Teachers, Why Are You Not All Cynical Curmudgeons?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My high school experience suggests that you are saints. Look what you have to put up with:

Unruly, non-compliant sjorks who are there because they have to be;
Constantly changing educational theory and pedagogical emphasis;
Inclusion;
Transfers;
Clueless principals (and principles?);
Parents;
BSD (bigswingingdick) wannabes in training and teenage angst;
Puberty;
Serial romance of teenage bi-polar love/hate;
Special needs and individual instruction;
Polarity between dumb jocks/cheerleadertypes and nerd/geek personalities;
Hormones run rampant;
Education departments. Education boards watching your ‘lifestyle’;
Quiet underachievers;
Whatever.

Gawd, I could go on and on.

How do you maintain your idealism? What mechanisms do you employ to ensure you do not get cynical?

Gotta admire you to pieces. I applaud you for maintaining sanity.

2

Many of us DO become cynicla curmudgeons to one degree or another. Lots of us have nervous breakdowns or assorted mental health ailments. You’d be amazed at the percentage of teachers who are under the regular care of a psychiatrist.

But for those who make it through reasonably well, we learn to use a variety of strategies to keep our life in balance:

Healthy food and frequent exercise
Bitch sessions in the teachers’ lounge
Maintaining an active social life outside of school
Travel, as much as possible to places with not many children. Vegas is popular.
Strong religious beliefs

and other stuff that other teachers will post.

3

Some of us leave the profession and find other work…

Grim

4

Well, it’s certainly possible to be cynical without being a curmudgeon.

Looking at my parents (70 years of public school teaching between the two of them) and my own brief experience in the classroom, I’d say that you’re probably going to lose your idealism no matter what. In the bad cases, the result is angry, spiritually broken sods who either delight in making people just as miserable as they are, or simply don’t care anymore. In the good cases, you get veteran teachers who’ve experienced enough success to savor the feeling, and enough setbacks to know what to be on the lookout for. They know not every day will be great, and some days will be hell, but they’re also able to see the positive effects they have on their students. The idealism gets replaced with the ability to read the students’ needs, navigate the BS, and come up with a strategy that works.

And I never would have believed it before it happened, but getting a letter from a student saying “I couldn’t do this before, and now because of you I can. Thank you,” is one of the most incredible feelings there is.

5

Well, personally, I get’em when they get out of high school…but I’d assume some highschool teachers simply realize the age of their students…and know that they are going through a tough time…I mean come on…Teen years are not generally the best years of your life…

Then again. I am probably being too idealistic :slight_smile:

6

I am not a teacher, but I have a good friend who is a middle-school principal. After listening to his trials and tribulations dealing with both the students and the teachers, I asked him how he does it. How does he “soldier on” so to speak?

He confessed that even though he loves his job, he indeed lost his idealism long ago. The daily frustrations and obstacles were too great. However, he said that while he knows he is not “changing the world” (like many of us children of the 60s thought we’d do), he feels that if he can make a difference in just one child’s life, it is worth all the trouble.

He said “I no longer believe I can do everything. I am content and satisfied to do what I can.”

7

I am a cynical curmudgeon. :stuck_out_tongue:

I focus on the positive things at school, and I help my students (and fellow teachers) out when I can. I don’t get involved in their personal lives, and I don’t take the nasty stuff personally.

The negatives (mentioned in the OP) are pretty bad, and I keep promising myself that I can find another job if I have to. Then I go back for another year and teach some more.

I also enjoy the extra time off that we do get.

8

The General Questions forum is for questions with factual answers. This will be a matter of opinion, so I’ll move this thread to the IMHO forum.

bibliophage
moderator GQ

9

Unruly, non-compliant sjorks who are there because they have to be: Well, everyone deserves a chance. Get out of line in my class a time or two, and you will learn what happens. Keep it up, and you’ll get moved to the behavior unit.

Constantly changing educational theory and pedagogical emphasis: Yeah, well, that’s life. Bullsh*t permeates all.

Inclusion: Not that big a deal if you know what you’re doing, and if the kid is really up to it. Some of my fave kids have been the mainstreamers.

Transfers: Again, yes, a pain, but what’cha gonna do?

**Clueless principals (and principles?) ** Well, yes, but ideally, you don’t work for an asshead. You work for a solid professional who regards himself as the captain of a team, not the CEO of a peonage.

**Parents: ** 95% of parents are just fine. The other five percent are a colossal pain in the butt. Unfortunately, those are the ones you remember, and tell stories about in the teacher’s lounge…

BSD (bigswingingdick) wannabes in training and teenage angst: Ahahahaha. I eat these types for breakfast.

Puberty: Hey, we all gotta deal with this. At least now I know what I’m doing with it.

Serial romance of teenage bi-polar love/hate: Hey, I like it. I especially like it because now I deal with it from outside, not inside. Keeps me young.

Special needs and individual instruction: Hey, this is what I do for a living.

Polarity between dumb jocks/cheerleadertypes and nerd/geek personalities: Look, boys, this is MY classroom. Siddown and shuddup, or pay the price. And grow the hell up already; I ain’t impressed.

Hormones run rampant: Heh, heh. Cheap entertainment.

Education departments: Well, yes, these are a pain. They say those who can’t do, teach… and the DEPARTMENT is made up of those who can’t TEACH!

Education boards watching your ‘lifestyle’: Mm-hm. Come and get me, boys. They who discover the Secret Leather Room under the porch do not leave to speak of it… :smiley:

Quiet underachievers: Not that big a thing. Just keep pluggin’ till you find what the kid’s interested in, then apply fascination. Works every time…

I guess it’s a lifestyle you have to be suited to, hm?

10

Mrs. Kunilou still believes that she can make a difference in at least one student’s life.

That said, she is also keenly aware that she’s eligible for retirement at full pension in 4 years.

11

I am very fortunate. I work full time in a high school and get most of the benefits of working with the young and not too many of the problems. We have a TV studio in our school and I get to run it and help teach a broadcasting class. The only students I deal with on a daily basis want to be there. There have been some that have been a problem, but I have found that I can relate to them without too much difficulty.

I enjoy the kids.   I wear my sense of humor pretty much on my sleeve, and this helps with many of them.   The hours and the stress level are much easier to deal with than working in a TV newsroom as well.

If I was forced to teach a math class to students who didn’t want to be there, I’m sure the stress would be higher…however, I don’t. I sympathize with those who do.

I came to this job with the preconceived notion that teenagers are just “backwards hats and bad attitudes”. I found instead that they are basically the people that they are going to be for the rest of their lives…the only difference being varied maturity levels.

95 percent of them are a joy to be around. I laugh out loud on a daily basis. The other five percent…well, you have to make a paper trail to be able to have them dealt with. They usually disappear one by one anyway…opting for the training program for either jail and the social service system.

FisherQueen used to work with me…and I miss her terribly. That reminds me…I have to replace some of the candles in my bedroom shrine.

12

Teaching is fun. It’s the only job I’ve ever had that didn’t make me watch the clock.

Right now I have a Robin Williams kid in the front row, and a great portion of this hour has been a herculean effort on my part not to crack up, while his sole purpose has been to try to get me to laugh.

And, (at about 3:100) he just asked to use the phone to call home. He had to tell his mom he had a detention, and HE WANTED HER TO PICK HIM UP A HALF HOUR LATE!

She’s a good mom and told him he was a brat [he announced this to the class]and had to walk.

We all laughed at him.

Teaching is fun.

13

Why?

Because every time I hear “Oh, THAT’S why…,” my cynic-ometer drops down a couple of notches.

There’s nothing like that lightbulb going on to give you hope.

My other reason is probably evident in the line I use to end every course’s last meeting of the quarter: “Good luck on finals, and thanks for teaching me so much.”

(And it probably helps that I’m not dealing with most of the HS BS that the OP mentions; some of that is over by the time they hit me).

14

Saint Silenus?..Nah, the Church would never buy it. :smiley:

I love my job! What can I say? You either love what you do, in spite of items 1-15 above, or you don’t. You learn so much every year. Each student is unique, and each student can teach you so much. Like others have said, I live for the little “lightbulb” moments. Over the years, I have perfected the art of delayed-action lightbulbs. You know, the little off-the-cuff lessons that don’t seem to mean anything today, but 5-10 years down the road the students realizes what I have taught them, and they have an “A-HA!” moment. I get letters, I get phone calls. All it takes is seeing the Light of Understanding illuminate a kid, and you lose the cynicism (for at least 5 minutes!)

Besides, you say “cynical old curmudgeon” like it was a bad thing! :dubious:

15

Yes…some of us do leave the field. In fact, the last stat I heard is that over half of all teachers starting their first year teaching leave the field in 5 years. Sorry, no cite.

However, you don’t have the half of it. Most of the items you mention don’t even make it on the RADAR screen for me.

What other field out there…

  • One of the highest stress fields

  • Under large scrutiny

  • Pays very little (in my geographic area anyway - I get sick of hearing them ‘New Jersey’ salaries when mine was less than a third of it)

  • Significant pay increases beyond inflation are far from the norm - your salary does not rise over time

  • The more experience you have (beyond 3-5 years) counts against you because they have to pay you more.

  • No bonuses

  • No promotion opportunities (unless you wish to go back to school and leave the classroom). You do not ‘move up’ to ‘management’ instantaneously even if you are very good.

  • Low social status - for males at least. Ever have someone interested in you until they find out what you do? ‘Teacher’ is not an advantage in the dating scene.

  • You can be replaced instantaneously. I can be replaced at my current job but it would involve risk and large disruption for my company

Have to go but you get the idea.

16

Everyone else is listing the selflessly good stuff about teaching, so I’ll list the not-so-noble benefits. Remember that just becuase I’m listing all my worst motivations doesn’t mean I don’t have better ones: I’m jsut trying to show that it isn’t all self-sacrifice and there is another side.

Kids are a great audience–it’s easy and endlessly rewarding to make them laugh. And you can recycle your jokes every year.

Summers off. Yes, I work a lot in the summer, but still, when you’re hitting the road the first week in June and you suddenly realize that for everyone else this is just another Monday–it’s a hell of a rush.

A chance to really use your creative faculties. Teaching is full time problem solving, and it takes every ounce of your creative energy. I love that feeling. An important corallary to this is that you are never, ever bored. Numb with exhaustion, perhaps, but never bored.

Teaching serves as a legitimate excuse to buy all new school supplies every September for the rest of your life.

A great deal of control. It depends on the subject, the school and the school system, but for me, at least, I decide what to teach in my classroom and when to teach it–as an English teacher, I have to teach certain skills, but the way I teach them and the materials I use are all extremely flexible. I enjoy that.

Admiration of your students. Yes, some kids will hate you and have no compunction about showing it, but others will really admire and respect you, and have no hesitation about sharing that admiration: yes, it’s an ego boost to actually teach a kids something, but it’s also an ego boost when they look at you and cock their head and say “So, you can like, sit down and read a book in one sitting? That’s like, tight.” It’s somehow gratifying when half a dozen kids want to come hang out in your room before school in the mornings because they feel comfortable around you, or when they come by to have you check their outfit before they ask a girl to homecoming, or just walking down the hall and having a chourus of “Hi, Ms. Manda JO”'s follow you. After the AP test this year my students didn’t really have to come back to school that day. Several did anyway, just to tell me how it went–not the contents of the test, which they couldn’t talk about, but what the experience of testing was like for them. They wanted to share it with me. That’s flattering.

Kids are funny. They are funny to watch, funny to listen to, funny to mock in the teacher’s lounge. They amuse me.

You get to start over every year and pass all your mistakes down the line. What other job lets you do this?

Anyway, I don’t endure teaching, or do it to serve the greater good. I love my job. It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitly for me.

17

Manda JO, with your perspective and positive upbeat attitude it is easy to see why you love your job and why the students love you. It is good teachers like you (and others in this thread) which counter-balance the bad things about the educational system in this country.

Even though my kids are now in college I want to say thank you to all you teachers for what you do. My kids were fortunate to have quite a few inspirational role-model type teachers and very few of the hopelessly inept.

I don’t want to hijack this thread at all because there have been plenty of threads on the topic of how to improve our school systems, but if there was one thing I’d like to see changed it is to make it easier to get rid of incompetent teachers.

Until then, you competent ones will have to make up for them. :slight_smile:

18

It’s rapdily becoming “no promotion opportunities at all.” Until the mid-90’s, all the principals and administrators where my parents taught were former teachers. Now they’ve all been replaced with career administrators who have zero classroom experience. Real fun to work under someone whose only concept of what you do is a theory in a textbook.

19

I may be wrong, but I think that administrators in Ohio are required to have classroom experience.

20

Twenty three years ago, I was in 10th grade, and one of my teachers, Mr. Hill, made a comment which has stuck by me all this time. It was a positive comment, made off the cuff, one which I’m sure (looking back) he didn’t really give too much thought before he said it. That comment got me through a lot of tough times, times when I had little self esteem and doubted my self worth. Had it not been for Mr. Hill (and all those other teachers throughout my life), I may not have made it.

My daughter had a teacher in high school, Mr. Baker, who was absolutely fantastic. He was no only her English teacher, but her subsitute father, her friend, her mentor and her guide. Had it not been for Mr. Baker, my daughter would definately have not been the person she is today. He went beyond literature and grammar, and listened to her before class, after class and in between. when time came to nominate a Teacher of the Year Award, Mr. Baker was the first teacher she thought of (and he won locally). Another one of her teachers, Ms. Class, told my daughter that she typically did not come to Natl. Honor Society induction dinners, but made the special trip just for my daughter. It wasn’t MY tears or pride and joy that brought tears to my daughter’s eyes, but Ms. Class’ tears of pride and joy. When my daughter walked across stage at graduation, Ms. Class, and Mr. Baker were both there–and my daughter knew and remembers them both. She’ll still goes to the high school to see them when she’s in town, and they love seeing her.

I’ve worked with kids before in a social services setting, however, I’ll go back to school in the fall to get my Teaching Certification for Secondary Education. I love kids, love to teach, and know that one person, one comment made off the cuff, one minute of stopping to listen, one smile, can make all the difference in the world to someone.