Going Back to Teaching?

Hello, my friends.  

I've had a few people ask me recently-ish whether I want to go back into teaching again.  In my own words (because I'm not sure what else I would use) I do want to put something out there as to my thoughts on this.  

Firstly, I want to identify why I didn't go into it in the first place, despite successfully receiving my degree.  Shortly before Andy and I were married, I was doing a lot of substitute teaching, with some retail work thrown in there.  The substitute teaching included Clinton, Heyworth, Bloomington (Dist 87), and Olympia, so I had a fair smattering of experiences between these different places, hoping that one of these would turn into something full-time.  The plan was that we were going to get married at the end of May, have the bowel resection surgery to better my Crohn's symptoms (since there were parts so constricted that they couldn't even put the camera through), recover over the summer, and be back in the classroom in the fall.  That plan emphatically did not work out, since the bowel resection did not go as smoothly as planned (more info here).  While I was recovering that summer, I had two separate offers for long-term subbing for individuals that were going to be out for maternity leave, the kind of experience/presence in a district that could certainly be a leg up in applying for a full-time position--once I realized that I genuinely couldn't take care of myself for eight hours, let alone a classroom of students, I had to turn both of these down.  I consoled myself that this simply wasn't the time.

After the recovery from the second reversal surgery, I was working part-time at Bath & Body Works while Andy was working at Skyward.  We talked about how he might feel if I were to apply, if it would be okay to work at the same place, and ultimately I decided to apply.  The reasons included but were not limited to the following:  I would be at a desk for the first six months or so, where I could better balance my energy while recovering but still be productive; it would make me look good to school districts if I elected to go back to teaching; I would still be teaching, just a different subject matter and age group than I was expecting; I would have my finger on the pulse of trends in education, based on my exposure to many school districts; and, more importantly, it was work that interested me and I felt I would be very successful in.  

Skyward has been good to us on a number of levels, particularly in their flexibility with my medical needs, but I won't deny that it can be a mentally exhausting job, particularly over the summer when schools are trying to make all of their changes for the new school year.  And as I grew confident in what I was doing, I felt much more assured that I could really do this.  I also saw firsthand how a lot of Illinois schools opperate, which I will elaborate on shortly.  Between these two main facets, I felt my desire to get back into the system slipping away.

I have a few friends who are or were teachers.  We've talked about a number of different things, trends in education and the unexpected burdens in addition to the basic understanding of developing and teaching lessons with their respective grading.  A couple of the newer teachers who found full-time employement found that their position was entirely uncertain from year to year.  As the low folk in the hierarchy, they were given the classes that no one else had yet taken in that department, possibly new classes year after year, if they were kept, and creating a new class from scratch is no easy feat--if you're teaching the same class again, at least there's something to start from.  So sometimes they were only a week ahead of the material they were teaching.  This is in addition to all of the club activities that they also expected to proctor and a heavy schedule of events to chaperone.  And with the funding concerns for education in the state of Illinois, the school couldn't afford much of a salary either, and these individuals, of course, had the student loans of a millennial, the mortgage payment without a house to show for it.  Yes, we've always been told it's not a field that you go into for the money, but there still has to be enough to pay the basics.

I feel my ire and disgust rise every time I hear someone refer to teachers as "glorified babysitters."  Summers are not a paid vacation--they can be mandatory summer school hours or professional development requirements that couldn't be squeezed in the school year itself and otherwise long hours trying to get ahead of developing an entire new class worth of material and pay for elements of it out of their own pocket.  Why would you continue to work somewhere where you're not appreciated and not adequately compensated for your level of education/expertise in a field?  Or a position where the lack of other employees hired means that you have to carry all of that missing work, subbing for your coworkers instead of having a planning period because there aren't even any substitutes?  How long until you burn out or find a position that may be outside of your passion but at least pays you?

Is it any wonder that there is a nationwide shortage of teachers?  

When people have asked me if I would consider going back into teacher, I've stuck to the answer of "not in Illinois."  There are some additional things to mention in this case.  These components are mostly from my own experience and the experiences of others, but here are some of the themes I've found.  

• The budget crisis:  I had one school ask me if there was a way to build an entire "back-up" schedule, just in case they wouldn't be able to fund any of their programs for the next school year, because they were wholly uncertain if they would get sufficient funding from the state.  Some schools weren't even sure if they could stay open.  Most of these in poorer areas, of course.
• How schools are paid for in this state:  since the state pays for schools based at least in part off of property taxes, areas in wealthy districts have a lot more money to work with.  Poor schools stay poor, even if they have more people, spreading out their resources more thinly between their students.  Rich districts have more resources per student and tend to feed back in on itself. Additionally, if you were a teacher in the suburbs, you might be doing just fine paycheck-wise, but trying to live in an expensive place, meaning that working at one of these districts may be out of reach in the first place if you don't have enough money to start with.  And then no one is applying to work in districts that really need them, coming down to the bare mathematics.  Poverty begets poverty, cycling back in on itself.  There are still schools in this state without WiFi.  There are still schools in this state without air conditioning.  There are schools with crumbling buildings but an iPad per student because of specific Apple grants--they have trouble feeding students lunch, but at least everyone has a tablet.  In a week, I could travel to one school that has two lunch options (specifically "take it" or "leave it") and another one where they have professional chefs and nutritionists on staff and have a pizza chain bring in pizza every Friday.  The cafeteria disparity is just a more obvious disparity, but there are many more subtle differences.  I have seen outdated textbooks held together by duct tape and prayers.  I have seen classrooms with forty students when there should only be around twenty-five.  I have seen districts that truly need more office staff but cannot afford to hire a second body or rely on a retired someone to help out occasionally.  I have seen schools with no kinds of programs to earn students college or vocational credit.  I have seen students sitting on a chair against the wall because they ran out of working desks.  And I have seen some districts where the students want for nothing.  As long as this funding is based off of property values, there is a huge inequity in our state. 

I know a number of teachers that have left education.  I know a number that have stayed on.  I don't judge either--there are good reasons on both sides.  To anyone thinking, "well, just pick a different state, then," I find that teaching teachers how to track all of the elements that they have to track for state reporting, as well as local policies for their lesson plans, and how they can reply back to parents demanding an explanation for a zero on work their child refused to do, well, I confess I'm a fair bit jaded toward the business side of education as a whole right now.  Illinois might have some specific issues, but the teacher shortage is a nationwide issue, with all of its relevant symptoms.  

The shortage of teachers itself puts more stress on the teachers that are there, meaning that there are more duties spread out amongst fewer people.  I could handle that for a short period of time, but I also don't want to be in a place where we cannot set realistic, healthy boundaries from the start.  Regarding the overall attitude toward teachers in general--a specialist who has gone to school and seen hundreds of clinical hours to get to that point--this societal impression subtly alters many interactions, and I reject the idea that people in certain positions (be it teacher or janitor or fast food worker) "deserve" to be poor.  These positions are a vital part of our society, and we rely on them to keep things moving smoothly.  Specifically for teachers, I can't think of any other position that requires this much schooling for this little pay or appreciation.  We need to break this way of thinking.

I loved talking about biology and literature and writing and watching students pick up on those concepts and apply them.  I loved nurturing their thinking and encouraging them and meeting them as people.  But for myself, the math of our budget, my overall comfort with where I'm at right now, and my distaste of that bureaucracy, well, my goals have shifted with it.  I'm avoiding burnout before it happens.  (Plus my license has expired.)  I will always be teaching, no matter what I end up doing, because I can't help myself.  That could be here, that could be a coworker, it could be a client, but I will always be using the skills I have learned to teach wherever I can.

If you would like to find out more about the teaching shortage, I would direct you to WGLT's ongoing series about the subject for some additional perspectives.  See also Time Magazine's recent article.