| By John Anderson 
John Anderson has moved from Wisconsin and now teaches in a southern state. He began his teaching career in September of 2000. | I saw a movie called "Freedom Writers" recently and thought it was pretty inspirational. The lead character, a teacher in an inner city school, showed so much dedication to her job that I felt humbled. I feel the same about “Dangerous Minds," starring Michelle Pfeiffer. The movie was about a new teacher overcoming unmotivated students and an unsupportive administration in a poor school. What a great story. But that’s not me. My muscles are stiff when I wake up in the morning, indicating I’m not as young as I used to be. My bank account is always threatening to go from four digits into three. I worry that I am not being a good enough husband, brother, son, and friend. At the risk of sounding self-centered, I don’t want to take on a new “cause.” I just want to be a good teacher and have meaningful interactions with kids and inspire them to value learning. So where can I meet such ignoble aspirations and still have a life? Lately I have been asking myself such questions. My first teaching job was at a high school where I loved my principal. I didn’t actually love him, but I felt he was there when he needed to be. He was supportive of his teachers when they were faced with awkward situations. He recognized the fact that I was trying to be a good teacher and was willing to overlook my faults because of that. If I needed materials for the classroom, he would at first be vague about getting them, but would always take the time to find the money somewhere. That’s a pretty good boss, in my book. That same school had a good set of students. I will admit there were those kids in class who made me grind my teeth at night. And I remember some Fridays before spring break that I would find myself muttering mild obscenities under my breath. But as I look back on it, the vast majority of my interactions with students, either on an individual or class-wise basis, were enjoyable, funny, and made me glad to be a teacher. Last summer I moved for personal reasons to a southern state and took another high school teaching job. I have spent the last several months wondering if this school is in a perpetually bad situation and I should move on or I was just lucky with my first job. I am seeing some red flags that indicate the former. One red flag is the lack of materials. While my previous room had piles of equipment to look through, my current room is as spartan as a jail cell. I was warned early in the year to watch what I put on my desk, “because the kids will probably steal it.” The whole mentality of the school is that the fewer materials around for students to wreck, the fewer problems will result. This mentality works well in prisons, cheap motels, and public bathrooms, but has no place in a school. Another red flag is the size of classes. I used to have a theory that teachers tend to exaggerate how big their classes are in a manner similar to fishermen describing their latest catch or runners describing their weekly regimen. They tend to stretch the truth a bit. I used to shake my head at stories of 30 kids in a classroom. I used to believe that these stories were just exaggerations, or involved submissive elementary students, or left out key facts like there were two special education teachers present in collaboration. With no exaggeration, my average class size is 27 … 9th graders. And I will be the first to admit that I have classroom management problems. One of the biggest red flags is the impact that teaching in this school seems to have had on some of my fellow peers. They are so nice and supportive and are the hardest-working bunch of teachers I know. They need to be because of the daily challenges they face. But I hear conversations between them that are often littered with words such as “Xanax,” “Ativan,” and “Valium," prescription medications for anxiety and depression. I have always been a bit of a purist who feels like the only chemicals I should put in my body are aspirin and beer. But lately, the dread that I feel every Sunday night and every weekday morning makes me wonder if I should see my doctor. I must confess that I did not do my research of the school district before I got hired at this second job. I did not look at the “expenditure-per-student” or the number of teachers who have quit in the last year. Both numbers were shocking, by the way. I just put my best foot forward and was happy to get a job. Maybe next time I will be more selective. To be continued… Return to New Teachers page Posted February 22, 2008 |