I suppose I'll call it 'the shift'.
This was me in August 2011. I was new-job bliss happy. For three years of subbing and Grad schooling, I waited and pined for the opportunity to teach in my own classroom. In early August, the principal of my favorite school granted me that opportunity, and as you could see on my face in that post, it made my Summer.
This was me in the days following that post. I felt "on my way" to my real life beginning. To waking up with purpose, and setting off to a job I love, and feeling fulfilled by my workday's end, and coming home & cooking, or crafting, or biking, or jogging, or dining out with loved ones...
...that is the dream, right? To do the mundane tasks of your day with zeal and enthusiasm. To have work be joy and to have home-life be joy upon joy? That is what I strive for. I think that is what we all strive for.
...and somewhere between the "me" you saw in August and the me who's writing now, there has been a shift.
This shift caught me off guard and has scared the life out of me. Honestly, I'm not quite sure what to do with this shift. You see, I don't think I want to be a teacher anymore.
...and OMG, I feel guilty and horrible for typing that, but in truth, I don't enjoy it. I might even hate it.
I know I'm a good teacher, so it's not that. I love working with children, and mine are a handful, but a funny and lovely bunch, so they're not it. It's...the fact that what I thought teaching was going to be, it's not.
Remember that "dream" I mentioned above...the one we all strive for? I think the issue is that I can't picture my version of that dream happening with the job I currently have. As a teacher, you have no time for ANYTHING. If the job was teaching the kids 8am to 3pm, then all would be well, I think. But I don't feel like I'm teaching them. At 3pm, when I drop them off, I scrounge for things to teach my students (scrounge like on hands and knees looking for materials and books and supplies and help). The way the New York City Board of Ed requires us to teach is impossible. Differentiation is all the rage, and the supporters of it mean well, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to execute, I'm sorry to say. One teacher cannot teach 16 lessons a day. ...and that is essentially what differentiation calls for teachers to do.
Plus without textbooks or workbooks or a set curriculum with which to teach from, teachers in NYC are spending every waking moment not with students searching the web, or visiting the public library, or photocopying homemade worksheets EVERY SINGLE DAY. There is no support. The system wants us to do something, but doesn't tell us how, or help us with how, and it's impossible.
I don't want an impossible job, no matter how much I love the kids. I want some time to love me, too.
Here's the argument that starts, "Well, teachers have Summers off, so..."
Let me tell you after this glorious YAYcation, I am looking forward full-force to this Summer, but in response to that argument I'll say: I don't think it will be enough for me. I don't think I can defend going through 10 months of my year being day-after-day panic and stress and IMPOSSIBILE REQUIREMENTS thrust upon my soul for the promise that two months of my year will belong to me.
The dream My dream is that everyday belongs to me. That my work is my work because it is who I am. Then, when my work is done for the day, I can sit down at dinner and be proud that I represented myself in my work today and decide how I'd like to spend my evening.
I feel duped. I feel that the rush to go to college and the "decide*now decide*now decide*now" mentality cheats our youth out of the dream above. College is just a business anyhow, meant to suck the pockets of the twenty-something population dry. Between my sister and I, we've been to five different colleges. FIVE! All five were the same story. I'd say about 90% of the classes we were required to take were bogus, useless, and a waste of time and energy.
Now, here I am, after about 8 years of college...and I don't kow what to do with my life.
I know what I want my life to be like, but I don't know how to make it so.
So, like I said, there's been a shift. Something happened between August and Thanksgiving.
I went from feeling confident and ready for my real life to begin with my new job that I prayed for and strived for and worked hard for...to feeling clueless and scared and trapped and duped with a side order of burn-out brain.
I went from feeling I finally belong to a profession and I could call myself and feel right calling myself 'a teacher' to not wanting to identify myself with the profession AT ALL. It feels like 'another job' like my waitressing did. ...like another in-between zone I'm in.
I don't feel like my real life has begun because I don't want my real life to feel like this.
I'm stuck. I'm stuck, people, and I don't know what to do about it.
...
I apologize if this post got anybody down. Tee hee! I don't usually like to take life this seriously, but if you have any input or identify at all, I'd love for you to mention it. This shit is CRAZY, and I have a feeling it's happening everywhere.
Let me know what you think.
