Being a teacher…

Hello everyone,

As many of you know I am a teacher, and as a teacher I have been feeling pretty overwhelmed these last few weeks. There are a lot of negative comments about teachers out there and many treating us like the enemy.

As we are living through these unprecedented times, society has quickly forgotten the nice things they were saying about teachers back in April. Unfortunately,I take a lot of what is being said personally. I have always worked really hard to give my all to every student I have ever had. I have been teaching for over 20 years and sometimes it has been very difficult.

I am not going to lie, I have considered quitting being a teacher many times, my own grandmother who was a proud teacher and principal did not want my mom or I to become teachers. It is a challenging profession but very rewarding too. Once I accepted that this was my calling, I made a commitment to all students I ever have in front of me. We are not well compensated for our work, however many out in society seems to think we get paid too much to do very little. The hate comments I have seen in social media are unbelievable. If I have to hear one more time that this will be a lost year, I will explode.

Why is it that every other profession was able to successfully figure out how to work from home and do business online, but teachers won’t be able to do the same successfully? Are we not as capable? Why can’t we be trusted to create classes that are just as engaging as they were in person? There is a lot available to us that makes it all possible.

Now, I am not saying that every teacher will be great at the distance learning thing, but that is true in person too. Not every teacher is in it for the right reasons. Also, there is always one bad apple in every profession. How about we form our expectations based on the good teachers who have been working all summer to provide the best possible experience for your kids? How about we give the benefit of the doubt to all the hard working teachers who have had a difficult summer because they did not know what was going to happen this school year? How about we support the efforts of these teachers and tell our kids that this could be the best year yet since there will be more flexibility?

I am starting a new job this year and even though I don’t officially start until the end of this month, I have spent the last month looking for ideas and working on different things I can do with the wonderful group of kids I am get to work with this fall. I have never met them but I already consider them ‘my kids’. Being a teacher means adopting a whole new set of kids every year and we think about them all the time for the rest of our lives. I still remember the kids I taught back in Brazil over 20 years ago. They all leave a mark in our lives and I firmly believe we have been in each other’s lives for a reason. I like to think that each job I have had was because a kid needed me at that time in his or her life and that is why I was put there then.

I have had my moments of desperation each time I lost a job because of budget cuts or other reasons, but now I think they happened for a reason. Not sure what the reason was but I have to believe there was one. Recently I had a mom of a former student tell me that she was thankful I believed in her son when no one else did. That was so special to hear and it made my day.

I would also like to understand why it is ok for professional athletes to stay home and get paid to do nothing but when teachers ask to teach from home, the public says their pay should be cut because they are not working as much (when in reality, teaching from home is actually more work than teaching in person). Our standards are really screwed up when we go after teachers for being scared for their health but any other profession is praised for the exact same thing.

Anyone who has ever worked in a school knows that everyone gets sick the first few weeks of school. Germs are everywhere and adults get colds, flu, pink eye, strep throat and other common contagious diseases the first couple of months of school. What makes anyone think that this year will be any different and that the Covid-19 virus won’t spread around. I am glad I live in a state that has taken all this seriously and that we will be teaching online for a while. I am glad the people in charge are actually considering the difficulties going back to school present and made the decision to keep us all safe. However, parents are angry and lashing out at the teachers. I know this won’t be perfect! I know it is difficult when you have younger children. I know there is the concern of who will stay with the kids. I also know this system will provide some major inequity issues. But the alternative would also provide some inequity issues. It is very likely the kids that would be sent to school are the ones who come from already at risk situations and they will be at even more risk at school. There is no right answer or a magic bullet. This pandemic has changed everyone’s lives and there is not much we can do about it until it is under control.

I love being a teacher, sure I sometimes wonder what my life would be like had I chosen a different path. I wonder if life would be a little easier and less stressful as far as money goes. But at the end of the day, I know I was put in this earth to help kids and adults in different ways. I was always meant to be a teacher and that is what I will always be. I have done several different things in my life, I have had different jobs and tried different things and I was always called back to teaching. 😍 This is what I am meant to do!!!

Please, give some love to the teachers in your life. We are overwhelmed and hurt and need your prayers. We are trying to do the best we can for your kids and we will do it because that is who we are. At the end of the day, we are willing to put ourselves in danger to save your children. Any of us would jump in front of a gun to protect our students. That is what we signed up for and that is what we do.

Thank you for reading,

Juliana