Saturday, June 11, 2022

Leaving Teaching

I've been a teacher my whole life. Just ask my cousins and my poor little sister about the days when I forced them to play school with me in the basement, when I was five and they were still toddlers. I even had school desks and a chalkboard. I made worksheets for them and corrected their letters. 

Admittedly, I was a bossy little thing, and that probably had something to do with it, but it's also about sharing an enthusiasm for learning. What can I say? I LOVE school.  Learning and books are part of my soul. 


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I was probably only six or seven when I started telling people that I was going to be a teacher when I grew up. I was also going to be a witch, a dancer, a veterinarian, a reporter, a writer, and an astronaut…only some of those stuck. 

Unlike most people I know who changed their minds multiple times about what to be as they grew up, I stuck to that childhood plan of becoming a teacher. The only thing that changed was what level I thought I wanted to teach (elementary, middle, high, college). 

I went to college and earned a degree in English education with minors in Spanish, Creative Writing, and a sort of Humanities add-on they called "Honors." Other than a minor gig with my college public radio station and a brief secretarial job, all my work life was teaching or education adjacent. I tutored, served as a classroom aide, subbed, and taught in my own public school classroom, in summer programs, and on college campuses. 

The work was never easy, but it was worth it. There's such power in being there at the moment of elucidation or new comprehension or boundaries being stretched and helping people gain the tools they need to make their goals and improve their lives. I felt useful, important…like I made a difference. 

Even now, after 27 classroom years, I still believe public education is the most important idea to rise out of American democracy: the idea that ALL citizens have the right to education was and is ground-breaking and represents all that is best about my country. (we can talk another day about the forces trying to kill that from within). 


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You knew there would be a but, right? 

The realities of choosing a teaching life can be pretty grim. Nearly always, it means sacrifice in other aspects of your life. 
  • You'll always earn a low salary, especially considering the education required, the importance of the work, and the stress and danger involved. 
  • It's the only profession I know of where people who have never attempted the work themselves (or worse yet: FAILED at it) are in charge of the system, and the whole world thinks they know better than the trained professionals how to do the work. (Well, maybe mothering--that also came with a TON of irrelevant, hateful, and unwanted "feedback" from people who don't know a darn thing about it--we can talk another time about misogyny and the value of women's work). 
  • You might as well change your middle name to scapegoat, because you'll collect ALL the blame and none of the credit.
  • The stress levels are sky-high and self-care is just two words people like to say, about as useful as sending "thoughts and prayers" during a tragedy. No one means it; no one cares. 
  • It's physically dangerous. More schoolkids than police officers have been killed in our country this year by gun violence, and their teachers die trying to save them. Between school violence, stress-related health damage, unsafe and poorly maintained work environments (school buildings), and contagious illnesses, teachers die from the work every day. Your life is on the line. 
  • You'll be overworked every single day. Schools are underfunded, which leads to being understaffed, which leads to one person shouldering a work load more appropriate for three to five people. 
  • People will call you a hero, but it's lip service they pay to avoid paying you in respect, support, or dollars (you know: things that MATTER and might make a difference). It's disingenuous at best, and often far darker than that. 
  • You'll feel helpless a lot because you can see the problems and what needs to be done, but you don't have the tools, time, or resources to fix things. It'll break your heart a little bit every day…and can eventually make you shut down out of self-protection. 

It's not sustainable. The system was built on the backs of women--something we allowed at a historical moment when it was hard for a woman to get paying work of any kind at all and have been stuck with ever since. When the entire system is predicated on the exploitation of the workers, there's something wrong. 

It's even worse in states like North Carolina: "Right to Work" states they call them. Anti-union is probably a step more honest. No protection for the worker--not even the basic protection I'd enjoyed in other states like a guaranteed lunch break every day or due process if I got fired. 

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I've thought about leaving lots of times. 

  • Sometimes I stayed out of passion--to try and make change from the inside.
  • Sometimes I stayed because I'd been gaslighted so much that I'd internalized the idea that the problems were about me instead of about the work conditions.
  • Sometimes I stayed out of exhaustion--too tired to put in the footwork to find something else. 
It was like having an abusive spouse in a lot of ways. You convince yourself that it's not as bad as it is. You stay "for the kids." Fear and manipulation reign over all. 

Well, reader, I left him: that abusive spouse I called a teaching career. 

Two weeks ago, I said goodbye to my last group of students and walked out into the sunlight. I'm corporate Samantha now, working as a content strategist for a large financial firm. I've had my new job for all of nine days as I write this, and it's already a world of difference in terms of stress and work-life balance. 

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It's telling, I think, that my primary emotion, intermixed with the sadness of leaving the children and some of my colleagues, was relief. 

Thursday, June 2, 2022

IWSG: A Day Late and a Dollar Short


Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. This month's co-hosts are: SE White, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguire, Joylene Nowell Butler, and Jacqui Murray!

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Well, technically, that was yesterday. But when you start a new job on a Tuesday because of a Monday holiday, chances are you'll be a little mixed up about what day of the week it is. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. 

So, here I am sharing my writing insecurities a day late. 

Honestly, I'm not really writing right now. I hit a wall in my novel a couple of months ago. At around the same time, I started moving hard on changing day jobs, leaving a 27 year career in teaching for a whole new adventure as a content creator for a big financial company. 

I'm trying to trust to the process. I've been through ebbs and flows in my writing life before and the words always eventually flow again, but I still get this spikes of panic from time to time, feeling like it's over, just seven years in. 

Besides the change of career and the extra pressure of trying to write a last-in-series, I also had a helluva May, including seeing one kid through college graduation, and will have a helluva June with a long anticipated trip to Ireland upcoming. 

So, here's hoping July gets me settled into my new career and schedule and back on track with the novel. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you've got on the docket this summer. Please tell me what you're up to in the comments!

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

May Reads

 

May brought me two books I'd been looking forward to, a fun ride, and a book I'd never heard of but really enjoyed. I'm finishing the month with two more in progress, but not-quite-done, so I guess I'll tell you about those next month!

As always, the links will take you to my fuller reviews on Goodreads. 

First on the list was Better Luck Next Time by Julie Claiborne Johnson, which I read as an audiobook. My neighborhood book club friends suggested it since we were looking for something lighter for our first summer read.  I quite enjoyed it. Set on a divorce ranch in Reno in the 1930s and following a hired hand through his relationships with some of the divorcing women, the story filled in a bit of history I knew little about (divorce ranches) and charmed me thoroughly. 

You Get What You Steal by RJ Burchett and Ron L. Lahr, which I read on Kindle, is also a light read, but in a completely different vein, taking the form of a space adventure a la Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). It is in turns witty, clever, and outright silly, as well as zany and absurd. 

The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding by Lydia Kang, which I read as an audiobook, was one of the books I'd been looking forward to. I'm a fan of Kang's work--she writes books that are part-mystery, part-romance, part-historical and I've enjoyed them all, so I'd had this one on my radar and pounced on it almost on publication day. It didn't disappoint, though it also doesn't displace my favorite of Kang's books, The Impossible Girl


And Stella's getting married! If you've read my blog before, you already know I'm a fan of Lucy Blue's Stella Hart Romantic Mysteries series, which follows the titular character and her fella through 1930s England and America, into Hollywood and many other interesting settings. I had this book on pre-order. It's a novella, and I tried to read slowly to make it last because I know it'll be a while till Blue releases the next one, but I couldn't help it, I gobbled it. The Princess and the Peonies (which I read on Kindle) was lighter on mystery and heavier on romance/family relationships, but if you've read the rest, you'll be happy with the culmination of the other books that comes about in this one. And if you haven't read the rest, I recommend reading them in order. They make sense as stand-alones, but there's better payoff for some moments if you let the stories build for you in order. 

How was your month in books? Find anything wonderful? Read any of mine? I'd love to hear about in the comments, and don't forget to leave reviews! They're an author's best way to raise discoverability of their work.