Here I Go Again!

So begins my 20th year as a teacher. Most people who start out in teaching don't make it this long. More than half of them leave the profession before the five-year mark. Most of the rest either go into administration (i.e., become a principal) or move to a job at the district level where they can sit behind a desk in a quiet, air-conditioned office and never get close to anyone under the age of 45. I think it is fair to say that I know this job about as well as anyone. Even my "bosses" did not spend as much time in the classroom as I have. (For the first time in my career, I am actually older than all the administrators at the school, too.) Twenty years! That's longer than my marriage and older than my kids! The children of people I went to junior high school with have been filtering through my classroom for the past few years, and next year I will likely have the son of one of my former students in my class -- two generations! Holy crap! When I started teaching, the personal computer was just being developed; nobody I knew had one at home, and only the schools who were lucky enough to win grant money could afford them for the classroom. I did my grades with a pencil and a calculator. When I started teaching, nobody had a cell phone, a DVD player, a Blue Ray disk, a PSP console, a Wii, a MySpace page, a Blog, or an Ipod. None of those things existed then. In some ways, I have grown very old in this profession.


Then why do I keep doing it? Good question! The pay is famously low; the accountability is perpetual and immediate; the rules are many; and the classes are full. I understand why there is a teacher shortage, and I have to admit to periodic longings for a better-paying position in a more respected business or profession, but one thing about being around young people all day is that even though (as noted above) I have seen the passage of many years and the effects of ever-newer technologies on the students and the classrooms, I still feel young myself. Teaching is not without its rewards...they are just rewards that most people wouldn't recongize as such. It takes a "different" sort of person to make a career of teaching. And I think most of my students (not to mention my family) would agree that I qualify.

There's the bell!