What the Life of a Teacher is Really Like

I am amazed how in the dark people are about what it is like to actually be a teacher.  I've seen comments related to the Chicago teacher strike that truly enrage me.  I taught math at a high school in NC for 6 years.  At the end of 6 years, my pay was $33,000 a year.  I had been shot at (yes, I was in the hallway when a former student came and started shooting at our students during lunch), broken up 2 fights in my classroom, had a student sobbing in my arms because her mother, a drug addict, had died of a drug overdose that morning, had to tell a classroom of students that one of their fellow classmates had been found dead that morning, etc... yet I still had to teach the curriculum, get more than 80% of my classes to pass their proficiency tests, have at least 3 evaluations per semester, answer all parent emails and phone calls within 24 hours, and more. 

I would wake up at 6am, grade papers while I ate my breakfast, drive to school, prepare the room for the lessons that day, attend a math department meeting before class started, teach all day (graded papers/called parents during lunch breaks), often covered other classes during my planning period because there are never enough substitutes, and I also coached so as soon as the bell rang, I would run out to practice.  Many days I didn't leave the school until after 9pm.  I would go home, eat dinner while working on lesson plans and work on school-related material until midnight.  I would get up and do it all over again. 

Yeah, we get summer break.  My summer vacation was spent working on re-doing lessons and attending workshops and classes to get enough CEUs (education credits) to get re-licensed (which is required every 5 years).  I had no life for 6 years other than teaching.  I loved it and hated it.

Then I had a family.  I tried for 6 months to continue teaching, but I couldn't take care of my daughter and family the way I needed to do while teaching.

That is what a good teacher should do.  But the good teachers are leaving, just like me, because of how the country views us.  We are asked to do more and more and more for less pay and with no respect.  It's downright nasty.  It's the same with servicemen and police officers and firefighters.  All the people who should be the most respected, and the highest paid because of what they go through to help everyone else - and yet, they are not.  What is this country doing???  What is wrong with society?  What happened to the days when we helped our neighbors and families?

I still hope there are people like me out there, fighting for the good of the cause, and I know that when my children grow older that I will go back to teaching because I still want to help more children succeed, even when they think they can't.  I'd like to inspire someone to be more than they can be.  That's what the American dream used to be, and it still can be if we just respect one another instead of fighting one another.

I hope the next time you see a teacher who inspired or helped you, that you thank them instead of blaming them for our country's problems.  We are just trying to help the next generation become better.  That's what we all should be doing.