This post started as a response to a comment posted by Joey in which she asks the following about teaching:
How have you found the experience to be? Affirming, dissatisfying, surprising?
The first question could easily be answered with a snappy ‘all of the above’ but with a decided preference for written response over multiple choice, I found myself wanting to elaborate since the experience of recently leaving and then even more recently coming back has caused me to spend a great deal of time thinking about teaching and jobs in general, which is why this response to a comment became a post.
So, here goes. I left teaching at the end of last school year for a variety of reasons, but recently returned (see this post) to the profession. The experience of teaching is a slightly different thing than the experience of being a teacher. I’ll try to elaborate.
I’ve found the experience of teaching to be a fun, engaging, challenging and worthwhile profession. I’m the sort who needs to like what I do. I have to feel that it’s important in some way. It has to challenge me creatively and intellectually. It can’t be boring. Teaching nicely fills all of these ‘what I want in a job’ requirements. It is, of course, not all poetry projects and great literature. It is hard, exhausting work in often poor conditions with occasionally hostile students. The pay and benefits are, shall we say, below market. It’s a tradeoff.
Having said that, my experiences have varied greatly, each coming with a different degree of satisfaction. I’ve taught undergrads while in grad school (somewhat satisfying), and I’ve taught child stars as a studio teacher on the set of The Big Green (where I learned how easily kids can be spoiled when there are 200 overpaid adults whose jobs hang on the good graces those children). I’ve also taught middle school and high school age kids in regular public schools. I find I’m happiest and most effective at the upper high school level. I can generally be myself, have fun at work, and I continue to learn new things on an almost daily basis. Overall, the experience has been mostly good.
I would say that teaching is definitely affirming. It’s a profession in which you are directly involved in trying to help people grow. You push them, challenge them, correct them, make them laugh, make them angry, make them think. Sometimes it even works and you get to see the light bulbs blink on above their heads. That’s pretty cool. No teacher reaches every student, but most do more good than harm with the majority of their students and even manage to inspire a few. At the end of the year, I usually feel good about things.
Teaching can also be terribly dissatisfying. It’s one of few professions that is also essentially a dead-end job. My first job after graduate school was unloading trucks at a warehouse. Some days that seems very appealing. If you have an unsupportive administration, a school in which the culture revolves around testing or parents who’ve largely abdicated their responsibilities, it can be miserable. I’ve been lucky on most of these counts.
The thing is, though, that the dissatisfying elements are mostly part of the job of being a teacher whereas the affirming aspects are centered on the act of teaching. You have to find a school where the balance between working with kids in the classroom and dealing with all the extraneous stuff leans toward the affirming side of the equation. I left because the balance was shifting too heavily towards dissatisfaction.
What surprised me was how much I missed it. There are other surprises, too: how funny kids are, how much I learn from them, how the kids that you ride and discipline and generally have to be the bad guy with are almost always the ones that show up a year or two later to thank you for being their favorite teacher.
In my current position, I’m surprised by how much my kids – who’ve all been kicked out of regular public schools – want to learn and want to succeed. I’ve never had so many students with such high ambitions. That surprises me.
Mainly I’m surprised at how good it feels to have come back.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
Depending on our mood, we often say around the marbled halls of IM Central that teaching would be a great job if it weren’t for a: Students, b: Principals, c: Parents, d: All of the above. As you point out though, we know that children are the promise of a better day and that’s why we often become sad, angry and frightened to realize that America really hates kids.
Fred
thanks for your thoughtful answer! i’ve thought about teaching, but it seems like a lot of hard work without much rewards. but when the reward does come, i guess it’s that much sweeter.
Ironicus/Fred, Very true, and it seems America loves children almost as much as it loves civil liberties.
Joey, My pleasure. It is hard, but then there ain’t nothing like having beer for breakfast on a summer day when everyone else is at work. Wait, did I say that?
My OH (other half) is a teacher also. I have to give him credit for dedication. It does not pay as well and at times the emotional cost has been painful. Even though I make more money, I firmly believe that the OH is doing work that is vastly more important.
I may have been a decent tutor for our daughters on technical topics, but the OH taught them to learn and love the process
my profound respect
Thanks and thanks for visiting as well. My wife and I have a similar situation and she often says the same thing. I guess it’s all about what our society values. Perhaps Ironicus is right.