There is an assumption that teaching is the occupation of saints. Teaching is a work of heart. It is not really a profession. You must love the job it is a calling. Then most people buttress it with “ I certainly can not do it. I don’t have the patience. Teaching is a calling. You took the job and so love every student as you are called to at this season in your life. Complaints are muted by “we should think about the nation’s children,” “everything is for the children” and “it’s really not about us” used to glaze over systemic education issues like equity gaps, classism, failed reading programs, unfathomable undiagnosed learning disabilities, insurmountable learning difficulties, poverty and bureaucracy. We are called to:
- Work twelve hour shifts
- Be ok with the intentional devaluation of education
- Accept anyone can do the do it+ no real intellect or skill is required
- Neglecting family and friends on a regular
- Use our own time and dime to pay for real professional development
- Paying just as much in student loan debt as the next person
- Etc
In this picture I am working a 12hrs shift, monitoring 12th graders for their impending regional exams, completing a personal assignment to reposition in education, in a zoom class while I am monitoring a real class. While enduring very high workplace stress.
The workload is “massive.” My work-life balance is“less than ideal or non-existent”. I feel “overworked, burnt out and undervalued”.
But it is often received as hostility to say; “ I am overworked, this system is NOT working.” Teaching is hard, NOT heroic. Offense is taken by administrators, parents and well wishers. Nevertheless, Brené Brown explained when those around us dismiss negative thoughts and emotions to focus only on positive ones, they’re “not living in the world as it is,” but rather “in the world as [they] wish it would be.” When others ask us to concentrate only on positivity, she added, “they’re really saying, ‘My comfort is more important than your reality.”
Today at school was hard and there was nothing heroic about it.
