It's taken me a long time to be anywhere near OK to even accept the desire to write this post. I'm going to be cliche for a second; I had a dream--it was a simple dream really--I just wanted to be an English teacher.
It happened really quickly, and I was loaded down with little more than a ten pound American literature book and a roster full of students. I read through all their names and tried to imagine with excitement what each student might be like when I met them on my first day. I spent exhausting, yet exciting hours, flipping through the pages of great literature planning the book knowledge and life lessons I would impart to my students. I wanted this job more than anything. It was what I had worked so hard for in college.
Maybe I was a bit idealistic when I entered the job. I guess like every new teacher I thought I could quietly shut my door and share my love for literature and life with my students. Of course I knew about the bureaucracy in education before I signed up--I wanted to teach the worst of the worst; I wanted the inner-city school because I had a heart for those kids--they were the ones I wanted to save--they were the ones I wanted to reach--they were the ones I thought needed the loving teacher--and I had all the love in the world to give them. This year my door stayed open everyday.
My principal told me I was in the wrong profession--maybe she's right. It's taken me two months to recognize that maybe I did indeed pick the wrong field--or maybe the field no longer fits me. I guess I knew all along that I didn't really agree with the educational hoops--but what teacher does? We enter the profession because we love kids and we want to help them. We never sign away our lives to 12 hour work days and unimaginalbe bureaucratic stress because of the pay or the great benefits--we do it for the kids. But since when has education been about the kids? Furthermore, since when has education really been about educating students?
I've tried to rationalize what, at the end of the day, I actually taught my students. Like any teacher trying to swim against the current of unsupportive administrators and school systems, I resorted to the dreaded worksheet and audio reading in order to barely survive my classes. I had become the teacher I never wanted to be and it broke my heart. But it made me think--is there room in our educational system for that kind of teacher? Just what do we teach our students? Do we care more about whether or not students can memorize Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" or that these students learn that they have a voice and a responsibility in their own society? Do I care if they know what a noun is, or do I care that they can write a complete sentence? Furthermore, how does a standardized test help ensure that my babies are ready to enter the big world that awaits them? Do we care more as an educational system that these students walk across a stage in four years with nothing more in their arsenal of knowledge than the information they memorized in order to pass a multiple choice test? Did my kids realize they could think for themselves? Not at all. They wanted to rely on the system that they have relied on for 17 years. It broke my heart.
It's been two months since my last day of teaching and I can honestly say that I have lost hope in the educational system of America. Teachers are hard workers, and we give away our lives to foster young minds and inspire future generations. I don't want pity, nor does any other teacher--what we want is support. Support our own education by giving us the authority to teach our students--support our discipline practices in the classroom--support our desire to teach the students who show up everyday with a pencil in their hand ready to learn--but mostly, support us professionals who have accepted the calling to be a teacher. For now, Ms. Lightner is signing off as high school English teacher.
