In a moment of boredom, homesickness, frustration and exhaustion, I googled "I want to quit teaching". The phrase isn't important. I probably google at least 20 big and small ideas a day for no better reason that to see what comes up. What is really interesting is how many other people had googled the same phrase.
Who are these people? High School teachers? College instructors? Are they in North America? Are they potential or new teachers or those ready to retire? Are they the disillusioned, the tired, the burnt out? And really, why had I typed it?
It leads me to question what is wrong with the job because clearly, something is. I don't buy the line that teachers are spoiled and if they only worked a week in corporate, they would realize how easy they had it. That's BS. I've worked corporate, and even when we were working 24 hour shifts, there was always a day off in sight and usually a cash bonus as well.
I remember business lunches, happy hours and real, REAL, 3-day weekends, bbqs with friends, naps, reading novels, getaways, and having energy left on Sunday afternoon for some last minute merry-making before the work week. I remember having energy to have passions -- and hobbies. I remember leaving my work at my desk and walking away, every day, to go home, to a real life.
The myth with teaching is that your job is the real life, that you are supposed to be energetic and passionate about lesson planning, pedagogy, lines of student conferences and stacks of in-class essays. There is no life outside of "work" because you love what you do and do what you love.
And yet we burn out, marriages fail, we lose our lives completely until there is nothing left but the wold of the teaching institution. If we are lucky, we make it to retirement, a dry, shriveled husk, sapped of our inspirations. We then work part time (for lack of anything else to do -- after all teaching is all we know) until we die in our beds surrounded by ungraded blue books.
And of course by "we", I mean English instructors.
Don't get me wrong. I have days where a kind word from a previous student makes my day. Or when I see the light bulb go off in a student's eyes and I know they "get it" - they see the connection and their own potential. Those are good days. But I'm not sure they are enough to sustain a lifetime of living only two months out of the year. I'm not satisfied with those little dried tubors of existence.
For some instructors it is blasphemous to say that teaching is just a job.
But it is my job. It is not my life.
And yet we burn out, marriages fail, we lose our lives completely until there is nothing left but the wold of the teaching institution. If we are lucky, we make it to retirement, a dry, shriveled husk, sapped of our inspirations. We then work part time (for lack of anything else to do -- after all teaching is all we know) until we die in our beds surrounded by ungraded blue books.
And of course by "we", I mean English instructors.
Don't get me wrong. I have days where a kind word from a previous student makes my day. Or when I see the light bulb go off in a student's eyes and I know they "get it" - they see the connection and their own potential. Those are good days. But I'm not sure they are enough to sustain a lifetime of living only two months out of the year. I'm not satisfied with those little dried tubors of existence.
For some instructors it is blasphemous to say that teaching is just a job.
But it is my job. It is not my life.
My life is deeper, richer, more meaningful and most importantly, it's waiting. But for how long?
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