So Ya Think You Can Teach?

My union is entering our 10th month without a contract and it's getting ugly. Salaries have been frozen at their 2008-09 levels, which means that I've been stuck one rung below the top of the pay scale - a rung I've been climbing toward for fifteen years that is, to me, symbolic of my worth as a worker.

I'm not going to complain about the amount of money I make: although I know that it's a lot less than the salaries of my fellow Bucknell graduates working professional jobs, I also recognize it's a lot more than many workers in this country will make in five years of hard labor.

I'm also not a huge fan of tenure, for two reasons: 1). there are a lot of shitty teachers who should never interact with children and 2). while it can be comforting in economies like this, if a teacher is not in an ideal teaching is situation, it can feel like a prison sentence.

I also don't feel entitled to free health care but to clarify, one of the reasons teaching salaries are lower than other professional jobs is to reflect the health care costs paid by the district. And while we do contribute a significant portion of our salaries to our pension plan, as long as the money I've already contributed is returned to me, I wouldn't fault the state for folding the system.

People LOVE to attack teachers. We are such a great target, after all, what with our "months off" each summer (about 8 weeks, to be exact - my husband, who works in the private sector, gets 6 weeks vacation annually, and a much larger salary), our "6 hour workday" (I'm still trying to figure out who did that math on that one. I mean, I'll admit that I failed math in high school but when I add up the hours I work - arriving at school at 7 am and staying until 3 each day, and then going home to do at least another 2 hours of work each night and an additional 10 on the weekend - the math is pretty simple and comes out to more than 30 hours a week), our "superior" health care (ha! ask Bank of America how long it took me to pay off the dental work my health care didn't cover when I had a three day root canal).

Yep, people love to attack us but I don't get it: if people are so angry about how good we have it, if being a teacher is such a cakewalk of a job, well then, why don't all of the Billy Bitchers and Wendy Whiners of the world become teachers then?

They had the option to, after all, but chose another career path, no doubt because they either thought that a). teaching was beneath them or b.) there was no way in hell they were going to do such a thankless job.

That was their choice; teaching was mine.

In this life, we must make the choices best for us and our families - that's what Celine and I have been saying all along; I just don't think it makes good sense to get upset about another person's choice just to avoid making better decision's in one's own life.

Remember my 6 Word Memoir? No? Let me remind you:

Made choices: some bad, most good.

I've been thinking a lot about teaching lately and although I'm confident that I made the right choice over fifteen years ago when I decided to go into this profession, I think it's time to seriously consider what role that choice is going to play in my life going forward. I've come up with a great extended metaphor to share with you non-teachers out there so you can understand what it's really like to be a teacher and I'll share that here tomorrow.

So to wrap this up today, I would like to thank some of the many teachers who truly made a difference in my life:

Mrs. Meyers
Mr. Butler
Mr. Nornhold
Mrs. Slease
Mrs. Kauffman
Miss Benion
Mrs. Acker
Mrs. Deans
Mrs. Swope
Mr. Bower
Mr. Burns
Mr. Corman
Mr. Beaver
Ms. Fantaskey
Ms. Bigger
Mrs. Carlotta Miller
Professor Weinreb
Professor Mumford
Professor Jean Peterson

and of course,

Mr. Eugene Kline - who put a roof over my head, food in my mouth, Guess Jeans on my tush, and a god damned C- on my report card...

Love ya, Dad!