since graduating from teacher's college, many people have asked me how everything went and what's in store for the future. i've started to struggle with how to answer them, because i had a change of heart.
during grade 10 Gideon winter retreat, steve hawkins was the speaker and one anecdote was particularly memorable to me (or i THINK i was from then). stores like walmart usually have a greeter at the door to greet customers. "hi how are you doing today sir? welcome to walmart". the usual response? "good" or "okay" or "i am fine, thank you". these are expected responses and no one would bat an eye with these responses. and that's because deep down when people ask that question, they don't actually care about how these strangers are doing. so if a person truly takes the question seriously and responds to the greeter with "i'm really not doing so good right now. the job market's been so tough, and my mom recently passed away, and my siblings won't help with the funeral work so i have to do all of it while juggling my kids and trying to put food on the table and..." and so on. the greeter would be taken back and would not know how to respond. because the greeter is already expecting the usual responses. in a world littered with trivial pleasantries, i never liked the truth that people generally don't mean what they say when they ask how they are. something for everyone to think about.
i found myself in similar situations where i would be the one providing the unexpected response, it was up to me to deftly handle the awkward moments. how do you tell someone that you quit your job to go to teacher's college and then you don't want to be a teacher anymore? how do you respond to all the "what the hell is wrong with you?" faces that i was bound to receive?
it's well known to most people that my attitude towards school had become one where school was considered something already easily conquered and in the past. with such confidence, and my reliance on intuitive smarts, much of my powers of observation could be spent on evaluating the teaching industry and the teaching profession itself, and whether it was truly a good fit for me.
this has become a struggle that i had not anticipated when graduating. a result in completing the degree meant opening an addition door for me, but it's become that now i may have too many doors to choose from.
my strengths in teaching
-content knowledge
-ability to discover root of a student's learning struggle and address it directly
-creating some decent lessons, depending on the topic
benefits of teaching
-summers off
-satisfaction of helping kids learn and contribute to paving their future (but it's quite a momentary feeling)
-early end of school day
-utilize what i know to be a spiritual gift of mine (teaching)
-chance to help kids mature (these opportunities are a LOT harder to come by than you would think)
-a place where you don't have to hide your real personality with professionalism (to a certain degree)
-part of a union?
obstacles encountered and foreseen
-classroom management and disciplining (behavioural issues from students)
-dealing with immaturity, impoliteness and other stupid crap
-lack of control of the type of students you deal with and the courses you will teach
-less than ideal paper management (inputs almost always come in mass paper form)
-administrative juggling coupled with constant interruptions, generally requesting to fight fires that are out of your control (students asking you pointless stuff while you're occupied)
-early start time with virtually no flexibility
-required accountability of your lesson plans/long term curriculum planning towards school administration in addition to the required accountability of your student behaviours and results to parents
-competition in the field
-the interview process and the focus on education jargon instead of your ability to teach content
-the amount of time required to do lesson planning and marking (worked from end of 3pm to 1am once)
-the amount of time required for all these things to change (approximately 5 years)
-no vacation time during the school year?
-money?
that's as complete of a list as i've made on paper. once i had a conversation (among many conversations) about not pursuing teaching, and he said "some of those reasons are just shit that you have to suck up and deal with." my response was "and it is my choice as to what type of shit that i want to deal with".
so what happens now? one last post.
