Teaching

I really like my job. Let me say that first and foremost ere I have a plethora of comments regarding my late-in-life career. I have done a few other things in my life. I have worked in a card shop, sliced cold cuts at an A&P deli, worked as an underwriting assistant for a property and casualty insurance company, held various jobs, including purchasing agent, at IFF, worked in a grammar school then a high school library. And, here I am. For the last 14 years, I have been teaching English. I had an English degree for many years but decided, finally, to pursue a teaching certificate. A friend of mine had done an alternate route teacher program a year or two prior and I followed her path. To be an alternate route candidate, you have to be employed in a school as a teacher. I had taken and passed the English Praxis (proudly on my first try since I had not been in a college classroom for many years) and was hired as a maternity leave replacement for one of the teachers at the school where I was employed as a Media Center Aide. Have I become a great teacher? Sadly, no, but I have improved. For a few years, I would merely tell people I worked in a school because I felt like an impostor English teacher. Through the years, I have found a niche here and I do hope the students who have sat in my classroom have learned a few things about English and about life. The alternate route to teaching included classes at night and on Saturdays as well as on-the-job training with a mentor. I have always likened it to motherhood, where they give you a baby and wish you good luck. Here, they give you a classroom filled with kids and wish you luck.

Even when I worked as a Purchasing Agent at IFF, I knew in my mind and heart that teaching had a different intensity. If I were in my little office and didn’t want to take calls, I could let one of the purchasing assistants pick up my line and take a message. If I needed to drink a cup of coffee, use the restroom, whatever, I could do it. In a classroom, you must be ready to go when the morning bell rings and you must have already prepared what you are teaching that day sometime prior as there might be copies to make, videos to find, techniques to study, logistics to handle. There is no one to “hold your calls” if you are not up to dealing with all this. There are administrators to report to, lesson plans to write, projects to grade, substitute plans to update. If you are starving at 11:30 and your lunch is set for 1:20, you eat at 1:20. If you have to use the restroom at the beginning of second period, you must wait the 80 minutes for the period to end. You cannot leave the class unattended. I have always thought it would be nice to travel in September, but that will have to wait till retirement. My point is, there is a bit more freedom in some other careers.

I am truly not complaining, merely explaining, and this is why: almost every adult has, at one point or another, sat in a high school classroom and, therefore, they think they know what it is like to be a teacher. From an early age, they have been in the education system and have had a vast number of experiences with teachers of many subjects. They have viewed teachers at work but they have not actually seen teachers preparing to work. They have not seen the hours teachers spend in college and workshops, the outside reading they do to hone their craft, the research they do to make their lessons engaging. PLCs. SGOs. PD. The alphabet of extra things. The grading they do making relevant comments to encourage and guide their students. The heartache they feel when a student is feeling down or lost or helpless. Some days are just exhausting from the sheer magnitude of having young lives in your care. I try to never have an off day because I might be the only smiling face they see. Whatever is going on in my life cannot compare to the strife and heartache many of these young people are experiencing.

I was in the middle of writing this post when I had a conversation with a friend. She thought one of the most stressful parts of teaching was the necessity of controlling another’s behavior. I thought she made a sensitive and thoughtful comment. Any teacher knows that a class with one or two tough students can influence the climate of a classroom like a dementor can influence life at Hogwarts. The time of day, the makeup of students in the class, the time of year, the current life events of the students are some of the things that determine the climate of the class. It is surely stressful so a sarcastic streak and a sense of humor can prevail…if the stars are aligning.

When I come home, chances are I just want to go the bathroom, drink a cup of coffee, and sit quietly to decompress. It is sometimes a daunting task to spend a day in a high school but it is also chock filled with rewards and joy. The wonder I feel when I see their thought process, witness their kindness, enjoy their enthusiasm, help them shoulder their heartache, encourage, guide, laugh – is all part of this amazing profession. As one of my students has written in his memoir, life is not all sunshine and roses, however, and some days can be totally draining.

Listen, if you’re an accountant, kudos to you. Numbers and I are not kindred spirits. If you are a nurse, I applaud you following your calling and I am truly in awe of your work. If you are a tradesman, I appreciate your affinity for working with your hands. You get my drift here. There are many jobs, careers, callings that have their own sets of pros and cons. I do not pretend to know what a day in the life of an electrician is but I value his or her training and capability. I have turned on light switches and other appliances many times but I have not seen first hand the training that has gone into this career nor have I experienced a day in the life of an electrician so I would not presume to make a judgement as to what it is like. I only wish many people could see teaching in the same light and realize there might be more to it than meets the eye.