Perceptions of Teaching

I often get frustrated in describing my job to other people, which is usually to family or friends. I am lucky to have a support group that understands teaching is a difficult job – for the most part – however, I can never get across to them just how hard teaching truly is. I think only other teachers or people who have worked with impoverished children in some capacity would understand. I need many people to take their definition of hard or difficult and multiple it by about 1,000. I am one third of the way into my second year of teaching and I am still overwhelmed by the workload, the never-ending to do list, the needs of my students, expectations from my administration but with little support, and all the extra tasks I’m expected to carry out as a teacher (parent contact, game duty, curriculum development with little experience, etc.). I think the best description for this job that I have used recently was “I am a part-time parent to 40 kids.” (#bless to all my teacher friends who are part-time parents to 100+ kids. I admire and I am in awe of what you are doing.)

When it comes to dealing with teaching misconceptions, very few come from my family and friends. I have told them various stories from my classroom, so they empathize more than criticize. Most misconceptions I deal with come indirectly from the public and politicians. Those misconceptions affect societal attitudes about teaching and determine the amount of money distributed to public districts, schools, and teachers. In general, people look down on the teaching profession or blame teachers for every academic deficit in this country. Sometimes, it’s difficult to work knowing I am under that kind of scrutiny, that so much of my job security is tied to students who may or may not show up and put forth their best effort on state tests and whose best effort still may not be good enough by politicians’ standards.

I have had to deal with my own misconceptions though too. My biggest motivation for joining the Mississippi Teacher Corps was to help impoverished schools and students. I thought I would show up to school with engaging lessons ready to go, have a majority of students that cared about their education, and that I would see a visible impact on my students from my efforts in the classroom. However, teaching is a lot of losing, frustration, crappy lessons, patience, give-and-take with the students, and disillusionment about what I am actually accomplishing in the classroom for very little emotional pay off from day to day. Teaching definitely is not a feel good job most of the time, so don’t let movies like Freedom Writers mislead you.

Pair reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.