Monday, February 17, 2014

Dear Teachers: Please Hold On

I am halfway done with my first year of teaching. It has been incredibly unlike what I expected. Hired as a Pre-K 3 teacher (that’s three-year-olds), moved to 4th and 6th grade just one week later, the same week that I began to commute 3 times a week for graduate school – something that sounded perfectly doable when I taught little ones in a half day program that I was prepared for (mentally and resource-wise), but turned into something much more trying when it became teaching two unfamiliar grades for eight hours each day. It is something that I was not sure about, and it terrified me, and at times I will admit that I found myself hating it. But it has been such a blessing, and even though I am still in the midst of it, I am already able to look back on it with some clarity and appreciation for how far I have come over the last five months. 
I hear so many first-year teachers complaining (and I’m no exception) about how hard it is. And it is HARD. It is exhausting to go into this with nothing, and have to create everything from scratch – physical materials and lesson plans, yes, but also mental paradigms about what it means to be a teacher and how to be a teacher. You will never hear me say that teaching is easy, and it especially is not easy when it’s new. As with most things, it’s impossible to truly understand teaching until you’ve been thrown into the midst of it, with no babysitter to guide you along. My classroom is mine, and I am wholly in charge of everything that happens within it, and that is honest-to-God terrifying. I am being trusted with the education of over 40 children, and it is being assumed that I have any idea what I am doing.
Luckily, I have an idea what I am doing. I feel good about myself and my classroom and the way I teach. But I think that there are some teachers who do not feel this confidence. And maybe my confidence is misplaced, but I think that even misplaced confidence is better than none at all. As far as I’m concerned, maybe I’m not doing everything right…but I sure am doing it with enthusiasm.
That being so, there certainly are still times that I am exhausted. There are instances when I am annoyed. There are days when I am genuinely concerned that if a child were to ask me just ONE MORE question that I have already answered five times in the last hour I would just have to lie down on the floor until they all leave. Sometimes I need to just sit silently in my car and stare at the road as I drive home because I literally cannot take any more noise. But those moments are few and far between, and most importantly, they are forgettable.
I have heard that in childbirth, women are in so much pain that a hormone is released to literally make them forget how terrible baby-birthing is so that they won’t be too physically and emotionally traumatized to have another baby. While this is terrifying in its own right (One day my body is going to trick me into thinking I didn’t just almost die of pain not but five seconds ago? Great.), it is also how I feel about teaching sometimes. I have those class periods where I just want to kick all of the children out of my room and hide in the dark so they’ll stop asking me if they HAVE TO write down the science notes on the board (“Well, I definitely didn’t just write out the definition of ‘low-pressure area’ because I can’t get enough of meteorology.”) even though we JUST WROTE SO MUCH in math (“Wait, what? We only wrote short strings of numbers.”) and they are TOO HUNGRY to focus right now (“Are you serious? It’s 8:35. You just had breakfast.”). But give me a few minutes to hide in the teacher’s bathroom during a passing period and stare crazy-eyed at myself in the mirror, and I’ll forget how annoyed I was.
This resilience is important for teachers. If you are a person who cannot bounce back, or easily lets things pile up and weigh you down, maybe you just aren’t cut out for teaching. Students don’t always listen. Administrators aren’t always helpful. Parents aren’t always available (or maybe they’re a little too involved). But these things pale in comparison – or they should, at least – to how important the job of a teacher is. I feel proud of myself when a kid who has been struggling in math finally understands how to do long division. I want to jump up and down (full disclosure: I have, many times) when we can diagram a sentence with 100% accuracy on the first try. I do little ‘happy dances’ (until I am commanded to stop by several 4th grade boys who think I’m maybe the un-coolest person to ever exist) when the kids make connections on their own that I thought I’d have to draw out with a million questions. It all makes up for those moments when I have to remind myself that banging one’s head against the wall is not an appropriate coping mechanism for a 22-year-old.
For all of these reasons and more, it breaks my heart to read the stories of other teachers, so burned out and frazzled that even getting up in the morning is a chore. I see other blog posts and opinion pieces, ranging from naïve first-year teachers in over their heads to seasoned veterans with years of pent-up criticism and hostility, writing pages and pages about how they have lost their will to teach, how standards and tests and lack of funding have stripped this profession of what little joy it had left. I see videos of speeches given by passionate educators vehemently ripping apart the American educational system, pointing to other industrialized countries who are, by some standards, doing “better” than we are. I hear complaints about low pay, limited resources, unimaginative and unmotivated students, unaccommodating administrations, and overly-pressuring teacher evaluation systems. With a heavy heart, I wade through seas of grievances daily, whether they are coming from those I work with or faceless screen names of educators who used to find so much happiness in what they do but have since lost their inspiration. 
And I pray that this will not become me. I fear that I truly am a naïve first-year teacher with delusions of grandeur spending hours at my school every evening and every Saturday just trying to keep up. Maybe I am seeing these so-called “bitter” veterans and saying “That will never be me!”...but what if it will be? What if we all start this way and slowly lose our fight over time? Maybe one can only take so many years of students who don’t listen and tests that don’t help and lawmakers that don’t understand before it’s all just too much. 
But I can hope. I can hope that I will have enough foresight to see this animosity and resentment coming to avoid it. I can hope that I will always be able to see the silver lining in the ever-present storm clouds hanging over my head. I can hope that years down the road I will still be able to remember just how much I love this, and just how important it is – not just to me, but to my students and their families and the community that I serve. I can hope that other teachers who think they are too far gone to love this profession again can find their way back. I can hope that despite the controversies over best practices and the level of importance assigned to standardized testing and the degree to which teachers should (can?) be held accountable for their students’ outcomes...we do not lose sight of the bigger picture.
In my opinion, the “bigger picture” is really the smaller picture. I can get so lost in the anger and antipathy that characterizes many teachers today. I can find myself nodding my head while reading about the injustices that teachers face when they have to “take the blame” for things beyond their control. I can feel the desire to march to the door of the Department of Education and demand the necessary changes while simultaneously threatening to chain myself to the front gates if I do not get my way. But for me, I feel that the biggest difference I can make is to stay out of the impassioned insistence that everything to do with education is terrible today. If I let myself get lost in the world of frustration and hatred regarding things that are, for the moment, out of my control, I will never be able to happily teach in my classroom again. Perhaps there is a middle ground, where a teacher can lovingly and effectively teach a class full of students while spending her free time marching on Washington demanding change. But I am not that teacher. I am just a girl who loves her students and loves her job and is afraid that losing sight of a believable short-term goal (teaching my kids to the best of my ability) in favor of a seemingly-impossible long-term one is the best way to burn out forever.
To all of those teachers who’ve spent so many years feeling helpless: I feel you. I don’t truly understand, and maybe (hopefully?) I never will, but I recognize your struggle and I am not just adopting a “better her than me” standpoint on the matter. I wish that we could all love going to work and not worry about whether or not our students’ test scores are going to determine our salaries. I want all children to be passionate about learning, all districts to have the funding they need, and all policymakers to truly understand what it means to be a teacher. I wish, I hope, I want.
What I don’t want, however, is to lose my fire. I desperately want to keep loving what I’m doing. I complain to my co-teachers in the break room. I vent to my husband constantly. I have lengthy conversations with imaginary adversaries in my car about whether or not what I am doing is right (they always lose, because I am a passionate debater). But despite this, I do love it. I do.
And to every teacher out there who thinks that this year is “the last year I can handle this”…please do not give up. You are not alone in your frustration. You are part of an enormous group of people who feel these same anxieties and have seen their most valiant efforts thwarted by lackluster students and unfair policies. And you are an important part of this group. You matter, in the short run and in the long run, in the little picture and in the big picture. Don’t lose sight of why you started all of this in the first place. Remember what it was like to be a bright-eyed, first-year teacher with a head full of impossible ideas and a heart full of passion and a belief that being a teacher is important, and meaningful, and what you want to do forever.
Remember, and don’t forget this time. For the sake of all of the newcomers who are so hopeful and impressionable. For the sake of the students who, despite being your 20-somethingth class, still see you as the single most important part of their classroom this year. For the sake of those on-the-fence teachers who want to believe that it will get better, but need help to get through the right-now-worst-of-it. And if you have only just begun and think you can't handle it any more, please try to remember as well. I am right there with you, and we can't give up on this.
I know I might be just some young, first-year airhead who has deluded herself into thinking something so resoundingly permanent as the "broken" American educational system can be changed – or at least coped with in good spirits.
But if you are on the verge of giving up completely, and it takes every ounce of your will not to storm out of the classroom tomorrow and never look back, maybe you can still hold on a little longer…if for nothing more than me and my wonderful delusions.

2 comments:

  1. I have been in your shoes. That 1st year was a tough one...the 10th year is tough but for me I saw & talked with seasoned teachers, I met those that were teaching just waiting for retirement; I was drawn to teachers who loved the life of teaching & I believe it is a "life style" with a true caring of the students...even the ones who can drive you a little nuts. I found that getting a "problem" kid to stop being a headache was to get him/her alone & talking about the "why" of the behavior and offer him a job in the classroom = you see the student as having leadership qualities. I found this worked best if he/she was a popular kid....others will follow his/her behavior. Send him on a fake errand to another teacher...This took me a lot of time to come up with my bag of tricks. Lastly I read some where this philosophical statement--A GREAT TEACHER TEACHES THE STUDENTS...NOT TEACH A SUBJECT TO THE STUDENTS...these 13 words became my personal mantra. I think you will be one of those GREAT teachers... Sue aka CGS

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  2. I have been in your shoes! My 1st year was very scary. I remember sitting in my classroom and pulled open the file draw & it was empty...I thought there would be something in the drawer...I had an anxiety attack..."What was I going to do?" The students were coming the next day. I went to a teacher supply store and bought some items. The students arrived the next day not knowing their favorite teacher was no longer their teacher & of course they blamed me. That was the worst part for me...I was scared and the kids reaction did not help. I taught at a middle school. I learned quickly to go to teachers who were still in love with teaching. That helped me enormously. I read someplace that with "problem" students that they wanted attention. I chose my most unruly student and told him I needed a teacher helper...I asked him if he would mind helping with chores in the room. He looked shocked! I needed him to do 2-3 different chores and he agreed. Since he was the leader, the others started to calm down & stop their dislike of me & I had more time to teach. I learned to call a student's parents and told them their child is doing great. The parents were literally shocked. I heard a philosophical statement at a teacher conference---A GREAT TEACHER TEACHES STUDENTS...AN ORDINARY TEACHER TEACHES HER/HIS SUBJECT. I think you will be a GREAT teacher...just be gentle & kind to yourself & know that the 1st year is just that. Hang in there...the 2nd year will be a much better...REALLY!!! Sue AKA CGS

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