I have read many articles and have seen many videos on perspectives in education. I have also seen firsthand what goes on in the classroom. This is my 11th year teaching and my 9th year at the same school.
Lately, I have been asking myself, “Is it worth it?” Is it worth the stress, health problems, mental breakdowns, and emotional breakdowns? To be honest, I have suffered PTSD from teaching. It was a combination of many factors, but the biggest factor was administrators. These same administrators that were placing students into the same classrooms with behavior issues and academic challenges. I was told that I didn’t have classroom management (although I implemented my procedures in the classroom) and I was getting no help from the administrators that were supposed to be over the discipline. Parents were not helping and I felt hopeless. These same administrators that were constantly being critical had no regard for me as an educator or a human being. These administrators were very critical and offered absolutely no solutions. I have gone as far as being suicidal at one point because of how worthless I have felt as a teacher. You may ask yourself, “Why would you let a career make you feel that way?” Well the truth of the matter is I love teaching. My teaching career is the one thing that I feel like I have purpose. This is what I felt years ago. Lately, I have been questioning and wondering if this is worth it?
That was the first 4 years at my current school. Now, let’s look at the last five years teaching. Administration changed and I was getting better classes. They put a principal in place to actually take care of discipline. When the students saw a consistency with administrators, things got better. The students were for the most part better and I could actually teach. During the last 5 years of me teaching, I actually received “Teacher of the Year” for the grade I taught in 2017.
This year I am reliving the nightmare that I first had when I started teaching. The environment is toxic and once again teachers like myself are feeling overworked and underappreciated. Most of my students are behind and don’t care about school. I have voiced concerns of some of my middle school students being below grade level, but the response is always without solutions. But we have to get those scores though.
Schools are a business. It is for profit. Attendance gives schools money and test scores give schools money. Teachers are seen as not profiting for test scores. It is never enough. There will always be more to do to raise test scores. But the critical question is, are the children benefiting from testing? The answer is no. Some students have test anxiety and some students are just not good test takers. I have also had students who did okay on tests, but couldn’t really understand the material. They were just good guessers. Thank goodness my success didn’t rest solely on some test score or I would have never graduated high school.
So have rigorous testing standards really improved academics? The answer is not by much. Any study you pull up, you can see the gains are not increasing much but slightly on a national level. Minorities still rank lower and those that come from backgrounds in poverty also rank lower. Don’t get me wrong, I believe there should be some accountability. Test scores are not it. I just want to get back to teaching academics instead of teaching to a test.
So, the question I asked myself is it worth it? The answer is I don’t know. I don’t know when I will move in a different direction, but I do know I do not want to retire with the public school system.
Life After Forty! Is there life out there? 