Exactly 1 year ago today I was considering quitting teaching altogether. I was looking at qualifications for 9-5 non-teaching jobs. I had just emailed my now-current school in Germany for the first time (with zero expectation of a response). I can’t believe so much has changed in 1 year. It’s even weirder how all the changes feel so normal now.
How do I know it was exactly 1 year ago? No, I didn’t mark my calendar. Thanks to the app TimeHop, I was reminded of a text conversation I had with a friend on this day last year. She asked how the new school year was. This was my answer:
“I hate that question this year…my typical answer when people ask is ‘it’s fun but exhausting!’ My real answer though is I cry or hold back tears every day after school and I have this weird form of depression [where I feel like I’m contributing to what’s wrong with the school system] and feelings of hopelessness and my anxiety makes me nauseous and unable to sleep well.”
When people who aren’t from the USA ask me about how my teaching experience was before moving to an international school, there’s no way for me to even sum up the issues I was having. There were so many factors and not anything specific at fault. How can I blame the kids if society has allowed them to develop bad habits and attitudes? How can I blame their previous teachers/schools if they had been feeling the same pain and having issues similar to what I had? How can I blame the parents if they’re single moms working 3 jobs, still not making a livable wage, and aren’t home to ask about their childrens’ day at school? How can I blame Common Core if teachers and parents aren’t properly trained on the purpose and advantages of the new curriculum and don’t have the opportunity to fairly judge it and/or embrace it? How can I blame myself if students have low math skills and little to no approaches-to-learning skills (IB buzz word!) and I’m expected to teach the weakest high schoolers algebra?
Sometimes I feel weak for leaving the public school system. I think I’m ruined to ever go back. Mostly I feel lucky for landing an international job because I am so happy at my school. The problems here feel much more tackle-able (is that even a word?) and I feel hopeful when I try innovative lessons or new strategies. I could go on but I won’t bore you by bragging about my school 😜
Maybe I sound dramatic and maybe I’m generalizing a bit too widely about the American public schools, but surely there’s a reason why “teacher burn out” is a crisis and too many new teachers leave the profession within their first 5 years. Maybe I would have a completely different perspective if I had been teaching at a different school; maybe not. Maybe I wouldn’t have discovered my newfound teaching philosophy until years later.
The majority of people who go to these schools in the USA turn out just fine I suppose, but it truly is a different world and atmosphere than what I’m experiencing now – I’m talking about the atmosphere among the students, but of course for the teachers as well. I now believe it’s possible to get students to enjoy school, to love to learn, and more importantly, to be curious about the world around them. One of the most significant goals of my job is to not be needed – it’s to help students develop the skills necessary in order to become their own teachers, and each others’ teachers. This certainly isn’t an easy task for me or for students…but now I believe it’s possible.
Teaching and Learning in the Journey of Life 