the future teacher
i have had quite a few people ask me for advice on being a teacher. they really are interested and excited about becoming a teacher, and it’s nice to see. but i don’t know why they’re asking me for advice–i’m the wrong person for that!!!
i just ran into my sister’s sister-in-law who happily told me her daughter decided to “follow in [my] footsteps” and become a teacher. i smiled but inside i was like gosh, what is she thinking? 
she thought she might like to teach high school, but after doing some t.a.ing, she decided she’d rather teach elementary.
i want to be encouraging, but really? i just can’t muster it up any more. i had 3 cousins all tell me the same thing as they were going through college–i’m going to be a teacher like you. and now? all of them hate it! one dropped out of the program, one just graduated, but then took an office job, far away from the school setting. the third one, and the one who is like a sister to me, because my mom helped raise her, is in her first year and is hating it. i get almost daily emails about how she hates it so much. and i don’t know how to be any more encouraging, because truthfully, i agree with her. there is a lot of junk that has nothing to do with teaching, and you’re not prepped for in college. but how do i tell new ones that, when they’re so excited to start?!?!
last year we had a whole bunch of new teachers, and they all want to leave now. i felt bad because i don’t think i helped their decisions very much with my negative attitude! 
and now my cousin is hating her first year. i myself think about leaving. and here comes this lady so happy that her daughter is thrilled to be applying to the education program. how can you not show your encouragement and enthusiasm? but then i also don’t want it when she starts, if she does hate it, come back to me like well, why didn’t you tell me?!?!
i don’t know. maybe i should encourage them, so a lot more will apply and graduate and become teachers and take my job 
please!
I think teaching is a “calling” and if you don’t have dat “calling” den you shouldn’t do it because kids see thru it, the “it” thats tells them you don’t care if they learn or not, you just need a paycheck. You know what I mean.
I tawt English for one semester to 10th graders. (go ahead laugh everybody does! LOL including me - I interviewed for an admin assistant position & walked out with a permanent sub contract, go figgah *L*) It was da hardest job I ever had because I took it personally dat da stupidheads didn’t/wouldn’t/neva caya to learn, to me it was like “my fault” dey neva learn therefore I must be a bad teacha. DH had to explain to me that you reach the ones you can and try your best with the others but don’t take it personally cause a lot of the kids I was teaching came from really awful bad dysfunctional homes.
But anyway I think teaching is an awesome and honorable career and if you’re good at it and keep that passion then moe powa to you because you will be rewarded & blessed forever by the success of your students.
November 15th, 2007 | #
Thanks, Lika! I appreciate your comments. I do take things personally, too! And I too work with an area where … well, let’s just say that education is not valued. Kids don’t even want to try because why should they, when they see their parents getting money from welfare when they don’t have an education themselves? They still get something. So school for them is just “going through the motions” and you hope to reach someone to change that thinking but when you don’t, it breaks your heart. I get so down about it, especially when there’s pressures from outside (NCLB) making you have to raise up their scores, no matter what. 100% compliance. *sigh*
But anyway, thanks, Lika. I appreciate your thoughts every time I feel like this! Mahalo!
November 15th, 2007 | #