On being a teacher

So much has been in the news lately about education and the budget crisis. This is my 4^th year of teaching and I can honestly say that I have never worked so hard at a job in my life. I come home from work each day emotionally and physically exhausted.

My first job was when I was 16. I worked for a year at a $1.25 dry cleaner that did not have air conditioning. I spent every day standing behind the counter in the sweltering heat of the Houston summer. My next job was at a pizza place where my main duties were washing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, and mopping the floor. And yet, those jobs were nothing compared to teaching.

I love my students. I find myself getting genuinely attached to them. So many nights, I will wake up in the middle of the night thinking about a certain student. Miguel was really quiet in class today. I need to make a point of talking to him tomorrow. In my classroom, I have had fights, drugs, pregnancies, loss of loved ones, drop outs, and much, much more. Yesterday, the teacher in the room next to mine (who also teaches the same subject) had a student with a gun in his back pack. And yet each year I feel more confident as a teacher and more able to enjoy my students.

I went downstairs a few minutes ago to make copies, only to return to my classroom empty handed because we are out of paper. “When will we get some more?” I asked. “I don’t know,” was the reply. “Whenever the next shipment comes in.”

All around me is talk of budget cuts, loss of jobs, higher class numbers, elimination of programs. And I worry. I don’t worry so much about my job, but about Ellie who is starting school for the first time next year. Will she be placed in a class of 40 students with a teacher who is overwhelmed by paperwork and numbers and who simply can’t keep up with everyone? What will high school be like by the time she and Jack are teenagers? What will education be like? Because from where I am standing, in my classroom every day, the future of education looks grim.