Hello, Kossacks. Today I've got something that's a first. Today's diary is from the incomparable Mrs. Droogie, who as some of you may know is a classroom teacher of more than four years.
What comes next is all her own words, unedited by me (I promised not to). I present it here in the interest of telling a bit of the teacher's side of the story.
This is not a political diary per se, but I hope it will give you something to think about as I'm sure we'll all be talking quite a lot about education reform in the next few years.
So I'll shut up now and hand the microphone to Mrs. D.
When I first decided to go into teaching it was because I liked English and I liked kids. The two seemed to go hand-in-hand. I taught because of Mr. H-----, Ms. G-----, and Dr. I------.
I had three teachers that cared: a severely underappreciated band director who gave me Tootsie Rolls, told me to smile more and wear less black. A science teacher who took an interest and realized I learned better in the sunshine, taught me the fun parts and applicable things like physics and how to fix a toilet.
Then there was Dr. I, my inspiration for how to be a woman, how to be confident. She taught me how to strut in a pair of boots and take pride in my five foot eleven inch frame. She was a linguistics teacher but she taught me about life, how to roll with the punches and laugh at unfortunate situations.
I grew up poor. When I say poor I mean welfare and angel tree, not the nice kind of poor so twenty-eight thousand dollars a year sounded like a good income to me. Remember I am an English teacher, not a math teacher.
Soon after deciding to go into teaching I started my observation and student teaching, these were great, but the teachers seemed so disconnected from their students. This isn’t what I wanted in my own life. I wanted to save every single kid. I wanted them all to love me; I wanted them to find inspiration in every single piece of literature. I wanted to motivate and change lives.
I take my first job teaching at risk kids, in an at risk part of town, in a school anyone could teach in if you had a pulse. I was inspired. I would help these poor kids; I would change their lives and get them out of their horrible situations. Could undo everything that was done with one hour a day ... if I just tried hard enough. I put my own blood, sweat, and tears into that first job. I don’t mean that as a euphemism, I really did bleed, sweat, and cry.
I both loved and hated those kids. I wanted to adopt them and smack them for their actions. I cared, but a large fire burns fast and so my flame flickered and died. I no longer wanted the "at risk," at least not so at risk that they’re threatening my life and the lives of my family members. So I left that school for a quiet suburban school. This school is still thought of as "all white." This is not the case but this is the impression that the school likes to uphold.
No Child Left Behind becomes a permanent fixture in the classroom and everything becomes focused on testing. The kids are numbers. The kids are scores. They are "minorities, at risk, low SES". There are more acronyms for groups than anyone should care to know.
I become complacent, okay with the kids being numbers because at this point I’m being paid $32,000, not enough to live on, so not enough to care. Not my kids, not my problem, at this point I have a child of my own and I want to raise him. I can’t raise everyone else’s children, but I can raise mine so I focus on that instead. Make money so I can go home to my family and make sure they don’t become a part of the problem.
That is the thought. The problem with that thought is the "problems" bleed everywhere into society. The "problems" are in our streets and no one cares. They are a drain on society, they don’t succeed, they don’t improve test scores, they become criminals, they don’t matter.
Light bulb.
I lose my first student to gang violence and it bothers me more than it should. He failed my class, he failed all his classes, what does it matter? He was one of my five. See at the beginning of the year I pick five kids. I can’t save them all so I pick five to focus on, to help, to try to change their lives. Last year I think it was two because I was so apathetic. This kid was one of my two. This forces me to analyze why I started teaching.
I started teaching because of Mr. H------, Ms. G-------, and Dr. I------. I started teaching because I promised parents, that weren’t mine, that took care of me, that held me to a higher standard. That fed me because they were worried about me that helped make sure I went to college. I promised them I would pay it forward. I started teaching because of Will, because of knee jerk reactions and under caring administration and teaching staff.
I continue teaching for five years now because I still want to help. It is hard every day and some days the money isn’t worth it. It doesn’t even cover the meds needed to stay sane in this career. They say teachers shouldn’t teach for the pay, they should teach for the love of teaching. They should, but that isn’t realistic.
We live in a capitalist society and you must have money to survive, not just exist but to make sure your own children don’t fall into the list of acronyms and get lost as a number. The reality is we lose good teachers because of the pay, lack of appreciation, and the fact that half the population thinks they could teach. But the emotional toll is not something most people consider.
I am lucky enough to have a husband who makes enough money so I can teach and enjoy what I do every day. I get to not worry about the money side of it and instead I get to try to take the numbers off of my kids. Take the titles from over their heads, give them room to breathe and a safe haven, even for an hour.
I get to try to change their life even if the cards are stacked against them. I teach for and because of: Lakia, Brittany, Juan, Ashley, Will, Josh, Corey, Alayna, Jayne, Lakisha, Jacob, Sarah, Maddy, Bailey, Tori, Justin, and Trenton.
I know that two of the kids are in jail, one is dead and the rest have graduated. I remember their names. I remember their faces and I remember their jokes. I care if something happens to them and I want them to succeed.