The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love...

As tomorrow is the last day of school, and I prepare to begin what is sure to be one of the hardest summers of my life, with all three kids at home due to new home ownership cash deficit* and a whole family to pack, move and unpack, I am reminded, as I always am this time of year, of my own teaching days before I had kids. There is a special bittersweet feeling to the end of the year, of course for the kids, but for the teachers as well. And as I write my note of thanks to my children’s teachers, I was inspired to express, not just to them, but for all of you, what I experienced firsthand – teaching is one of the most under-appreciated vocations out there (after motherhood, of course).

Alright, let’s take the gloves off. Hit me with your best shot. “Sure, sure”, you say, “but teachers only work three quarters of the year, so their pay is actually pretty good.” Really? The average starting salary for a first year teacher with a masters degree is approximately $45,000, so even if we prorated that for a year’s salary, the number is $60,000. The starting pay for an MBA grad? About twice that. Both have high level degrees, but the difference is, MBA grads are entering a field that our society actually values - finance – while teachers are only helping educate future generations. No biggie.

“Whatever”, you say, “teachers work less than seven hours a day and the rest of us work eight. How easy a gig is that?” I agree, totally easy, if lesson plans and fully graded papers, you know, fell out of the sky. What the average person fails to realize is the “teaching day” leaves little if any time for all the preparation and planning required to run a classroom. Perhaps, back in the day, when teachers taught directly from textbooks, complete with answers in the back, one prep period (the name of the “free” time teachers have when the kids are at, say, art class) was enough to grade the day’s work and get ready for the next. But now? In the era of “experiential learning” and whole language, teachers aren’t just marking which pages the kids will read silently at their desks or they will read aloud to them, there are read-aloud books to be found, shared reading articles to be copied and math manipulatives to be laid out. Never mind, grading papers, returning parents' phone calls, putting up bulletin boards and, now, updating the class’s website. And, obviously, this can not all be done during one forty-five minute music class. I can not tell you the number of mornings I was in school by seven and didn't leave until twelve hours later, or how heavy my bag was as I dragged thirty (yes, suburban parents, pick your jaws up off the floor, I had thirty fourth graders in my class) reports on Colonial America home to Hoboken. So, in short, any teacher who's pulling into the lot a minute before the bell rings and leaves right when school lets out is the exception to the rule and ain't doing the job right.

"Well", you say, "sixty grand is nothing to sneeze at." Sure, if it were all being used for the teacher's benefit. Thousands of dollars of my paltry $30,000 salary in NYC (suburbs pay substantially higher), went directly to buying classroom supplies. Sure, the school provided supplies that you had to order in September, so if you ran out of construction paper before then, too damn bad. And the deep financial well from which I could draw my resources? $250 for the whole year. If I had every cent back I spent at Staples, I'd have living room furniture for the new house. It was so bad at my school in fact, I had to ask the parents to donate copy paper each year so I could make worksheets. That's right. The machine was empty. You gave your original to Gus, the ninety year old copy guy, along with your paper and he would run it off for you - eventually.

Which brings us to the point of how inconvenient a profession teaching is. Teaching lacks many of the basic benefits and amenities of a regular job. Did I have access to a copy machine like any office worker? No way. Air conditioning? Pfft, be serious. Sick days, which anyone else can take and only feel marginally guilty thinking about the work waiting for them on their desk, are exercises in self-flagellation as a teacher, since you know you are leaving thirty little souls in the hands of a mediocre sub (shout out to the good ones, you are few and far between) who doesn't know Julia needs to pee a lot and she really isn't faking or that Kevin and Chris should never stand next to each other in line and will wind up screaming at both when they start poking each other in the eye. Speaking of peeing, imagine being a woman, nine months pregnant, who can not use the bathroom at will. How was I going to leave my students unattended so I could go potty? I still thank my student Samantha, who acted as my messenger, and ran across the hall several times a day to Miss Stehle's room to ask the aide in that class (for the mentally challenged kid) if she could please come over so Mrs. B could go empty her bladder. And how about lunch? One year my lunch was at 10:50, no joke. There's no "eating when you're hungry" in teaching. Tired and need to grab a Starbucks? Too fucking bad, it's only four more hours until three o'clock. Have a cold and just want to spend the day answering email and screwing around on Facebook? Sorry, you have to make fractions fun(!) to a room of kids who'd rather be doing anything else. When I stop to think about it, teaching is actually great practice for being a mother. All of those same inconveniences still exist and back when I was teaching kindergarten, I even had kid throw up on me. Guess I can thank Kenji for my talent for dealing with vomit.

The expectations for teachers are ridiculously high as well. At its inception, the purpose of free, public, education was to make the majority of the population minimally literate - basically, we wanted everyone to be able to read and make change at the store. Now we expect teachers to turn our children into well-rounded, creatively-thinking, but still fundamentally strong learners with respect for everyone. Guess whose job that really is? PARENTS. It seems today the burden of responsibility falls on the teachers' shoulders instead of the parents'. And teachers are expected to do it with little help from home at all. Never mind the roadblocks home throws in our way like Cocoa Krispies for breakfast after a solid five hours of shut-eye that began with Junior falling asleep in front of a Sponge Bob marathon at eleven o'clock.

Teaching is such a unique profession because you build a parent-like relationship with someone else's child. I was really upset in September when I thought about #1 spending more of her waking hours with someone other than myself (shout out to Mrs. G, though, I couldn't have asked for a better sub). So why do we show these - let's call a spade, a spade here - mostly women, such little financial respect? How do we expect to attract and keep quality individuals if there is no financial incentive? I have been on both sides of this equation. You could have told me to shut up when I was a young teacher with no kids, but now that I am a tax-paying parent, I still feel the same way. I would definitely pay higher taxes today if I were guaranteed it was going straight to the teachers and not to buy more tricked out cop cars for the town (I know you never got that Iroc in high school, Sarge, but do I really need to pay now?).**

While there are many stories of bad teachers that hit the front pages, there are few stories told about how much teachers care. Believe me they do or they wouldn't be sticking around for the pittance we pay them. One example that really sticks with me is from 9/11. I was teaching in Manhattan and the city was on lock down. Parents who worked outside of the city couldn't get in to get their kids and those of us who lived outside couldn't get out to get home. There was no complaining, only solidarity. We were there to make those kids feel safe on the scariest day many of us had ever seen. Would you really want someone with your children a day like that who was ready to punch out at three and say, "See ya?" And despite the fact that there was no overtime to be had, we all stayed, because those kids needed us. That is the soul of teaching.

So thank you, thank you, to all the wonderful teachers I know, past colleagues, and those to whom I entrust my own children now. You make the world a better place and I wish you were compensated as such. Perhaps there is payback in heaven and you will all live in mansions and drive crazy-expensive cars while Plaxico Burress*** is the garbage man.
Oh, and you can pee whenever you want.

*Why does camp cost more than private school tuition when it is surly, distracted teenagers "caring" for your child?
** Dad, spare me the "broken system" speech. I agree, and I'm not trying to fix it here, just shout from my soap box (of which I am very fond this week, apparently)
***Seriously, all that gun nonsense and he'll still make a mint? Retarded.