Teaching Career: 10 Years In

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years that I’ve been a teacher. Last year was a very hard year for me and I really wasn’t sure I could keep going, or if I could, that I’d really want to continue once I did make it to 10 years. This year was much better and I’ve rarely experienced such appreciation for my hard work, especially towards the end of the year. After finishing up all of the exit tasks this year, something in the music I was listening to and a final email from a parent telling me what a difference I had had with her daughter, just made me crack. I lost it. Not in front of anyone, but I felt overwhelmed with emotion and cried. I’ve thought about this moment for a few years now, ever since I decided I would try to make it to 10 years and vest in the Georgia State pension system for teachers. I’ve struggled, and continue to struggle, with what I want to do with my life and what I might do next after teaching. Can I imagine myself doing this for another 10 years? No. Another 2 years? Yes probably, but I don’t want to be going through the motions and/or feeling stale about it or not looking forward to doing the same thing again and again. Besides putting too much pressure on myself, I continue, I suppose like many millenials, to hold great expecations of work and what a job should bring to some one. Whether these are realistic expectations (or hopes), I’ve thought more this year than any other about how work should not be such a defining feature of our lives and how that thought obsession can really take away from other equally if not more important aspects of life such as family, health, leisure, or lifestyle.  

Besides looking for a change and wanting to do something different to continue my growth and learning, and rarely feeling intellectually challenged anymore, I wanted to feel like I was good at what I did. Being a teacher means you have many tough critics and the kids can be relentless at times. If you please some kids you’ll make others mad. They always want more “hands on” learning activities, but then often struggle to identify what hands on learning means to them. They’ll complain about worksheets even when I am not giving out worksheets. They’ll say my classes aren’t engaging but sometimes not even give a lesson a chance because they are so engrossed in their phones or fail to listen to instructions repeated over and over. Teaching in today’s age truly does feel harder, and to some extent, as I’ve grown wiser and more experienced, even from 10 years ago, it feels harder. Social anxiety levels seem to be at all time highs and we are still feeling the effects of the pandemic. I can’t tell if this year was better because we are turning a corner now from the pandemic experience, or if I just happened to have a nicer crop of students. Of course it still wasn’t easy and I still experienced days with disrespect, or challenging conversations with students, and on more than one occasion, the feeling of losing it with ineffective lessons or worse yet, students rising up together as a class to attack me or something they felt was unfair. Seniors continue to remain unmotivated on the whole, but next year’s grade book changes might impact that? But on the whole, my life was not stressful this year and I enjoyed going to work everyday. That is not something that every, or even most perhaps, people can say about their work. This feeling of gratitude for purpose in my work is probably what set me over the edge when I cried.

So why the discontent? Why the need to change what I do for a living? If I am decent at what I do and I can in fact see results from all of my hard work and efforts, does my effectiveness provide greater meaning to my life and the benefit I derive from my work? I think the short answer is yes, and the overwhelming flood of emotions that hit me as I finished this year, at least in part, also came from this realization. And if I am increasingly satisfied with my work, what does my future look like? How do I feel about continuing to teach at least for another two years to gain the benefit of the masters degree I will soon be finishing as well as the recent pay raise for my TRS retirement pension?

These are all questions that I need to consider for this summer. To some extent, I already know the answer to the last one after enrolling in grad. school and realizing that my transition from teaching will probably be challenging. Nevertheless, I don’t do what I do for financial reasons and the difference to my retirement pension, now that i have it, will be really pretty minimal whether I stay or not. This is especially true if I take a job in the private sector like Charlie which pays so much better that I would likely make up this loss of pension benefit by just investing the difference I’d make with a higher salary. But I also have a doctor wife and have never been driven by financial reward. I am privlidged enough to have this fortune and I think about that almost every day. So then what is missing and why do I still feel this need, this urge, to change what I do?

I think from one perspective I want to prove to myself that I can start over, re-invent myself, and bring value to the world doing something different. Even though I know that I am a model and that my relationships with young people matter, sharing my passion for languages, and teaching French, do not feel like the most important things in the world. What if my hard work and all of the energy that I put into whatever I do, could yield more effective results, reach more people, and change (improve) the world in a more innovative/novel way?  Am I truly taking advantage of all of my natural skills and abilities in the roll that I am in? What if I stayed teaching, but found ways to innovate and assume new roles and responsibilities within my current situation? Will leading another study abroad trip next year help me to feel more fulfilled? How could I have more responsibility and continue to try to be a change maker who leaves his mark on the world? Or I am continuing to be arrogant with my expectation that my work should achieve those sort of things? I am interested in learning about so many things: affordable housing, environmental sustainability, microenterprise development/job creation, immigration/refugee support, intercultural connection, food justice, cooperative networks, and youth development. Within these areas of interest, what exists that is as meaningful as teaching and working with high school kids? What are the job titles and relevant skills that I need to develop?

I hope to spend some time this summer thinking about all of this and doing more research into organizations, following up with Graham again from the Visa foundation (and Meredith), and trying to narrow down what I’d like to do next. Regardless of whatever I chose next, I want it to feel like a true choice, and not just continued inertia and avoidance of thinking about my future career plans.