New Teachers: Are You in It for the Long Haul?
Welcome, newbies, to the wonderful world of education. You are now embarked upon that career for which you’ve been preparing for so long. You’ve jumped through the hoops, sat through classes that often seemed irrelevant and/or stultifyingly dull. You’ve taken those horrible courses in education and teacher training that were required of you, those classes that took time away from gaining greater command of the discipline you were preparing to teach. And, despite the fact that those education classes offered almost nothing, you sat through them, nonetheless, demonstrating to all future employers that you have what it takes to deal with the myriad pointless faculty meetings and in-service breakout sessions that lie ahead. Should you find that you don’t like teaching, you can, of course, change course and head into the better-paid realms of administration, where a tolerance for wasting vast amounts of time in meetings is absolutely central to the work you will do.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, since you’ve only just begun and already I’ve got you bailing out.
The temptation to bail out is, however, one of the hallmarks of your new career. A bad student, a bad class, a paranoia-prompting administrative overseer, or the mere drudgery of the paperwork that now takes up so much of your time will have you considering other occupations nearly every week. When the stress of meeting a big and ill-defined spectrum of expectations leads you to pour one more glass of wine each night than you know is good for you, you’ll surely think that a career in retail sales might be a better alternative than taking attitude from a kid whose chief concern is the current state of his complexion, not your...
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