To Teach or not to Teach?

Since about April I've been struggling with the question of whether or not to keep teaching. Around spring break I came to this realization that I wasn't sure what I was doing anymore.

In the past I loved my job. I was proud to say I was a teacher, and would scoff at people who talked to me condescendingly about my "cute" job. I was in this for kids, and what's more, I was exceptionally happy doing it. Everyday on the way home I'd think about my day and send a silent prayer to God thanking Him for blessing me with a job I loved. I felt lucky to be in this career, lucky to work with the children I worked with, and lucky to be able to help teach children to read. I was proud.

I'm not sure what changed. Going back over old blog posts from this year I can slowly watch the transformation. The year started with some "I love my job" posts, but towards the end they were few and far between. It's been the slow death of a dream.

What changed?

Is it me? In April I realized it's been TEN years. I've spent ten years perfecting my craft. I like to think that I'm good at this job. I am extremely dedicated to being good at this job. I read books, take classes, reflect, blog, analyze, research, and put in long hours to do the best I can at this job. In ten years I've learned so much. I'm a much better teacher than I was ending my first year teaching ten years ago.

And yet, I have the same job that anyone right out of college could have. Although I've personally made huge gains professionally none of those really matter. I hold the same job 22 year olds are qualified for. We have the same voice, are treated the same professionally, and are considered the same in the eyes of the school district. For that matter, we're treated the same in the eyes of society. Or maybe not. Maybe the 22 year old is given more respect because there is still time for her to get out. This isn't her career yet- it's just a stopping place.

The realization that despite the work I've done I haven't actually gone anywhere was humbling and shocking. What am I doing? I wondered. Why work so hard? Why be so dedicated? Before I was a mother it wasn't even a question. Hours and hours after school was worth it. But now? I love working hard, but I realize that hard work- and I'm talking about the hours late into the night, the hours on the weekend, the checking and responding to emails while my daughter plays- seems pointless. Now I'm taking away from family time but where am I going? I'm treading water, and exhausting myself doing so, for what? To continue to hold a job I could have been hired for at 22, and could keep until I was 65.

This took me to job search engines, hoping, perhaps that I'd find jobs that my ten years would justify. I didn't even want to apply for these jobs, I just wanted to know that somewhere out there my ten years of experience meant something.

What I found was that there seem to be few jobs out there that want a former teacher. If jobs do want someone with teaching experience they seem to want a 20 something- at least 3 years of classroom experience. If I apply for those jobs I'll be competing against 20 somethings who will work for less. Twenty somethings without families.

Has my ten year dedication and love for my job backed me into a corner? Is this the meaning of teacher burn out?

Or is it the job?
In ten years of teaching I've seen the profession change. When I started teaching I was a first grade classroom teacher. The same curriculum, same lessons and activities we used in first grade then are not being used in kindergarten. The kids haven't changed, so why has our expectations for them changed?

I've spent ten years doing research, analyzing kids, reading books, being coached, and truly trying to understand child development and how children learn so I can apply it in the classroom. And for awhile we were asked to be professionals and apply our knowledge to our teaching. But that too seems to have changed. What we know is best for kids- what we know about how kids learn, how to teach, how to analyze children's mistakes to use as teaching points, anything that made the job a place for an intelligent professional seems to no longer be respected or wanted. I loved the job when it asked me to watch children learn to read as a scientist- analyzing and making decisions to produce a better reader. That no longer seems to be what we're asked to do. And I don't know if I want to be a part of that anymore.

Where do I go next?
Last year I decided I was not going to finish my doctorate program because I couldn't have a family, teach full time, and get my doctorate- and I wasn't ready to be out of the classroom. Now that I'm ready to go full time for my doctorate my GREs are expired. Am I going to spend the summer studying? (I'm trying, I really am.)

I want to love my job again.  But I also want the profession to be different. I don't want to wake up at 50 feeling absolutely stuck in a job that doesn't respect me despite the years of work I've put into it. Why is our profession like this? What has happened to teaching? When is the pendulum swinging back?

Goodness Gracious Me! Adventures with Hattie and the Fox

When I first picked up a copy of Hattie and the Fox I wasn't impressed. I was young, naive, and hadn't enjoyed years of reading books aloud to kids.

After a year or so of reading Hattie and the Fox with classes I'm utterly in love with it. Maybe it's the repetition, maybe it's getting to exclaim in a very dramatic fashion "GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME!", maybe it's getting six year olds to exclaim "GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME!" or maybe it's just watching six year olds yell "MOOOO" at the pivotal plot moment.

At my old school I had a big book copy (that I horded in my room and only returned to our book room at the end of the year, only to check it out again in September), but this year I only had a small, regular size book. This makes it a bit more difficult to get every student involved in the reading, but we didn't let that stop us. We made our own big book that each child can read independently.

 Now each child is in the process of writing their own version (so many great word wall words, AND it reinforces body parts for those who need it).

We also have all the characters and a barn thanks to our awesome Donors Choose donors, so we're able to act out the story to practice our retelling skills. I LOVE listening in as the kids independently act out the story. It kills me to have to give them the teacher look when they loudly yell "MOOOO!" while holding the cow. It's really not appropriate to retell the story without yelling Moo, but it's not appropriate to yell during reading workshop. It's a tough life.

 

We've also started practicing for our Readers' Theater of Hattie. It's perfect for my class because it has non-speaking parts (the fox), limited speaking parts where characters get to have serious attitude ("WHO cares?") while simply repeating the same phrase over and over again, while still giving higher readers a chance to be Hattie. Everyone gets to work on reading with fluency, everyone gets to work on identifying characters and setting in a book, and everyone (hopefully) gets to have fun.

 So much literacy crammed into one little story.

April Fools!

There is nothing quite like April Fools in an elementary school. I lament on this every year because every year it tends to be painful. As I got ready for work today I tried to decide the best tactic to take with my class-
1) utterly ignore the holiday all together and pray that no one knows what it is
2) dive head first into it and teach them about it myself
3) glare at them if they try to make a joke at all.

Seeing that it was the first day back from break and all we really needed to do was get back into the swing of things I decided to go with #2 and dive head first into the holiday.

I REALLY wanted to go with #1, but I've found in the past that kids with intellectual disabilities don't always understand April Fools Day. When someone decides to make a joke (and it always happens when adults aren't around to explain, either on the bus, at the park by their house, or in the hallways) they get offended and take it personally. Which can end up with them getting into a lot of trouble if they decide to take matters into their own hands and hit the kid who innocently said, "Hey, you have a spider on your shoe!"

SO, even though I personally think April Fools is a horrid day, I decided that teaching them about the day would actually be important. It's a social phenomena that is just a bit hard to wrap your head around.

"There's an elephant behind you!"
"There's a spider on your head!"
"There's a snake under your chair!"

Giggle, giggle, giggle, *long teacher sigh*

We ended up playing a joke on our principals. We wrote a letter telling them that there was an elephant in our classroom and that we needed help getting it out. Hysterical. Have you ever heard of a funnier joke? I know. You'd think that we never laugh in my class the way my kids roared at this joke.
They thought this was just so funny that when it came time to deliver the letter the only thing they could do was point at my principal and say "ELEPHANT!" which really came out as quite rude. Luckily they yelled "April Fools!" before anyone had time to say anything else.

More hysterical laughter.

Thank goodness for administrators willing to play along.

I'm not sure the kids really understood the concept of April Fools, but at least they weren't going to be offended if anyone played an April Fools joke on them, and *hopefully* they'll remember that we only play these jokes once a year.

Remember Me?

As I was leaving school today I ran into one of the students in our Intellectual Disabilities program and his sister. I stopped to talk to him and barely even acknolwedged his sister. Suddenly she interupted me.

"I know you don't remember me," she began, "But you were my first grade teacher. You were my best teacher. Ms. L"

I just about fell over. The minute I looked at her face I remembered her. Of course I did. She was smaller, more timid, a quiet six year old, very different than this confident teenager standing in front of me holding car keys- but yes, I remembered her.

It's been ten years. It meant so much to see her all grown up. It was my very first class and I left the school I taught at to go to the think tank. Until today I'd never seen any of those kids again.

It was a surreal experience to realize that I was driving out of the parking lot with a little girl I'd taught to read. How is she old enough to drive? How am I old enough to have taught someone for so long?

It was one of those moments as a teacher that you are blown away by the general nature of change in the world.

Art work completed by my first class of first graders, ten years ago. The beauty in first grade is watching them bloom

In the midst of a tough day it was beautiful reminder of why this job is the best.

hidden job love

The ups and downs of this job are nothing if not extreme. On Wednesday night I was job hunting and wondering why I'd stuck with teaching for ten years. On the way home today I was saying happy prayers of thanks for having a job I love so much. 

Through all the stress and the overwhelming feeling of never being enough for these kids, it is the little moments that make it worth it. The way a child walks down the hall with confidence after she puts her coat on by herself for the first time. The quavering voice of a friend carefully counting to ten, by herself, independently, without making a mistake, and the joy on her face when she realizes she did it. The full, unprompted, three word sentence that came out of another friend's mouth. Watching two friends participate in somewhat cooperative play without adult guidance. 

The little moments of today were just the right way to end the week. Tiny stitches coming together to sew the quilt of the year. Baby steps. Promises that where we'll be in June was not where we were in September, despite days like Wednesday. 

All in a Day

I arrived at school this morning to have my coworker hand me this article. It is amazing. Preview- it's about a teacher who doesn't like kids.

It was clearly the right type of humor to start my day so that I was able to find amusement in the little things.

~~  ~~

Me: Friend, we need to clean the tables. Go get a wet paper towel.

2 minutes later

Me: Friend, where is the paper towel? I asked you to get a wet paper towel. 

Friend: I did. *looks at the trash*

Sure enough, there is a wet paper towel sitting in the trash can. She followed directions- she got the paper towel and wet it. She did exactly what I told her to do.

Me: *deep sigh*

~~  ~~

Me: Wear your pajamas inside out tonight so that it will snow!

Friend 2: Hooray! Wait, oh no, I don't wear pajamas.

Me: What do you wear?

Friend: Ummmm.....  not pajamas. How will it snow?

Me: Well, wear your clothes inside out.

Friend: I don't wear clothes.

Me: Wear your jammies inside out.

Friend: Oh! Jammies! I wear those.

~~  ~~

It's the little things during the day that make me giggle. 

Who needs feet for soccer footwork- wheels are so much more efficient

At recess the other day I looked out and for a moment assumed that a soccer ball had gotten stuck in my friend's wheelchair. I started to say something to him, but as I watched I realized that he put it there on purpose. He was using his chair to move the soccer ball across the black top. He would get the soccer ball to roll away from him, would chase it down, trap it, and then would drive it around the blacktop. Rock Star, being the rock star she is, was running along beside him, keeping other kids from stealing it, and just generally encouraging him.

The smile on his face was just about equivalent to a major league soccer player running across the field after scoring a winning goal.

I love my job.

More Singing!

My morning started with the deep sense of dread- a quick check of my email let me know that BOTH of my aides would be out. The mere thought gave me such an intense headache that I considered staying home myself. Maybe the school would call my families and tell them to just stay home. 

Prepared for the worst I sulked into school, wondering how on earth I was going to make it with two subs in the room. My kids don't do well with changes in our routine- what would this do to us?

My only solution- the solution I come up with whenever I'm at a loss of what to do in the classroom- is MORE SINGING.

So, it's all we did. All day. Sing. And dance. And sing some more.

We sang rock ABC songs. We sang calming ABC songs. We sang about the days of the week- maybe three or four times. We sang about money. We sang to count by tens. We even sang about the gingerbread man.

It turned out to be my favorite day all year. My kids ROCK. 

"Can you help me please?"

I spend most of my day prompting my students to ask for help. So many times they come up to me (when I'm working with other students or busy with something else) and just push whatever they need help with in my face. Or worse yet, they sit silently and wait for someone to come along and help them. Self advocacy is something we spend a lot of time working on, and the phrase "help, please" is one I work to get all of my students to say.

Today was one of those days that makes you question why on earth you ever thought that teaching was a good idea. The kind of days when your headache starts early in the morning and only gets increasingly worse- the kind of day where you know the kids are only acting out because you're not on your A game, making you irritated at the kids but really frustrated at yourself.

One of THOSE days.

And then, as I was trying to encourage one of my friends to pack up (and he really, really didn't want to) I overheard a conversation happening by the coat rack.

"Help me with this, please," I heard one of my little guys ask. He's in a wheelchair so it's not possible for him to reach out and get his back pack from the hook where it hangs. He needed someone to get his backpack and hold it for him while he put his folder in it. Since I was obviously not going to be available anytime soon he'd chosen a peer, a sweet little girl with her own struggles. 

I watched her struggle confidentially trying to wrangle his folder into his book bag.When was the last time anyone asked her to genuinely help with anything? So many of our kids need help from other people and have so few opportunities to offer help themselves. And it is equally rare that anyone asks them for help- usually they are the ones who need to rely on their general education peers to make it through the day.

She eventually got the folder in to the best of her ability and then turned to get her coat. As she then tried to put it on the first little boy said, "Now let me help you."

And with patience and persistence he tried his hardest to line up her zipper to zip up her coat.

There were no adults anywhere around them. No one to prompt them to use their words to ask for help, no one to tell them how to interact appropriately. For a totally spontaneous and pure moment they helped one another out in their end of day tasks in the most natural manner possible.

I. love. my. job.