Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Finding Myself, Defining Myself

Over the last few months I have taken an unannounced hiatus from this blog.  Recently I've come across a couple of articles that seem to articulate the impetus for my silence.  I decided it was time to write again.

Reflecting 

When I began teaching I was idealistic, eager, and very focused.  Admittedly to my own detriment.  If standards were supposed to by my guiding force, well then, I would know them inside and out and have them drive everything I do in the classroom.  If my evaluation was to be based on student achievement I would pour over that data and use it to guide my instruction.  If creating engaging lesson plans meant sacrificing time with my family then I would make the sacrifice.  The result?  I got burned out.

I recently began to realize that I wasn't happy with my career choice anymore.  Being a teacher used to feel like my calling.  Now it just feels like a job.  One in which rules and regulations are decided by people who have no experience teaching, assessments of my abilities are quantified when in reality much of what I do is qualitative, and what qualifies as true learning has been dissected into a laundry list of standards I must cover rather than an environment of opportunities I'm allowed to create based upon my own experience and the true needs of my students.  I can relate to a veteran teacher in the article I Would Love to Teach But  who states that;
To pursue this calling, I worked hard to earn the title of “classroom teacher,” but I became quickly disillusioned when my title of teacher did not in any way reflect my actual job.
 And the public's perception of my job is no more positive.  From the article In What Other Profession David Reber states;
If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.
Although he's using sarcasm the unfortunate reality is that there is much that is made a teacher's responsibility that is clearly student/parent responsibility.  At least is should be clear.

Recently I had coffee with my father and we discussed the articles our superintendent writes in the local paper.  He wondered why there has not been a letter addressing parents' responsibility.  There have been articles addressing student achievement, curriculum, and state mandates so why not parent responsibility.  I also wonder why there are no state regulations mandating parent responsibility.  After all parents have more control over their students than we do as teachers.

Reacting 

I decided that I needed to somehow change the direction I was going in.  I started teaching late in life (I turned 40 my first year of teaching) and our financial situation requires me to keep working toward my pension and health benefits.  It was time to pull back and focus on myself and my family.  In essence, it was time to find myself separate from my position as a teacher.  I scaled back the time I spent on work from home and spent that time with my husband/children and on my own hobbies.  Magically, lesson plans still got done as did grading.  But I became a better mother, better wife, and better me.  I began to delve into my creative side again.  I began to knit, crochet, and sew again.  Something I haven't done in years.  I started to find myself.

Most importantly, I began to realize that I didn't have to be the "best" at what I do to still be happy with the job I do.  The perfectionist in me thought the only way to be satisfied with a job well done was to be the absolute best at it.  The perfectionist in me was wrong.  There is a critical balance that needs to be created and maintained for me to happy.  There is a lot about the politics of teaching that I have come to despise.  I have had to learn to define myself and the job I do outside of that political arena.  It means that I let go of evaluations, standards, and the like.  It means that I concentrate on supporting children in transitioning to adulthood.  It's high school after all.

I teach.  It's what I do not who I am.  Who I am is a caring, empathetic adult who enjoys helping children become the best adult they can be.  And THAT makes me happy.