Still, when I opened an email this morning from a coworker that warns of a script that the new district administration plans to implement, for the first time I seriously considered leaving the profession. This year has been a difficult one. Our district has an all-new top administrative team and they are very different from what we have had in the past. Teachers across the state are, of course, growing increasingly frustrated with the changes, requirements, testing, evaluations, et cetera, ad nauseum. I recently asked my mother, who is more than 35 years into her career as an educator, if it's really "that bad," or if it's just my current perspective. I've heard other veteran teachers say they don't stress every new initiative, because they've seen so many come and go, and my mom echoed those sentiments. I don't have the benefit of decades in the school system, but I do have 8 complete years as perspective, and I can definitely say that this year is different. Maybe it's the new administration (district and school). Maybe it's Common Core. Maybe it's the fact that we allot more than 140 out of our 180 student contact days for some sort of testing. Maybe it's the possibility that I will be expected to teach my lessons from a SCRIPT. Whatever it is, it's too much.
I am ONE person. I am responsible for 120 children of varying interests, backgrounds, socioeconomic situations, native languages, levels, skills, and abilities. I am expected to write rigorous and engaging lesson plans which are implemented bell-to-bell, and assign meaningful tasks that assess higher-order thinking skills and accurately reflect the learning that happens in my classroom. I am expected to have at least 2-3 assignments in the grade book each week, in a timely manner, and contact parents of students who are not performing adequately, or who are behavioral problems, or who have too many absences. I am expected to know, off the top of my head, which students get which accommodations, which students have language difficulties, which students are levels 1, 2, and 3 for FCAT, which are "on the bubble"--either close to achieving the next level or at risk of backsliding to the previous level, which students are homeless, hungry, sick, upset, angry, or depressed. I am expected to attend parent conferences and faculty meetings and trainings and Professional Learning Community gatherings either during planning or after school. I am expected to administer and proctor tests. I am accountable for how my students perform on those tests, regardless of whether they ate breakfast this morning, or broke up with a boyfriend/girlfriend, or their parents are divorcing, or their fathers deployed for Afghanistan yesterday, or they just stayed up too late last night and now they're going to sleep instead of taking the test. I have to write down my teaching certificate number on my training acknowledgement form, because if something goes wrong during the test, I might lose my teaching credentials.
I am ONE person, and there is no way on this earth that I can do all of this between the hours of 6:45 a.m. and 2:35 p.m.
That means that I am working FAR beyond the hours for which I am paid. Currently, I have three boxes of projects and assignments waiting to be graded. Some of them are summer reading projects, some are homework, some are class work. Some are vocabulary worksheets (quick and easy to grade, but a pedagogical "no-no") and some are essays (which, even graded holistically, take 2-3 minutes each). I rarely leave work before 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and I only leave then because I have to pick up my own children from their daycare. Sometimes I drop them off with a family member and keep on working. My daughter asks me sometimes when I'm putting her to bed whether Mommy has to "go do work" before I can go to sleep, because she's heard me say that so often.
Yes, I'm ranting. And yes, to anyone who hasn't spent time in a classroom, I sound self-pitying. But teachers...they will get what I'm saying. I don't have the time to spin out the analogies between teachers and doctors/lawyers/dentists/whatever, and I think we've all heard them enough by now. I don't have time to argue, or rage, or rant, or vent...none of those things are working. Nothing is changing, at least, not for the better. Instead, I feel as if I am approaching a crisis--do I stay, or do I go? I'm afraid to tackle that question head-on, or even to think about it for too long. I'm terrified of the answer.
