I've had this post sitting as a draft for a long time now. It's so hard to put into words what my teaching experience was like last year. I do want to try, though.
I'm still formulating in my head what my experience last year was. What was its purpose in my life and the life of my family? What did I learn? Would I do it again? Was my life easier or harder last year by adding this other dimension to it? I think the answers can be complicated.
One of the main things I learned last year was just how hard teaching is, and just how hard teachers work. My perspective has been drastically changed in that regard and now anytime I talk to a teacher, whether of my own children or others, I can't help but feel deep sympathy and just amazement at their ability to do it so well. It's funny because I was only teaching part-time, I only one prep, as they say, meaning only one class to prep for, and still--teaching is hard! It's hard for many reasons. It can be emotionally and physically exhausting. I was teaching high school and I still hardly ever sat down for those hours. Not only that, but I felt constantly pulled in different directions by the needs of my individual students. I was frequently hearing from them things like, "I've been raising my hand for forever, Mrs. Atkin!" or "You forgot to get me that [assignment/whatever] I asked for!" I am sure certain class procedures and management skills could help with this but not entirely. It felt like being a parent, but magnified to 25-30 kids. Some kids don't say a word, and some of those are the ones you worry about the most, but the saying is true when you only have a limited amount of time--the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Teachers that come home to families after work, and spend their whole days meeting the needs of others, whether students or children, these are the ones that amaze me. It requires so much patience and mental/emotional energy. Teacher burn-out is real. They need those days off.
I now find teacher memes I see on facebook hilarious. Like these:
Ah, good stuff.
But how was teaching for me? It was hard, yes. But it was also very fulfilling. I really truly loved the kids. Some were highly annoying and disrespectful at times, but I did love all of them. Something about loving those you serve, maybe. Sometimes they made me worried for the future of our society. Some of the things they would talk about when they didn't think I could hear were quite shocking and made me scared for my own kids to go to high school. Still, I remember plenty of junk like that when I was in high school. It may have gotten a little worse overall but the majority of kids were good and staying out of trouble for the most part. Some of the most troubled were actually some of the nicest to me. One boy was always very respectful and willing to do anything I'd ask. He ended up in juvenile detention for drugs. That made me sad. Another two boys were both frequently absent and always talking about how they'd drop out of school. But, they were both so fast at calculating things in their heads. They were both so smart but they'd gotten used to being the joker or the slacker that they'd forgotten (or never knew) how to be good students. I could see that so many of the kids just needed someone who loved them and believed in them. These kids make me sad that I left after only one year.
And then there the 16 year-old boy who was unfailingly kind to me. He'd bring his guitar into class and play Blackbird. He was smart, too, and a fairly good student. He talked about living with family friends (maybe his home life wasn't so great, like many of my students) and that if he wanted to stay there he needed to keep his grades up. He worked at Burger King and was a track star for the school. I found out soon after school got out that he and his girlfriend had been killed in a car accident while he had been driving. That broke my heart, and I know many of the other students' hearts as well. He was one of those kids that was friends with everyone.
There was the girl, one of my best students, who came back to visit me frequently after she finished the trimester in my class. She was so kind and played the flute in the band. There was the boy who was so smart and would make a great politician. He was interested in the primaries when no one else really was and would ask me what I thought of Donald Trump. I would assure him that there was no way Donald Trump would get the Republican nomination. Sadly, I was so wrong. He, and many other Latino students, were genuinely afraid of what would happen to them if Trump became president. This particular student was involved in the most tense situation I had in my classroom. Another student, one of my most disrespectful, made a stupid racist remark about a green card to this student. He got very upset and was ready to fight. Thankfully, I was blessed with extreme calm in that moment and was able to diffuse the situation. They were friendly again before long. It made me so sad to have to fail that future politician when he gave up on the class, even though he definitely could have passed (it really wasn't hard, sadly; minimal effort was all that they had to show). Still, I'd see him in the halls later and he was always kind. He became a barrier breaker (translator helper for kids who didn't speak English).
I could go on and on about all these students. They were great kids. But if I do this will be way too long.
The biggest factor that led me to not continue on with teaching was that it just felt so unsustainable. Knowing that it would be a challenging year, we cut way back on a lot of things as a family. We didn't sign our kids up for any extra-curricular activities until spring. We let some things slide: ate with a lot of paper plates, bought a lot more school lunches and ate out a lot more. With Marsha living with us, the cleanliness of our house didn't suffer too much. She was constantly doing dishes for us. Still, a lot of things felt bare bones. Yet, we were so stressed most of the time. I think some of the problem for me was that I didn't have much child care. I only had babysitting after Nate was sent to kindergarten and for the time that I was actually at the school. This meant that I had to do all of my prep/grading for school in the mornings, evenings, or on weekends. Mostly I did it in the mornings, because I was exhausted in the evenings, and I hated that the boys would watch a ton of TV so I could get it done. Having some extra child care might have helped, yet I loved the time I had dropping Nate off at the bus stop every day and that we could all eat lunch together every day. When I thought about continuing with work the next year, with only Eli at home, I just didn't want to miss the precious last two years with him before he is off to school. He would have been fine, but I just didn't want to miss it.
Of course, now that I'm in the middle of my time with him at home, it is so easy to forget how I felt last year. It is hard to work and it is hard to stay at home, for different reasons. It was actually really good for me to have to get showered and dressed in work clothes every day last year. It can be hard to be self-motivated sometimes when you're at home all day. I often feel pulled in a hundred different directions about what should take priority and what I should accomplish each day. I know you can feel the same way at work, too. It really was good for me to have a mental outlet while I was teaching, too. One of my favorite things that I implemented was a conversation starter each day after their warm-up. My goal for that was just to expose the kids to some of the applications or just plain cool things about math. So, even if they decided they still hated math, they might at least come to recognize it's usefulness, beauty or importance. It was sometimes a pain to have to do the research for these, on top of everything else, but it gave me a chance to share something I'm passionate about and that was really good for me.
Now, on to some pictures finally after this novel I've written...
One of my favorite activities I did that I think actually helped somewhat to teach the principle of skew lines (lines in 3 dimensions that don't intersect but aren't parallel) was making marshmallow/toothpick structures and then they had to mark two skew lines. Some of the kids were quite creative. Here are some of my favorites:
One of my very favorite projects was one that I borrowed from another teacher. She did a kite project with her Geometry students and I thought it sounded like fun, especially in windy Idaho in the spring. They kids had to plan out the designs of their kites, answering certain questions, and then they made them with thin dowels and garbage bags. We had a lot of fun, and learned a little bit, too.
One boy, who had only recently come from Mexico and spoke very little English (although that didn't stop him from singing constantly in class--he was not shy; he totally reminded me of a Latino Joe :), made this AMAZING kite. Apparently he would do it all the time in Mexico. He brought his own fabric for a kite tail and sent his hexagonal kite up in the air. Everyone was amazed with how high it went. Just look:
We used 6 rolls of kite string seeing how high it would go! We had fun calculating how high it was based on that using our trig functions (I can't remember how high that was now). We needed to come back inside for the end of school so we tied it to a post. Sadly, when I got back outside after school someone had cut the string. I guess they couldn't resist the urge. So, I feel bad that we littered but it was still an amazing feat.
Kite day:
I got some nice notes on the last day of school:
This one meant a lot, too:
That boy didn't have a lot of math confidence although he was smart and well-spoken (although crude most of the time). I hope he gained some confidence.
Now the question: would I ever teach again? I think so. I'm not sure if I'd ever teach high school again. Possibly. It was just so hard to motivate the kids to want to learn or do anything really. The high school drop-out rate is high there and the percentage of kids that go to college is low, although it is improving. All of that just made it feel so much like babysitting and trying to drag kids along that don't want to be dragged. The potential for really making an impact is big, but it is so draining and I would have to develop better motivational skills because I was seriously lacking. I'd much prefer to teach higher level math, too, at a community college perhaps (although I've heard it's not much better). We shall see.
One thing that I learned is so important, at least for me and for our family, is having one person in the family that isn't tied to a rigid schedule and that has some flexibility with their time. That has been me for so many years and we all missed that a lot last year. I just felt that the overall feeling in our home was much more rushed and stressed. Maybe eventually it would help us to be a little more organized and punctual but last year it just made us all stressed out.
Anyway, overall it was a great experience that I'm so glad I took. I want to set an example of doing hard things and seizing great opportunities for my kids so they will want to do the same. I want to live a full life and not regret passing up opportunities to grow.
I feel really blessed to have a husband and children that were willing to make sacrifices so that I could have this opportunity. I'm especially thankful for Joe's support. He inspires, comforts, and encourages me. I'm so thankful for the time I have now to be home with my kids and Joe makes that possible. He's the best. :)
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