Why We Do This

"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years." ~Jacques Barzun

The end of school is the toughest time for teachers. It's harder than the first day when every teacher walks in to the great unknown with hopes, expectations, and a lesson plan to carry them. It's harder than the panic right before Christmas when high spirits and grading deadlines play havoc with holiday happiness. It's harder than testing season when adrenaline carries you through the big day twitching like a caffeine junkie in a bad overdose and you feel like a rubber band stretched right to the point of breakage.

It's hard because, in so many cases, there's no hope left. No hope that student X is going to wake up and try to make something out of this opportunity to learn. No hope for student Y that he will pass. No hope that seventh period is going to turn out to be anything other than silly and hyper.

After school, it's not uncommon for us to gather in the halls after the kids go to the buses. We blow off steam about the day. It's sort of a safety valve that helps us pick up the pieces and go on. Today, though, our conversation was more bitter than it's been at any other time so far.

All of us, 30-plus year veterans, teachers in mid-career, and rookie me, were asking why we bother to do this anymore. It's so discouraging to come into a class and face blatant disrespect and disobedience every day. Despite the fact that all of us would bend over backwards and do on a regular basis to help out a student in need, we're a caste of something less than human beings. The kids are selfish and rude. They put forth no effort and expect to "reap what they didn't sow," to borrow Biblical metaphors.

As I'm typing this, I feel 500 years old. I feel like a caricature of a teacher, the type of person I never thought I'd be. My friends and I always swore we'd be never be like this, and yet now, all my conversations with my teacher friends, no matter what school they're at, no matter what stage of their career they're in, sound the same. Same complaints, same frustrations, same worries.

So this is my question: Why the hell are we still doing this? (Oops...there goes the PG rating again...shame, shame) Additionally, all of us are teachers by nature as well as by vocation. What do we do when the thing that makes our hearts move and sing becomes a source of agony? Is this a "thorn in the flesh" we have to endure? Is this an age, a generation that will pass? Where do we go if we don't stay where we are? And the one that keeps me up at night...does all this heartsblood I pour into my work matter at all? Do I touch a life or make a difference at all?

Supposedly, teaching is one of those professions that requires a basically optimistic outlook. As the quote says, you do the best you can, sketch the sign of the cross over them, and send them out into the world. I feel like I'm folding origami boats and setting them adrift on the current. I don't know how seaworthy these little crafts are. My fingers feel less and less nimble as I make the folds. I don't know if I'm doing it right anymore.

Maybe this is just a part of the natural cycle of the school year. I don't know. All I know is the idea of 24 more years of this seems unimaginable. Who will I be after 24 more years of this? Will I be a twisted-up old maid school teacher who comes home to only cats for company? Will be be able to feel compassion for my students anymore, or will they all just be "idiots in the hall"?

Where did the joy go? I used to love going to school. Even earlier this year, I loved it. Right now, though, I just want to take a personal day or five and disappear.

Tomorrow, I'll rise and put on my professional face. I'll focus on the positive, look for the silver lining, and call the glass half full. Tonight, though, I'm an old maid school teacher who wants to escape.