When I decided to become a teacher in October of 2012, I could not have been more thrilled. I was jolted with purpose and my heart became tender—I knew my calling. I wasn’t even so much proud of my decision, because it was just meant for me. I had no doubts, and for something as important as finding your career path, that was empowering.
I used to view the heart God made in me as a burden more than a blessing for majority of my life. I cared too much. I tried too hard. I would help and get burned. But despite the burden I believed I was cursed with, I felt a need to help others. I originally wanted to become a motivational speaker for a Christian convention of some sort, reach big scale audiences while talking about Jesus. I thought that was my vision, until I took my World Literature course at College of Southern Nevada. My professor, very aged but inquisitive, was magnificent in the way she could reel any student into every question she posed. The whole class could have essentially not read a lick of the assigned reading, but in her class, you would scramble because she made you WANT to talk. Her love for literature and her gift to teach left a heaviness on my heart. This is what I’m suppose to do. That gut feeling where you could cry and throw up at the same time? Yep, that was me. I went to my advisor’s office that same day and changed my major from an AA in Communications to an AA in English. I wanted to teach kids the subject closest to humanity and be an impact. It was then I realized that God prepared my heart to become a teacher; it was no longer a burden, this was my blessing.
I remember before I decided I was going to be a teacher, I believed the profession was admirable. There were so many teachers that left a trademark in my journey through adolescence that I couldn’t imagine the experiences that happened without them. I knew teachers that stayed after school to help students struggling, coaching extracurricular activities, working in their classrooms on weekends, volunteering with students before/after school and sometimes on school break. Aside from a couple bad apples, teaching is a profession of going above and beyond.
Unfortunately, despite my awakening and my perspective of educators, after I made my decision I quickly discovered that becoming a teacher had a lot more negative attention than I anticipated. From 2012 until present day, I’ve never been asked so many heinous, negative questions in regards to the profession I chose. I’ve been appalled, offended but more than anything, I’ve been hurt. I don’t believe the intentions of most of these questions are asked to belittle or reduce anyone who is a teacher, but they do.
After surveying close to twenty secondary teachers, I asked “What questions or comments do you get asked the most by people who don’t teach?” These are some of most poignant responses, most of which were repeated among multiple people.
“Why the hell would you ever want to teach? That sounds terrible; kids are not the same these days.”
Kids are kids, first off. There might be some millennial differences, but let’s not get on our high horses about teenagers in the 70’s compared to kids in 2016. The flimsy trends, reckless experimentation and relationship drama stays consistent generation to generation. Secondly, I want to teach so when your teenager gets to my class, they actually have someone who gives a s***. Most people ask this question with honestly the best intentions. They, majority of the time, see how badly education is taken care of and wonder why we would jump into it. Trust me, we’re doing it because we care about the youth of tomorrow.
“They let you teach, but you have tattoos?”
Welcome to the 21st century! Where tattoos are seen as art, and there is more to the industry than whack job American traditional roses on old veterans. We are taught as educators to teach our students to express their individuality. But yet, why are teachers constrained to fit such a narrow, conservative image? I can understand if you worked for a company that sought a certain look, in which case tattoos would be distracting. But unless a teacher has tattoos that support violence, drugs, nudity, or anything ‘R’ rated, then what’s the real problem? A tattoo on a teacher’s body will not make or break any crucial decision a student makes in their own life… Besides maybe a bad tattoo.
“Why would you waste your intelligence on being just a high school teacher?”
Just a high school teacher? Do you believe the job requires no cognitive ability or skill? Or that teenagers “don’t care” therefore they’re not worthy of unique intelligence? I’m not sure which rebuttal question is worse. You want to know what’s more valuable than intelligence? The compassion to love and reach 180 students, give or take a few in your six classes. The patience and balance to lesson plan, conference with parents, go through IEPs, attend Professional Development meetings and classes, pay for your supplies and extra supplies for kids that don’t have it. I’m not wasting my intelligence—I’m passing it on for the future pediatrician or naval officer. And if in some alternate reality where intelligence is wasted by being a teacher, at least they would be building relationships and making an impact on the generations of tomorrow.
“You’ll hate teaching, but at least you get summers off.”
So we choose a life-long career for summer break? Having the summer off as a teacher is like receiving all the overtime you didn’t get paid for during the school year! People are under the impression that teachers go to school for 6-7 hours and then go home to relax. Between lesson planning, school functions, professional development meetings, staff meetings, extracurricular involvement (coaching, sponsoring), there is basically no such thing as a day off, not including teachers that also have children to care for. And even when we are on break, most of that time is preparing for when we get BACK to school. Teaching isn’t just a career, it’s a lifestyle.
“Why didn’t I have a teacher like you when I was in school? What do you wear to work?”
As a young teacher, I have heard this too many times to count. Not only do you feel judgment because of your age, but now your substance as teacher is chalked up to how good you look in a pencil skirt. This is a problem. Take a moment and consider my capabilities as an educator before you demean my worth based off my appearance. There are only two reasons why you’re asking me what I wear and that’s 1. You’re fetishizing teachers or 2. Implying I don’t know how to dress like a professional. Either way, this is incredibly insulting.
“Why are you so tired, all you do is babysit.”
Babysitting means I get to watch your kids for a few hours, get paid, go home and have a nice slumber. And I don’t have to ever think about your kids until I have to babysit again. You are delusional if you think this all teaching is. We are actively involved in a student’s learning growth. We are implementing standards, executing lessons, managing meetings, accommodating IEPs, and spinning a thousand plates at once. We’re tired all the time because this isn’t the job where you can be a Type A person. As a teacher, you never get “caught up.” It’s a never ending cycle of “to dos” and multi-tasking. Not to mention the emotional struggles you battle with when kids open up about their lives—more often than not, they break your heart. Making connections are wonderful and you can witness real change in an individual when a student trusts you. But it can be overwhelming when you see students suffer.
Not only are we not even remotely comparable to a babysitter, but we get compensated 10x worse than a real full-time babysitter.
“You do know they don’t make good money right?”
REALLY? I HAD NO CLUE, BUT THANKS TO YOU, I’LL CHANGE MY WHOLE LIFE NOW. If we went into the teaching profession for money, then we would not be teaching. We are all very aware of how crappy we get paid for the work we do. You're not the first person to let us know.
“Anyone can be teacher really.”
No, not really. Even people that know their subject like Einstein knew physics, not everyone can be a teacher. Profound knowledge doesn’t make you equipped to be a successful teacher. It’s learning how to transmit the knowledge you have in various ways to reach various brains while meeting various needs. It’s about embracing the learning process instead of getting irate when students don’t get it the first time. It’s realizing that they’re humans first, kids second, and students third. You must have a passion to actually teach.
The Bottom Line
Think about the world for a moment and imagine if no one ever chose to be a teacher. Do you like what you see? This is something to consider the next time you converse with someone who plans on becoming or is an educator. More often than not, we love the hell out of our job and it deserves a lot more respect than people give it. We’re engaging with your children, your future society.
So before you cringe, be thankful there is someone that is taking that job instead of you, because it’s where their heart has called them.
