If you want to experience true stress, walk just one day in a public school teacher's shoes. Below is an article I wrote for our local newspaper (condensed version for Grumblers). It is still lengthy so just skim over it to get the picture.
BECAUSE I WAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE . . . A TEACHER!
After 28 years, I retired from teaching in the public schools. It was not the low pay that got me. Neither was it having to buy classroom resources out of my own pocket. It was not even the ever-expanding workload.
. . . If you think teaching is an easy job, reflect on how you would enjoy spending an entire day with 32 of the neighborhood children.
Teachers don’t expect praise or thanks for good teaching. They do however expect parents to understand why they pray for snow days and whoop for joy when April 1 does not fall on a school day. Most teachers have disjointed necks from writing on the board without turning their backs on students.
Did you know the size and elasticity of teachers’ kidneys and bladders are written up in medical journals? The record for gulping down a full lunch is 2 minutes, 31 seconds. Less experienced teachers require up to 2 minutes, 46 seconds. They grade papers in the car, in meetings, in the bathroom, and even sometimes in church (if it’s the last week of the grading period).
Teaching required my working on my own time, summer and evenings and at my own expense towards the required additional certification, advanced certification, and a master’s degree to maintain current qualifications and employment status.
No, I did not request hourly pay for returning the telephone calls from parents who wanted to know what I was doing wrong to cause his or her child to be failing or misbehaving because “my child would not do that” or “he is not that way at home.”
. . .it is too often true that when a student misbehaves at school, parents rush to the defense of the child, for the child can do no wrong. When the child fails to earn the grades expected by the parents, it is the teacher’s fault for failing to motivate the child . . .
Last year I spent $463 of my own money for student necessities—supplies kids had to have but could not afford. Public schools don’t teach values??? The critics are dead wrong. Public education provides more Sunday school teachers than any other profession.
When inferior products are received in businesses, the products are sent back. Teachers can never send back their products. They take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant.
For many children, the hug they get from a teacher is the only hug they will get that day. Many have never been taken to church in their lives. Some two million unwanted, unloved, abused children attend public schools, the only institution that takes them all in.
I tried everything.
I hugged your child, listened to your child, bought supplies for your child and reminded your child of the importance of getting an education as well as the importance of caring about life with heart and genuineness.
I read theories on how to teach at-risk students; “at-risk” is really defined as children growing up without parental supervision.
I read theories on how to teach pregnant students, students on drugs, abused students, high-energy students, and shy students.
I cried tears, trying to find the answers for motivating your child to have success in my classroom and in life.
I was a teacher. I was not qualified to be a doctor. I was not qualified to be a psychiatrist. I was not trained to be a minister. I was not a former drug addict. I was not trained to be a police officer. I was not God, and I was not, emphatically and unequivocally, your child’s parent.
I was the teacher.
Since students and teachers are not to have prayer in the classroom, pray for them. . . .
Yes, I was a teacher and if I had it to do over, I would. Teaching will always be in my heart. It does not matter what I made (or did not make). What matters is I tried to make a difference in the life of a child . . .
***Framing is therapy! You have to focus on the task at hand and nothing else--forgetting all other worries. And the finished product--how rewarding is that!
