What's good (or not so good) about being a teacher?

[MandaJo]

@silenus

Manda JO will be along in a minute to really answer your question

This was how I was going to start my post, only about you . . .

This is what I said in a threadabout this a few years back:

@MandaJo

I teach AP English in a medium sized school in a large urban district.

I love, love, love my job. I feel lucky every day that a job exisits wherein my personality quirks are actual strengths.

I love the fact that my job takes every iota of creative problem-solving energy I have.

I love my kids-they are funny and self-centered and earnest and moody and amazingly open. I give participation group credit to kids who host or attend after school discussion groups on controversial topics, and I love just sitting back watching people learn to think-they are clumsy and cute with their brand-new adult brains.

I love warping young minds.

I love starting over every year. New group of kids to laugh at my jokes, new chance to do right all the things I did wrong last year.

I love the fact that I am never, ever, ever bored.

I love the power to make my own decisions-- my room is my world, and I decide how it works.

I love the fact that I get to buy school supplies every year for the rest of my life.

I love that I actually enjoy commencement, because where other people are waiting on one or two names, I get to bite my lip and blink my eyes for a hundred different kids.

I love that I have finally excized all my high-school era ghosts, by firmly putting my adolecence in perspective. Teaching allowed me to finally forgive myself for being young and stupid once.

I love the repsect I get. People say that teaching is not a repected profession, but it really is. People are always interested in what I do, and I can’t tell you how many people–strangers–I have had out right thank me for being a teacher.

I love the vacation time. I work a lot in the summer-no doubt–but it is at a very different pace. I have 14 weeks a year (counting Xmas and Spring Break) to lounge.

I love my fellow teachers–teaching attracts strong personalities, and so confers a certain freedom to be, shall wesay, quirky, that you just don’t have in the work-a-day world.

On the other hand:

I hate the administrative b.s.: the faculty meetings, the in-school trainings, the endless, endless paperwork. But what job doesn’t have these sort of things?

I hate the complete lack of breathing space. I teach six classes a day and have 45 minutes to plan and grade. Short of an emergency, I can’t go to the bathroom between 10:15 and 4:00: theoretically, I could go during lunch, but as lunch is only half an hour (a luxury, up from 25 minutes last year) and the bathroom a five minute walk away, I have developed the infamous teacher bladder.

I hate my other co-workers–the bitter, tired, cynical jerks who hate the job, the school , and the kids, and seem to want to drag me down into their misery.

I hate that you can’t go to the doctor or the DMV without organizing a three-ring circus. I hate that I can’t leave a message with a doctor or lawyer or plumber to call me at work.

The only other thing I would mention is the workload: it’s not a love or hate issue for me–I like to work, but I also like summer. But anyone going into teaching needs to understand about the workload. It is not a 9-5 job–it’s a job, and a hobby, and a second job.

Now, I would add a few other things:

One, schools vary tremendously. And I don’t just mean that you want to make sure you teach in a “good” school–good schools can be the worst for beauracratic BS. You want to be in a school that suits you well, where the particular sort of BS they have is the sort you can take, where they want the type of teacher you want to be.

Two. subject matter varies tremendously. I teach AP Econ now in addition to AP English, and it’s like a completely different job–the same kids a year later are like totally different animals, and teaching a limited set of content is a world away from teaching kids to write.

I will probably think of more later. I really do enjoy teaching.