Burned Out Teacher Truths

It is such a sad feeling really & it at once works me up so bad I can feel the blood boil, that this is the reality for too many teachers in too many public schools in this country.  That this is the state of education here in this century...

This little blog of mine has been pretty neglected lately.  The life of a teacher is a busy/crazy one, & I'm finding more & more, at least in public education, it's just not what it used to be.  With standardized tests, pressures from the county trickling down to administration & then pouring onto educators, micro-managing bosses, uninvolved parents, people making the big decisions who haven't been in the classroom for years - or perhaps ever, "politics" for want of a better word, & those who pick teachers apart during observations & evaluations...  This just isn't what I want anymore.  The demands to be superheros or, at least, someone who has very little home/social life or sanity left or both is crazy.  I think I would have been happy back in the one room school house days or even education 50 years ago.  Today, it is a politicized mess with way too many pressures & demands on those who should be  making the "big bucks" in our society.  If you find yourself at a struggling school, like I have the majority of my career & am in now, that's on some district list of under performing schools, just teetering on the edge of a state takeover, where the kids come in each day with so much baggage of pain, violence, neglect, & poverty... then you know the pressure, the demands, the crazy, the hurt of just wanting to teach the kids of love, and life, and the sweet stuff of meeting them where they are and making them fall in love with the very act of learning, giving them a safe place to be fed body, soul, & mind.  But, instead, you know you face the mandates, the "best practices" flavors-of-the-month, intervention curriculum, & constant push to up the scores - because isn't that what it's all about?  For me - for this teacher - it is not, & so I think my farewell to public education is long overdue, for I have beat my head against this wall long enough.  I've already made it known to my school I will not be signing next year's contract.  It is at once freeing & unnerving, as I don't know what God has in store next, but I know He goes with me, & where He goes I hope to always follow.  Three months to go & counting...