work, and even two months out and in a new profession, I still feel the same nausea each day before starting.
Teaching robbed me of my mental health and my confidence. I miss being paid to talk about history, but the realities of the job made my life impossible. I commend any teacher who can continue in such working conditions, but at the same time, nothing will change as long as teachers are willing to martyr themselves for a profession that doesn't respect them. American education can never be successful until those in charge are willing to educate themselves.
Comments
Post a Comment