So You Think You Want to Be A Teacher?

When I was a little girl, except for a brief time when my grandfather was sick and I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to be a teacher. My favorite game when I could get my sister or a friend to play, was playing school. I had a blackboard (yes they were black then) and I'd write stuff on it and stick magnetic letters across it and was just sure I was totally brilliant. Also standing up there while the other kids sat down and watched ME was such a rush!
Well I married young, no college, and settled down to raise a family. After twenty years, I found myself divorced and everyone kept asking what my dreams are, and teaching rose back to the surface. I went back to school, chose my major to show my ex I wasn't as ignorant as he thought (math) and after a lot of sacrifice from me and especially from my kids, I got that degree, with honors. Man, I was going to be a wonderful teacher. ha.
My then husband, talked me into using my teaching certificate to open a tutoring center, which I did, because good girls always do what they are told, and I had a lot of tutoring experience throughout my college years. I enjoyed owning my own business, but hated tutoring. I still had that dream of standing up there in front of a real class.
Well, finally I got the chance. A local high school needed a part time teacher, which I could do in the mornings and still run my tutoring center it's normal after school and evening hours, so I took it. Within one week, I was so disillusioned about teaching, I cried! First I had no classroom. I was told I'd have to teach from other teacher's classrooms during their "free periods" which meant I had to switch rooms each class and haul all my junk from room to room. But I think the first day was an omen of things to come. At the "new school year teachers' meeting" one of the "old regulars" listened to me talking and said, "I'll tell you something right now. If you go in there with that soft sweet little voice, they'll eat you alive. They're animals." That's my voice. So then I had to think talk deep, talk stern, which I couldn't do unless I was mad, and I wasn't mad. I was scared!
I quickly discovered new teachers get all the classes no one else will take. The other teachers would ask, "Who got whatshisname? Ohh....ha. ha...she did. Good luck." Yes I got them all. I found out my first day that I had students on probation, students who had taken Algebra IA twice already and still didn't give a crap, and I had some very angry, loud, mean students.
Of course, I thought I could be Michelle Pheiffer in Dangerous Minds. In a week I was determined those hoodlums would love me and I would change their lives forever. After a few days I realized that there are hoodlums in our adult world and it's because some teens just like being hoodlums. And I was their prime target.
I decided I could withstand it. I'd go in determined every day to teach them something, and end up spending my whole time trying to shut them up and sit them down and make them listen. I didn't get to teach. I did get to write on the board but no one cared what I wrote.
After a few weeks, I decided that it was time to pull my trump card. I picked out the ringleaders and called their MOTHERS. Now if a teacher called me to tell me my kid was terrorizing the classroom, well....just ask Plumbtuckered how long they would have lived. So I dialed. I started out saying how I thought her son had such potential. He was smart. He was funny. His only problem was his behavior. She said, "Well good luck. I can't do anything with him at home either." I was whipped.
I went to lunch that day and told one of the nicer teachers I didn't think I could finish out the year. I was tired. I was whipped. She said, Well good luck. They don't let anyone out of their contracts. A big cloud descended and I thought I surely was in hell.
To make a long story short, I did get out of my contract, although it wasn't easy. My precious doctor got me out on a temporary medical leave for depression or stress (can't remember what he wrote) , and then after I got a pulmonary embolism and ended up in the hospital, he extended it to permanent medical leave for the rest of the year. I was free.
In the movie, Shirley Valentine describes her "sweet little dream" and how they are always better when you dream them than when you live them. Now when I hear some young one think they want to teach, I think, "Oh you poor, poor girl...."
The short story I wrote in Letters to my Teacher was a tribute to my sixth grade teacher, who was an angel during a bad time in my childhood. I'm glad some people really do make it as teachers. However, we were easier to deal with back then...Of course!