edutwist.com - teaching and technology

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First, the bad news… Teachers work long hours, many “off the clock.”

There’s nothing like the actual experience of teaching for a vicious shakedown of your idealism topped off by an icy shock of the cold, real world. Veteran teachers have war stories that will curl each other’s socks.

When I came into teaching, all gooey with philanthropy and altruism, I envisioned changing the world. In my first week as a middle school teacher, I was thrown into three different subject areas (although I was hired for only one), assigned to travel on a cart with no classroom of my own, and introduced to my collaborative special ed co-teacher whom I had never met and who would be sharing my class, although her teaching style was radically different from mine. Block schedules were new to me. Collaborative teaching was new to me. There were countless irritations and frustrations that challenged my patience and rattled my good intentions. And according to most people I talk to, my situation would have been considered a blessing by many other new teachers!

So what is one of the biggest pet peeves for teachers as they start their school year? It seems universal: Most teachers must use their own personal time to get everything done.

This lack of time is especially apparent at the beginning of the year, when so much preparation and organization is required. Inevitably, school administrators fail to allow enough time for teachers to prepare their classrooms or they neglect to build planning time into teachers’ week before the students arrive, so teachers need to arrive a week early, work on the weekends, and stay late at night to complete their preparations before opening day.

I don’t believe this is an intentional oversight and I don’t believe it’s careless planning. It seems that administrators themselves often are pulled in several directions, feeling heat from the central office to disseminate schoolwide or districtwide concerns and policy as soon as teachers return from summer break.

Just how difficult is this time crunch for teachers?

I can share several perspectives about starting out a new year by calling on my friends across the nation and worldwide who meet in the Plurk online community. Earlier this month, NedraI began a Plurk thread that asked the Plurk community about the time teachers are given by their districts to prepare for the upcoming year. (By the way, if you click on the “Plurk Thread” link, you’ll see that Nedra has changed her Plurk background since the following screenshots were taken)

She tapped into a crushing reality for some new teachers, who find out quickly that the leisurely pace of college and the semi-detached stance of student teaching no longer apply. It’s “show time” now ~ and, unfortunately, much of the performance is delayed in the meeting rooms.

The posts continued about the lack of time and the demands made on teachers during the first planning week before the students arrive. Check out the brutal truth in the final sentence of this post:

For many teachers, the beginning of the year sets a tone that will echo throughout the school year: There’s simply never enough time! And to be honest, as an experienced teacher, I can attest to the fact that the lack of time continues until the following June. So if you’re a new or new-to-be teacher, buck up and get ready. As roswellsgirl says in her post, “teachers must use own time.”

Wow! Can you feel the tension? The complaints are justified and understandable! And this lack of time is only one of the negatives about teaching that newbie teachers haven’t yet faced.

So why is it that so many teachers return and stay in teaching in spite of such odds? What do they find that they love about teaching?

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The good news… Teachers fuel the future by touching countless lives!

The White House, for all its controversial involvement in NCLB, redeems itself momentarily by suggesting ten meaningful reasons to become a teacher. My personal favorite from this list:

#5: To see the world through a child’s eye while sharing your knowledge - and to learn something in return.

Learning as a two-way street! To me, this is a huge benefit. The process of exploring concepts with your students inspires curiosity that grows into an energetic dialogue, benefiting both students and teachers. I’ve learned more from students than I ever learned from books or teachers… an ironic truth.

Joel, at the blog So You Want To Teach, shared a post he titled “9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick)“. When you visit this blog post, it’s easy to get caught up in the first list, the “negative nine” - just as it’s often too easy to whine and complain rather than find the positive in any situation. Moving on to his positive list of 10, this reason speaks to me deeply:

#3 Because there is more personal satisfaction in this field than any other.

Amen! In my previous career, my work only mattered to a minimal number of - well - unimportant people: my boss, her boss, and maybe occasionally, a board of executives. When I examined my motives for staying in that career, I asked myself what impression it would make on the future. What would I leave behind? Some pay stubs, a few minor accolades, and countless years of identical nine-to-five commutes. Uh- no, thanks!

Then I became a teacher, where no two days were ever the same (no two years were ever the same) and where I was certain that at the very least, I made a difference in some small way to at least a few students on their journey “up the line” to adulthood. I’m a nurturer. I like to grow things. What better field than teaching?

From Heidi Pence’s blog, called “Teach, Teach, Teach” arises the bigger view of teaching as a social cause. The social and domestic challenges that plague our society - poverty, oppression, abuse, and ignorance - follow children to school and set malicious odds against them. As educators, we can help liberate children from the self-fulfilling prophecy of failure and equip them to overcome these and other hurdles.

… it is up to us as a society, community, school district and teacher to change for the better, the lives of all of our children.

We should remind ourselves and each other frequently about the reasons we teach - the calling that we felt to enter and stay in a profession that is often thankless, low-paying, and stressful. There will be countless times that we will need a reminder to bolster ourselves against the negatives. As nurturers and lifelong learners, we know the benefits of what we do. We just don’t always feel them!

And by the way, I need to bust a rumor. It’s only partially true that the reason educators love to teach is because they have the summers off. Having summers off is like R&R for soldiers on the battlefield. It’s self-preservation!

As a parting smile, here’s a mashup using David Letterman’s format for the “Top Ten Reasons” countdown about teaching:

This blog expresses the personal opinions of the author and is not affiliated
with nor representative of any company, employer, or other entity.
Posted on August 10th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized