On Quitting

(Necessarily vague, because this is an at-least-mostly-anonymous blog.)
Lots of discussion in various forums lately about new teachers quitting, mid- or beginning-of-year. I'm not going to say I never thought about it, because urban teaching is really hard, and sucks in a lot of ways. Yes, the kids can be tough. Yes, the support can be lacking. Yes, the funds are often not there, and the expectations can be unreasonable. Trust me, I know.

But what I always come back to is the message quitting sends to the kids, who are young and impressionable and in a lot of cases already deeply hurt by the world. How can you essentially say to children, "You are hopeless of improvement, so I am abandoning the cause"? They might not be able to articulate to you that this is what they hear, but how else could they interpret it? Especially when they are young, and already prone to the "magical thinking" that they are somehow the cause of everything that happens in their lives. They don't understand things like faculty politics and funding and mentor teachers, but they do understand that they don't always behave themselves, and now their teacher is gone.

Children need to know that they can grow and improve, and that adults believe in their abilities and potential. They learn this when the adults stay and teach them, even when they are challenging.

Not everyone can be happy at every school. But unless there's actual imminent danger, I can't really understand a decision to leave before the end of the school year. This isn't a job you take just for your own happiness.

mini curriculum rant (or, I thought the section heading "Naming Parts of Sentences" meant that we were going to learn to name the parts of sentences.)

OK, look. The words are subject, predicate, and punctuation. NOT naming part, telling part, and end marks. Stop dumbing down the fucking language.

Do you suppose I'll get in trouble if I use the correct words? X_X

"The teachers who burn out are the ones who spend a lot of time reacting to the bureaucratic garbage. So if you have a passion for teaching, you just can't let that stuff get in the way."
-Some video we're watching in seminar. Kind of hit me over the head with a sledgehammer.

Funny where the lifelines come from.

Catch-up and existential angst

It's been almost two months. There have been things to post about in the meanwhile, but I seem to have hit a dry spot, both here and in my personal journal. To catch things up, in the briefest way possible: I'm done with Saturday academy, I've done my two-week student teaching classroom takeover, and there's about a month left until I'm done with my teaching internship. Graduation is May 12.

I'm currently trying to decide whether I will apply to teach in the School District of Philadelphia. I certainly began this program with that intention, but I've gotten progressively less certain as I've gone on. This leaves me with something of a dilemma, and a bit of a guilt complex. Is it selfish of me not to teach urban children because they make me tired? If I do teach in an urban school, and then get burned out and quit, would that be worse than not trying it at all? Is deciding to try to teach in a suburban district for a couple of years until I feel more sure of myself and then trying an urban district a cop-out? If you can't tell, I've spent a large portion of the last two months struggling with this. One way out (which might also be a cop out, but oh well) might be to try to get a job as a German teacher -- these would be suburban positions by default, since the only school in Philadelphia that has a German program would be Masterman, and there's no way a first year teacher is getting a job there. I've actually sent in a couple resumes for German positions, and will probably send more. Ahh cover letters, how I hate thee..

I'm also, as always, feeling like a bit of an odd duck as a teacher. Sometimes this is just differences, sometimes it's a feeling that I'm not up to the standards of the other teachers, that they're judging me and finding me wanting. I wish I could get past the idea that most of the teachers at the school I'm currently working at who know me don't like me. However, there it is, and all I can really do about it is do my best, learn from my mistakes, and try to keep myself out of negative situations. I ate lunch with the other teachers for the first two months, but stopped around the time I did my two weeks "because I had plans to work on." I've just never gone back, and no one's asked why not, which sort of cements my outcast feelings. However, I've never yet had the gumption to address any of this directly, so I suppose I should avoid what is essentially putting words and motivations into other people's minds and heads. At any rate, my co-op teacher seems to like me, and I'm done in a month.

That's all for now, I suppose. In another entry I might list jobs I've applied for... but then again, maybe that's not kosher. I'm still a little fuzzy on the rules of a teacher having a public journal (there's a reason my personal journal is 99% protected). Maybe I'll post them in code.