Career Plans

I've been thinking about my career lately. It's not a career I truly anticipated upon graduating from college, but I was open to the possibility. I found, early on, that it was the right path for me to take. Now I worry that it isn't.

I'm not dissatisfied with the work that I do. I love teaching. I love helping young people mature through study, discussion, and practice. I love seeing them achieve more than they thought possible.

Rather, I find the constant cuts and changing measures of success problematic. If the target is always moving, it's difficult to plan. I know that, in life, targets are always moving, but sometimes in education, they aren't. The stakes are simply changed in an effort to suggest that students are not advancing. This means, in short, that if you raise the standard that has been accepted for years as "minimum," schools will no longer be considered effective, even though the graduates may be able to critically think about the world and apply all of the necessary skills for study for work. It comes down to dollars.

The reasons I am considering leaving this field have to do with money and expectations.

The money issue is quite simple. I can barely afford to pay my bills now, and I live very frugally. I often go without things I know I need because I know that I cannot afford them. It has taken a toll through the years. There are more cuts expected - not because we have fewer students but because legislators seem to think that public school teachers have been earning too much. My ten-month salary in no way resembles what others earn in ten months in any other field with my level of education. I am required to take classes, earn additional certifications and degrees, but I have to pay for them out of my own pocket. I have to attend conferences, etc., on my own dime. I am not given adequate resources in the classroom, so I have to purchase them with my own money. I bring most of my work home with me so that I can finish what is impossible to complete during my workday. I do not receive compensation for this. I've done the research, and I'd actually earn more per year in a variety of different fields for which I am qualified. I'd have to give up the two-month "vacation," every summer, but I end up having to take classes, anyway, so it's really not a vacation at all. Oh, my retirement actually won't exist by the time I am old enough to retire, despite having purchase the five-year's credit because my first five years of teaching were not in this system.

The second reason has to do with expectations. All expectations for student success are placed on teachers - NOT administrators, school board members, parents, or the students themselves. I may see a student for a total of five hours each week, if they have good attendance, and I have to compete with cell phones, socializing, etc. I do the best I can. I show up early and stay late (very late most of the week). I give up my lunch break when students need extra help and will not show up outside of school hours. I put responsibility on my students' shoulders. This is now frowned upon by school leaders and parents. I want to be part of the good fight, but when I am expected to somehow teach (raise) someone else's child without some sort of support, it makes me distrust the entire system.

I don't know if this is just an especially bad year or if I really should be venturing back out into the career fairs, etc. I am thinking, though, that something's got to give. I don't know how much more I can take.

At least music is taking over my life again. I might be well-practiced enough to audition for a small professional orchestra somewhere. I could be okay with a 10-hour a week gig, with concerts, if I have another decent-paying job that will allow me to do that.