Toughing it out as a Classroom Teacher

Toughing it out as a Classroom Teacher

By: Felomina L. Daskeo

“If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job.” Thus goes a quote from Donald D. Quinn.

Five years of teaching in the public elementary school would classify me as a neophyte in the teaching profession, but the pressures and demands of the work makes me feel that I’ve been doing this thing for decades and that I’m ready to retire. I cannot say I’m burned out (yet), I just need a little breathing space, so I’m looking forward to hiding my ball pen and my lesson plan for a few weeks this summer vacation. Well, I’m having second thoughts about the pen though, because I’m hoping I could squeeze in a few scribbles and share some of my thoughts.                               

Teaching is tough, no doubt about that, especially if you’re teaching in the elementary grades, but it’s also a rewarding and enjoyable job. Here are my top ten reasons why it could be tough, compiled through five years of experience and observation.

1.    Teaching is not an 8-5 job.
You may be told to write 7:30-12:00 and 1:00- 5:00 in your daily time record as official hours for arrival and departure but you will definitely be staying even until 6pm some days. Then you will be bringing home loads of papers to check and grade, then write your lesson plan for the next day, and finally sleep at 1am. 

2.    The technology is always broken especially at times that you need it the most.

Worse, the school doesn’t even have a computer, yet reports required need to be computerized so you have to pay for encoding and printing if you don’t have your own PC.  Needless to say, computer aided instruction is just a theory, that is, for most elementary schools in Mountain Province, and seldom does it find practical application in the classroom.

3.    We’re not just teachers.

People expect a lot from a teacher, and everybody has an opinion of what a teacher should and should not be doing. A teachers gets to wear many hats- mentor, coach, nurse, parent, friend, psychologist, guidance counselor, community organizer… the list could go on. When you’re a teacher, you have to be ready for anything that’s thrown at you. Then in class, he/ she gets to teach pupils with varying levels of abilities, and he/ she is expected to reach out to all of them by individualizing their education.

4.    It’s a serious job.

You’re completely responsible for the lives of twenty or more human beings seven to eight hours a day. They are not your children, and you have no control over what happens to them when they leave your sight, but you’re emotionally committed to your pupils’ problems even outside the school. Their pain becomes your own, and it gets to you after a while, but the pain gets worse because you know you can’t fix everything and there’s nothing you can do about it.

5.    There is zero flexibility for a classroom teacher.
You’re expected to know everything. You’re not allowed to have a bad day, you can’t be stressed because you have to exercise maximum tolerance all day, and you can’t take it easy because you have to be always on guard for anything that your pupils will do. You can’t just call in sick without prior notice, because you have to plan something for your pupils to do, and if you really have to be absent then you better spend at least two to three days of extra work to recover from it.

6.    You don’t really own “your  accomplishments.”

It is a teacher’s job to teach, to help people become better. If a child gets left behind, the teacher gets to be blamed. If they excel, then people will say, “Those kids are really smart!”

7.    Everyone thinks they can do your job.
Some people would even try to dictate how their children should be taught and pass off these “dictations” as “suggestions.”  Annoying comments such as, “Teachers are lucky because they have December and summer breaks,” and “What’s so hard about teaching twenty pupils?” just go to show that people who aren’t in education don’t have any idea what it takes to be a classroom teacher. Come to think of it, even some administrators have forgotten about the trials and tribulations of being on the forefront of education.

8.    Teaching is physically and emotionally taxing.

It’s been said that teachers have the highest incidence of urinary and colon problems, and varicose veins are part of a teacher’s physical make- up from having to stand all day. Combine these with the stress and isolation of being the only adult in a self-contained classroom every day, five days a week for ten months, and the job becomes grueling in the long term.

9.     The salary. . . well. . enough has been said about that.

While it is true that teacher salary has been standardized, we still get to buy our own lesson plans, ballpens, arts and crafts materials to make the classroom conducive to learning, not to mention provide paper and pencils to pupils who come to school without these necessities. The meager chalk allowance is not enough to cover for the thousand and one things that a teacher needs to pay for learning materials.

10. Ummmm… I couldn’t think of one, but hey, who’s complaining? Teaching is and will always be a noble profession; it is very demanding but also extremely rewarding.

This little gripe session is not really to demean the profession, but it hopes to open the eyes of those who begrudge us our summer vacation and those who think that teaching is an easy and stressful free career. Being at the bottom part of the graduating class should not be a reason to take up Education as a course in college. The summer vacation comes as much as a relief not only to the students but to the teachers as well, so I have to end this up and take a serious mental break for summer is shrinking fast and the rains will be coming soon to signal the start of another school year.

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