“One goes up in value, the other doesn’t. One creates value over time, the other doesn’t.”
Being an educator means we are investing in the future.
Giving time and energy to educating students is making an investment. There is no daily time clock for a teacher’s schedule. I spent many hours outside of the school day thinking and planning for my students. I spent my summers in professional development and dreaming of new lessons or projects for the upcoming year. I worried about my own shortcomings as a teacher and I worried if my students were having problems outside of our class. My day did not end just because the school day was over.
I am always hearing that we are having a teacher shortage. Even before the pandemic, we were having a teacher shortage. Now after the pandemic, many teachers are retiring or not even returning and finding employment elsewhere.
Overwhelming paperwork has always been a problem. Whenever the legislature talks about paperwork reduction, it somehow always adds 10 more pages to the work that teachers have to do! I really think legislators need to get out in the classrooms and see what is involved. Every time I hear them talk about paperwork reduction, I want to stand up and scream, “Please don’t do that! You are only making more work for us!”
Administrative support is vital to teacher retention. The problem with this is that the teachers and administrators need to be the right fit. If they aren’t, teachers need to keep moving to different schools until they find the right one. I was lucky enough to have two administrations that were perfect for me. When these principals left for a different school, the new principals were not the right fit for me. I don’t believe that an administration is bad but if we aren’t on the same page, it can affect my teaching and my attitude.
Having a support system is incredibly important. I don’t mean that one will do. I had several support systems set up depending on my needs.
My family was great for emotional support but they didn’t necessarily understand my workload. They helped balance me out so that I wasn’t totally consumed with being a teacher. They helped me relax and discover activities that I enjoyed doing.
My colleagues were wonderful for giving me support in the workplace but they didn’t necessarily understand the students with special needs that I taught. They helped give me new ideas for interesting lessons and brainstormed with me different ways to modify these lessons for my students. They commiserated with me over the overwhelming responsibilities we all had when being an educator.
I also had parents of my students who were a great support system but they might not have realized it. I kept in regular contact (every 2 weeks) with all the parents/caregivers for my students. I let them know positive and/or negative events that occurred with my student. Since I communicated with them so regularly, it was mainly positive comments that I shared. I never talked to them about another student and made sure I followed confidentiality guidelines. But when I was feeling discouraged or wondered if I was making a difference, I just called to chat with a parent. Their comments usually boosted me up and made me realize that I was doing a good job. The time and energy I was investing in my students were worth it.
So, if you know of anyone who is thinking about being an educator, tell them if they are willing to invest in the future, it is a career worth having. I have never regretted one minute of my teaching career.
If you are an educator, please share your feelings!
Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash
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