superteacher

I know what a lot of you college students and former business people are thinking,  “The economy stinks.  People are getting laid off left and right.  Companies are downsizing and American jobs are moving to places like India.  I think I’ll choose a more stable and reliable profession like teaching.  Anyways, I like kids and I’ll get summers off!” 

That’s how a lot of people get started.  Sadly, a lot of people means you’re competing with hundreds of people for the same job.  This means standing in very long lines at the teacher job fairs just to have your resume tossed onto a pile of hundreds more.  It means filling out online applications at dozens of school districts and waiting in principal’s offices with other nervous applicants all fighting for one opening.  Plus, each year there are more new teachers.  This means even if you are lucky enough to get a job, you are very despensable. 

The first three years of your teaching career will be the worst.  Any little slip up, even if it really isn’t your fault, will end with you being let go.  Or, they might just let you go because your students scored the lowest on the standardized tests.  Making matters worse is the fact that as a new teacher you are the lowest person on the totem pole.  This means when they divide up the students guess who gets most of the low achievers and disruptive students. Some people even get hired as “long-term substitute teachers” so they get paid less and they don’t even realize it. It’s all like hazing for the new person.

If you make it through the several years of hazing until you become a permanent part of the school then things will work out.  Sadly thousands of new teachers in Chicago alone don’t even get asked back to teach a second year at the same school.  They get let go for one reason or another and the whole process of finding a job starts all over again.

The same thing is rapidly becoming true for school administrators as well.  Disappointed teachers are returning to school get their masters in record numbers.  This means these new administrators need to keep their schools looking good on tests or they too will lose their jobs.

So as a teacher you are placed in a room with over two-dozen children who hate to be there, despise you for being a teacher, and only get joy by making your life more unhappy.  Parents of these children spend all of their time working so to make up for being absent they show their love by joining forces against you whenever there the child misbehaves.   The overworked principal wants to keep his/her school looking nice so you better never admit there are problems otherwise you will be to blame for not handling them.  For example, I once had one girl strangle another girl and then physically fight a teacher in the hall and the principal ruled it my fault.  Therefore, these children know the can get away with anything because legally you cannot fight back if they even attack you.

As you go through your teaching career there are other problems.  Your first teaching certificate you got at college is only good for a few years.  You are going to have to keep going to back to school for several more years just to keep your job.  This means good bye to the little bit of free time you had after grading papers and writing lesson plans.  As for summers being free?  That’s when most teachers stock up on college classes to finish their masters and take up summer jobs just to pay for it all. 

So, here I sit, underpaid, overworked, underappreciated, replaceable, and exhausted after another long school year with just one last question for you.  Do you still want to be a teacher? 

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