I am no longer a teacher, at least temporarily. My husband is on assignment with the U.S. Army and I am staying at home with our amazing, bright, funny and talented soon-to-be 3 year old. It is the first time since ...... a long time.....I haven't been actively teaching a group of students. Since high school I volunteered in classrooms and began tutoring for students with autism ( waaayyy back there in 2001). It was a joy. But along came my daughter and things changed. I still worked and it broke me to do it. And I started wanting to focus on my own child rather than all the needs of other parent's children. And along came an opportunity for me to do just that...so I took it and ran with it.
So as of tomorrow I will have been out of the classroom for 2 weeks. And it feels AMAZING. Oh right, I'm a teacher. I can't say that I love not working because that would be a reflection of how I feel about my students. GET REAL. Students are always the best part of the job. It is all the other bull*&% that I do not miss. Namely -- people who possess not the tiniest seed of knowledge from the "I know what teachers do" garden. Not. A. Seed.
I do not speak for all teachers. Some teachers suck. No seriously, they do. I have seen them. I know them. I've even tried to help them. But they continue to suck. But me? Nope. I rocked as teacher. I rocked so hard that I pissed off a lot of other teachers. *bows slightly* And there are teachers I've met that made me look like I sucked. Those incredible forces of light that teach and inspire and imprint on our lives. I've had teachers like that and I've seen teachers do that for students. I have a lot I can say about "teachers". It's all been said. The same old circulation about you don't know what teachers do...they should be paid more...we wouldn't have anything if it wasn't for teachers...they get summers off (you do NOT want to start that with me)...teachers unions are the....and on and on and on. But I won't go there. I will go here.
Today is a sad, sad, sad day for our teachers. From the suck-y ones to the greatest ones. I'm not going to go into politics. Namely, because I don't like them. I don't like arguing with people. I don't know enough about politics and games to argue. I just know what I know. I know how people should be treated. I know how people learn, and grow and need to be loved. All of us know that. Because it's the humanity in us. And today the United States just got themselves an Education Secretary who needs to be taught a lot more about humanity. I don't know her personally, other than her name is Betsy. I've never liked that name. But I've heard what she has said in answer to some tough questions. Questions that, when given an answer to, show us some valuable information about a person. And her answers sucked.
So instead of sitting here going over all the facts and reasons why this shouldn't have happened. I'm writing to my fellow educators. Because I can't change what just happened. What I can say is I'm sorry. I truly am sorry for what is about to happen. No one understands more than a fellow teacher what it is you have been going through. I've been there. I know the heartache it is to not get the support you need from the "administration" to help your students. I know what it is to want to bring down every single 4-letter word you can think of to those parents who don't have a clue and who aren't helping raise a good human. I know what it's like to be scared and confused of a system of forms, evaluations and scores.
As a special education teacher I know what is to be afraid of students. Afraid of not helping, or losing students. Even afraid of what those students will physically and emotionally do to you. And I know what it feels like to walk into work each day with a smile screwed on just wanting to get it over with so you can go home and Netflix and chill (while still working on papers, evaluations, IEPs, lesson plans and binge eating). We have all been there. But we are unlike any other profession I know. We chose this. We stay with it. We deal with it. We love it. We don't get promotions, or monetary compensation for what we do. We don't get to have a fair evaluation system or an HR to go to about unfair bosses. We don't get a lot of what "professional professions" have. But we have a community of strength, resilience and admiration. Our students show up each day regardless of what else is going on with the expectation to see us, learn from us and like us. That's a lot of expectations. But there you are killing it. Keep it up. You got this. It will get better.
Today sucks. It's scary and no one knows that the fall-out of this will be. Other than bad. So find a friend. B*!ch in the lunch room. Grab
coffee wine. A lot of it (on Friday). And then start putting all that awesome light and truth into the classrooms. Make these students know and understand our education system. What it is, why we're here and what we can all do to help. Because we must do something. We must keep going. We always do. It's exhausting. No one wants to just keep being the bigger person. But you are and you do. And you rock for that. Be Dory and keep swimming my friends.
