Tip on the essays: quit writing on them. Grade them holistically and just write a grade on the top. Then, offer tons of extra credit for kids to come in and go over the essays with you. The ones that don’t come in would not have read/applied the comments anyway, so you were wasting your time with those, and the ones who do come in will benefit a thousand times more from five minutes of you pointing out what was weak and strong about their essays than they would have from reading scrawled comments.
In general, remember that your job is to teach, not to grade. Grades are, AT BEST, a weak tool: being super-anal about them will not make all that much difference in student learning. Having the extra time to tutor and lesson plan is MUCH more valuable.
As far as being “tough”, I have made my classes easier and easier over the years and my test scores (and enrollment numbers) keep going up and up.
I agree with the majority. Finish the school year. First of all, you’ve already quit the cable installation job because you hated it. You can quit this one, too, but who’s to say you won’t hate sales just as much when you get into it? And you won’t have a teaching certificate to fall back on. And you might love teaching in a nice middle-class Midwest school with kids who, if not eager to learn, at least understand they need to do well on their SAT. Besides (and this might seem an outdated concept), you made a commitment to teach through the end of the year. Do you want to leave them in the lurch?
Most insurance plans have a cap on your maximum out of pocket expenses. What’s the most you can owe?
If you really want to start looking, start in the Spring with a start date of June 1st.
I agree with the consensus: stay until the end of the year. Having said that, there is no harm in sending out your resume and even interviewing. If you and they are interested, tell them you can’t start until the end of May.
I’ll also second the idea that you don’t really hate teaching. It sounds like you like it, you just need to develop your assignments and grading so that they aren’t such a burden on you. In addition to one holistic grade, you might also consider an essay rubric. Just circle the grade for each concept, then total it up.
Finally, this is the hard part of the year. It’s no longer new, but you can’t yet see the light at the end of the tunnel. I wouldn’t be surprised if, by June, you didn’t think that teaching was the job for you.
Considering this is my fifth year of teaching, I’d be shocked if I changed my mind about this.
I am staying through the end - I’ve been working on getting certification in Michigan for too long to give up now. However, I know the market back there sucks, and I think I’m done with this career after this year. While I like a lot of the job, I dislike enough of it to leave. Plus, I’ll have two kids by June - I can’t afford to give them the life I want to give them in this career.