I am a good teacher. I care about my students. I work hard, maybe too hard. I spend out of my pocket to feed my kids and buy them school supplies. I love them and I love my job. But I am tired. This gig is just not made to last. The question is, what do I do now?
Through a copious amount of therapy, introspection, journaling, and conversations with colleagues and mentors, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that teaching – good teaching, great teaching- just isn’t sustainable. Mentally, emotionally, financially (especially if you’re single), and even sometimes physically-- this sh*t is exhausting.
I have found myself wondering if my own teachers growing up felt this way. They seemed to always be a lot older – or maybe that was because we were younger—and they never seemed tired or stressed out. My students know I am tired. They know I’m frustrated. They can sense it even when I do my best to hide it and put on a show. So what has changed? Maybe I’m wrong and careers in the classroom have always been crappy, but the average teacher salary once upon a time (read: 1995) was $36,675. Based on housing costs and adjusted for inflation, this was a pretty livable salary. Today, the average teacher salary starts at $38,617 with the average salary being $58,353, but 36 of our 50 beautiful states are well below this national average, and if you adjust for today’s cost of living even $40K isn’t enough for a household. I’ve loved my time in the classroom with all of my kiddos, but being in a Master’s program (which I did partially in order to renew my certification) and trying to pay rent on a salary of $40K isn’t easy. A study conducted by Purdue University found that happiness (calculated by satiation and emotional well-being) and income are positively correlated up until an annual income of $75,000. Let me tell you, I don’t need that much to know I’d be a whole lot less stressed if I could just make five grand more and know I could pay all of my bills each month.
Money of course, is a problem many deal with. Teachers don’t have a monopoly on this. If we made a list of careers and professions that don’t get paid enough, we would also see on it: nurses, firefighters, police officers, and all armed forces. These folks deal with literal human shit, put their actual lives on the line, and there is just not enough money in my opinion to compensate someone for that.
According to the average rate of teacher burnout, I’ve made it past about 50% of teachers who quit within their first 5 years. Hurray! Seven years into this shindig and there are so many other things that non-educators fail to see causing this burnout. However, it seems I’m just following the patterns. Teacher attrition is 50-70% higher in poor schools and those serving large numbers of minority students. That’s where I’ve been working, and I know that perhaps if I’d worked in Novi or Canton I would be in a very different place because those schools have money and our system caters to the needs of white students. I love my students dearly—even the most challenging of the bunch. I’ve had students throw chairs, threaten to hurt me, tell me to f*ck off, and everything in between. I’ve had kids tell me I was their favorite teacher ever, that they wished I was their mom, and that I helped them love school when they used to hate it. I love students on both end of the spectrum and everyone in between. I can’t help it. They don’t always know how to ask for the love they need, but we eventually learn to recognize the need and respond to it.
However, the students have changed. Students today and students 20 years ago are two different beasts. Kids today are more irritable, more distracted, less focused, and more easily agitated than kids when I was growing up. A lot of this is due to screen time, but let’s be real—that’s not the root of the problem. It’s parenting. Parenting has changed. Childhood experiences have changed. And it all has fallen upon the teachers of the country to clean up the mess.
I was at an Eid party last summer listening to a conversation between my mom and her friend about their time raising their children. My mom was reminiscing about relishing every second of motherhood, saying that it’s a blessing to be able to stay home and raise children and not have to return to work. Her friend agreed, but also expressed that after some time, her kids would make her feel frustrated or “drive her crazy.” I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard parents say this—in front of their children. A child knowing they are a mental burden to a parent, in my opinion, is unhealthy. Kids internalize EVERYTHING, whether we realize it or not. I can’t tell you how many stupid little things I am still unlearning from my own childhood with the help of a therapist that my parents probably don’t even realize they created a complex about. I don’t fault them at all, but it is the nature of the beast and it’s important to be careful.
Based solely on my own observations, I have to say that the vast majority of parents I have met and seen through my career are the latter type. These parents complain when we have too many snow days because they’re “stuck at home” with their children and can’t wait to go back to school in fall because they finally get the house back to themselves. These are often the same parents who substitute conversation for an iPad or a phone screen, or quality time for a video game. As a result, the children are constantly engaged and have to continue to be engaged; when they’re not, they can’t focus (aka ADD/ADHD). It literally affects their brain development. But it also affects how they feel. They’re annoyed when they don’t get their way because normally when they throw a tantrum, they get the phone. They don’t have social skills to deal with conflict because they haven’t spend enough time playing with other children and handling it alone. They can’t assess risk and think through their behavior because their parents handle their mistakes for them. We have to let them do these things in order for them to function. And when they can’t, we have to be ready to accept that their behavior is a potential problem for EVERYONE they come in contact with. Including teachers and classmates.
Even the greatest teachers are not a substitute for lazy parenting. Our kids in the US are continually falling behind their peers around the globe for so many reasons. Summer learning loss is real, but it doesn’t have to be. One option is a balanced school year, which there is much resistance to outside of the education community (and even within it). But if your children are at home over the summer, as a parent wanting the best for them, maybe have them read a few books. Do some real-life math. Make connections to what they’ve learned. Help them see that school and learning doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Create a life-long learner in your child by spending time with them.
My qualms today are many. But that is a personal issue right now, and what I’ll do next remains to be seen. But if you’re a parent reading this, do your child and their teacher incredible favor and just be present. Be a parent. Give them calm when they are in a chaotic tantrum. Don’t give them a screen. Rather than giving gifts like Jordans, give them time. Give them affirmations and love. Give them a parent, so their teacher doesn’t have to.
Sources:
Learning Policy Institute, “Teacher Turnover: Why it Matters and What We Can Do
About It” by Desiree Carver Thomas & Linda Darling-Hammond (Aug. 2017)
National Center for Education Statistics (www.nces.ed.gov)
National Conversation About Teaching (www.ed.gov)
National Education Association (www.nea.org)
Purdue University, “Money only buys happiness for a certain amount” by Amy Patterson Neubert (Feb. 2018)
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