Forgive the hyperbole, but there are times where the hardest part going to school to be an American schoolteacher is being an American. Teaching, or at least, the act of, is the easiest part. It's the bureaucracy, the regulations, the parents, the tests, the district lines, the district budgets, all things that the teachers themselves have no control over and are decided by people who have either been absent from minimal classroom teaching for several decades (Patty Murray), believe that their time as a "lecturer" grants them the right to be a voice in educational policies (Obama), or lack any sort of education experience to begin with. (Everyone's favorite pariah, Betsy DeVos.) There's nothing about the actual act of teaching that's depressing to a teacher. If anything, it's an escape from the reality that the largest obstacle holding our students back is the very government agencies we work for. A bad teacher can still have great students who carry themselves through the class. Bad students can have a great teacher to make them take responsibility for their schooling. Many combinations exist, but they can all be negated when we live in county where the government regulates education like a meat processing plant.
Education has become an enterprise, and that was way before the Notorious BVD decided to turn all of our public schools into de-funded parking lots for some more award winning religious for-profit charter schools. (But at least there'll be no more bears, God knows how many teachers have lost their lives to the ever-too-common grizzly attack.) American schooling has one main focus: assessment. It's how school districts organize the students. Did you know that prisons and jails across the country order the amount of beds they need based upon how many kids failed their standardized tests in third grade? What if I told you that the people who made those tests weren't in government or education, but were just private companies with government contracts. Think about that, the aspect of which we judge our entire system of education around is bought up by four companies (Riverside, Harcourt, Pearson, and the infamous McGraw-Hill). The conspiracy theorists among you all might even realize that prisons get the same kind of government contracts and put two-and-two together. "The hell?" you may ask. It's hilarious, isn't it? That the most vital part of our education system is decided by people who aren't teachers, effectively making our profession impractical. So why teach?
Great, great question. I've heard all the reasons why I shouldn't. "The pay is shit." "The parents are shit." "The school board is shit." "The benefits are shit." (Yeah, the pension is nice, unless the local government spends all of it before you can retire. Isn't that right, City of Chicago?) "The government treats you like shit." And so on.
But you know what isn't shitty? The students.
It may seem like a revelation the more one studies the bureaucracy around teaching, but most teachers don't get into teaching to serve the government, the parents, or the school administration. We go into teaching because of the students, and the government always forgets that. The point of teaching is to make sure that students grow intellectually and practically, not to stress them out about assessments so that the school board can keep the government happy. If students and teachers got the biggest say into how districts would divide their budget instead of parents and politicians, then we'd for damn sure wouldn't be pad an average of about 45k a year. Think about that; 45k, if the teacher is lucky, is what the government values your children's education at. Yikes. So what about the students makes it worth it?
Story time; I always knew I was going to be a teacher, I just didn't know why until a few months ago. I was co-teaching an ELL course, and up until that point, I had never actually taught a unit in my life. I had written units in theory, but those unit plans would basically end up being jettisoned into an endless vacuum, God knowing if I was actually able to teach them or not in a real classroom. My first day came, and you bet your ass I wasn't ready and I sure as hell knew that. The morning of my first lesson I woke up two hours earlier than normal, ironed my dress shirt, rehearsed my lesson plan, double-fisted a couple of red bulls and headed into an ocean of glazed eye balls ready to endure another uppity college student who thinks they can teach. The goal of the unit was so that the students will be able to organize an argument into a persuasive essay, (keep in mind, these were emerging ELL students who knew very little English,) and it was a struggle. Only a few students could catch on the first time around, and I immediately fell behind the unit plan because a lot of my class time was spent stretching the lesson to other students.
Basically, I had to nuke my original lesson plan and improvise, otherwise only three students would actually understand what they were supposed to be doing.
I was teaching the way that the government had their standards organized; I was so worried that if we didn't talk about standard A in class, then we'd never get to standard B and everyone would fail the assessment. And that's not how you can teach. I began teaching my way, one-on-one, discussions, group work, all of that. I taught kids who, at this time last year, were in refugee camps how to organize a relevant statement in a paper and seeing the students become excited to answer my questions in class, with knowledge that they learned from me teaching my way, still makes me smile as I'm typing this.
It's a magical feeling that getting good grades on a standardized test can't replicate. Because the textbook didn't teach those kids how to write a persuasive essay. I did.
The feeling I got when my students would all scream "Mr. Craaaaap" (my Nepali students couldn't pronounce the "eb" in my last name, so for last semester I was indeed "Mr. Crap") and the "Thank You" cards I got when the semester was over transcend the fact that I work for a government that only kisses my ass during election season. It really does. If I wanted to work for the government and the people who ruined the education system then I would just sell myself out and join them in Washington. (Looking at you again, Patty Murray.) I know teachers can get way too full of themselves when they say they want to change kids' lives and all that, but it's the only positive thing to keep us going. And that "thing" is the thing that makes me still want to be a teacher, despite the forces going against me.
There's so much negativity in teaching that it can become overbearing if you let it mount up, and the student's notice right away and reflect that behavior. I knew what I was signing up for; I'm a public servant, not an entrepreneur or an accountant. I got into this gig because I find value in making my students ready for the outside world and place them above all else, not for the numbers in my bank account.
