Explorations in Teaching and Life

Introductory Thoughts

Everywhere I look, I feel like there are resources offering to support teachers to become better teachers. They seek to relate to and.or connect with teachers through humor, shared misery, or "inspiring" teachers who are defying the odds. 

How about we change the odds?

No matter where we teach, we routinely face multiple challenges at the same time. As we age and gain experience, our students do not. Who knew?! This generational difference widens making forming strong teacher-student relationships more difficult. Suprisingly as we age, our personal responsibilities tend to increase as well leaving us with less of our personal time to use for work. To add to this increasing pressure, the educational system and its surrounding culture also throw in ever present messaging that teachers aren't doing enough to meet the needs of all students, changes to academic standards and pedagogy, increased regulations, as well as politics within administration and the general community, state, and country. Oh wait! Let's not forget about increased class sizes and professional responsibility because attracting and retaining teachers is nearly impossible in the current system. 

Yet, we still do it. 

We show up for our students for as long as we can. 

The Beginning

I am going on a journey, corny as it sounds. I want to figure out why teachers do it, how they are doing, and how we can support them as they work to support every kid who walks into their room. I want to dig into teachers as people and how we can use all of the research on all of the things to support them as they help us raise our kids. 

My Interview

What is your story/reason for going into teaching?

Initially, teaching didn't seem very prestigious and I mistakenly thought that because I was "smart" I should go for something "harder". I liked science and working with kids so I would make a great pediatrician right? 

Nope. 

I spent one year in a pre-med program about 6 hours drive from home and quickly realized that the external pressure that pushed me to go for pre-med was actually internal pressure to "do well" and me trying to run away from home and my past experiences. Since you can't run away from yourself that didn't work. Academically, I did well but personally I broke. I didn't like what I was doing. I felt lonely and lost. I quickly transferred back to a school closer to home thinking that would solve the problem. 

I transferred into an Environmental Science program with a pre-med focus because of course that made sense. Eventually, I realized that I didn't want to go into medicine. The only other program pared with my major was for a Biology teaching certification. I took one class and was hooked. I love how education lets me work with science and kids. I also love that it is a challenging mix of both science and art. 

How has your teaching or teaching in general changed over the course of your career?

The research base behind teaching seems to be changing more than the everyday practice of teachers, myself included. Although I am aware of what I would like to change, it's very hard to do so. Most teachers probably try or want to try to change their practice, but are stuck in a rigid and overwhelming system that leads them to give up or resist change due to the systemic pressure. 

My own teaching has slowly changed over time to be more student-led. It is very easy, however, to fall back into old habits and will likely be a constant practice to adjust my comfort zone. 

How do you feel about your job responsibilities?

The education system as a whole doesn't seem to leave space for the human needs of teachers. I have often felt overwhelmed with the workload of different positions. Often times this is due to a lack of support resources in a school system. Things like not having enough staff to keep class sizes low, or the number of preps for a single teacher low have a ripple effect across a school. It becomes very hard to do you work with fidelity and manage your own mental and physical well-being. 

How do you balance your responsibilities to yourself, your family, and your job?

I don't, which is essentially why I'm trying to figure out how to help myself and other educators in this area. Maybe we can figure it out together. Currently, I am working on feeling balanced by focusing my energy on what I find important and what I truly value. We'll see where it goes.