I know it's been a while, but I'm sure all of you understand how busy one's schedule can get, especially when you're trying to cram in all your school work plus some into the first three months of the semester.  If I'm going to be able to enjoy my time in Germany at all, I've simply got to get those things out of the way.  With that said...

Last week, I decided once and for all to say screw teaching.  I'm changing my major to pure English <3  I've been flirting with this idea for a long time, and I've finally decided that even if it would potentially open up one more job option for me to have the teaching minor, it is simply not worth it in any way.  Tacking a secondary education minor onto my upward climb to professorship was quite possibly one of the largest mistakes I've made in my life, and I'm glad I've finally realized it.

I may have wasted time and money on education courses, but I learned a valuable lesson from it.  It's not that teaching isn't a perfectly honorable pursuit, but like many professions, it is under-appreciated, underpaid, and ultimately fruitless for being discouraged by the very country that needs these teachers the most.  As it stands, the degree just doesn't seem worth the outstanding effort to attain it, the job risks, and various laws and regulations that restrict the everyday freedom of teachers, even in their own private lives.  It's exactly the same as getting a nursing degree: you're going to work a hard, thankless job with the risk of lawsuits or firings coming down on you at the drop of a hat that will effectively destroy your teaching career for the rest of your life.

Courtesy of Toothpaste for Dinner

I understand that many states have different education requirements, laws, and regulations concerning teaching, but whether it be at the national or state level, something must be done to encourage students to become teachers and to save the education of our country.  As for Alabama, there are several teacher examinations that a.) do not test teachers based on their subject of study and b.) test both elementary and secondary teachers the same way.  Is that really the way to determine if people taking these tests are competent?  In every education class I've ever sat down in, the professors announced that the coursework we would do in those classes would never be used by us in the real world of teaching, that no school used the programs or formats encouraged by the education track, and yet Alabama requires potential teachers to fill a portfolio full of these pointless assignments to show that we learned how to do them.  That work isn't just pointless, it is repetitive and extremely time consuming, some of the hardest classwork I've ever done for 10 points or a check +.  No matter what class you are in, you end up doing the same assignments in the same order over and over with slight variations.  The classes are so cookie cutter, one is often able to just turn in an old assignment with some slight alterations.  For every education class you take, you are required to do a certain amount of community service and student teaching hours; the more classes you take, the more hours you must do.  In essence, teaching classes can become like a second job between those outside hours and the plethora of busywork one must do.

So what happens when a student decides to endure all of that, to take a million courses on how not to be racist then write a thesis on revolutionary ideals about what education should be before embarking on a journey into a world where none of those ideals will ever come true?  You enter a struggling job market, perhaps you become a teacher, and that's great, you've got a job, maybe you love young people or your subject, you're totally pumped.  However, think for a moment back to your own high school education, if you will.  Did you ever notice that not very many of your own teachers were truly "pumped" unless they were just starting out?  Did you notice the passion leaving their eyes after teaching the same thing 7 times a day for year after year?  Did you see some sparkle disappear when students learned to hate or mock the subject that the teacher wanted to share with them?  Every day, hundreds of faces passed before them, most of them more occupied with dating and gossip than getting an education.  No one thanked them for the wisdom they imparted, for their passion, or for spending money from their own pockets to try to keep their students captivated.

From the Berkeley Daily Planet

Teaching textbooks call it burnout.  Personally, I hoped I wouldn't burn out before I could escape.  Teaching is a thankless job, and many students consider public school a glorified daycare.  Parents don't come in on parent-teacher conference day to say thank you for educating their child, they come in to scream at you because it couldn't possibly be that their son or daughter was turning in blank worksheets; it must be that you're a horrible teacher who has failed their child and should be fired.  And how is it that the practice of firing teachers whose students make bad grades is incentive for those teachers to get better at teaching students?  It is more likely that that same teacher, fearing for their job, will dumb down the curriculum for the sake of allowing everyone to pass and to save their career.  I won't even get started on standardized tests, let alone mass standardized tests; if you're a teacher for the grades that take the graduation exam or the SATs or what have you, you will teach to that test instead of teach truly valuable things to try and save the school where you work, because if those students fail that test, your school goes on probation and loses funding.  It detracts from the quality of education simply to pass tests that aren't even an accurate measure of student intelligence, talent, or creativity.  School becomes designed to cater to the desperate need of teachers to have all their students, especially the ones with the lowest grades, pass standardized tests for various reasons, catering to the needs of the students who border on failing and leaving especially gifted students bored, burned out, and neglected.  People who have an especially high IQ who often go on the be very successful are consistently let down by public education.

It all sounds so backwards, but it doesn't even end there.  The first classes to get cut when the budget is low are enrichment classes, arts and extracurriculars that inspire passion and creativity in students and offer a welcome break to the monotony of everyday classwork.  Put simply, school does not encourage the pursuit of passion.  If you aren't good at math and want a career in history later in life, you aren't allowed to take extra or more advanced history classes or to drop advanced calculus.  If you play the trumpet well and know you want it to be a major part of your life, you aren't allowed to focus on music and your grades in music courses are meaningless because they aren't "core curriculum."  If anything, your music course is likely to be cut.  The current system not only punishes the teacher, it punishes the student.  Teachers often must pay for many things one would consider necessities out of their pocket, such as tissues, extra tools used for enriching projects, or even books.  You are already severely underpaid (many teachers work second jobs, some of the ones at my high school being farmers on the side), and you're forced to pay for many tools for yourself because of lack of funding.  And yet, just a couple years ago, a 1/2 cent tax increase that would fund schools exclusively was voted down right here in Cullman and continues to get voted down every time it comes up.

It gets better.  Your personal life is no longer your own.  According to one of my teacher education textbooks, courts have upheld the decision of schools to fire teachers for living with a partner without being married.  I'm sure many of you remember a few years back that a teacher (pictured right) was fired for having a second job as a mate on a charter fishing boat service after it was discovered she wore a bikini on the cruises and in the fishing boat's brochure.  After the brochure was exposed, several fishing patrons volunteered photos of her in her bikini.  While sexual harassment may be a serious subject and there should always be regulations in place to prevent it, if a student decides to accuse a teacher of sexual harassment under false pretenses, even if it is discovered the accusation was a lie, that teacher will lose his or her job and probably never be hired as a teacher again, and courts will uphold the decision of schools to fire these teachers and other schools to refuse to hire them.  One must also never forget the threat of student violence, whether it be with guns, knives, or fists.  It happens more than you think.  I know that many of you could say that in your high school career, there was someone, even more than one someone, who brought a serious weapon to school, seemed to have tendencies toward violence and lashing out, or you were sure was just going to snap one day.  Aside from instances like that, my own school saw two bomb threats during the school day, and the year before I moved to my high school, an arsonist burned it down.  All that and I just live in podunk old Cullman, Alabama.

Until new laws and regulations concerning the education of teachers (they should be educated with curriculum that will truly prepare them for the kinds of programs and methods used in normal schools), freedoms within their private lives, proper funding of schools, a dramatic pay increase that reflects the value of the service these teachers are providing, standardized testing, incentive programs, and a million other things, teaching high school is simply not worth the extreme hard work placed both on those pursuing the degree and those already working within the field.  I've got something like over 50 job options with my versatile English degree and never intended to teach for more than 4 years before moving on to professorship, so tell me, nation, what's my motive to teach high school?  Sorry, nation, I've simply got to follow my dreams, whatever the path to them may be.

P.S. -- To all the education majors, especially elementary, who want to make it a career and want to help children, truly help them and devote your life to the pursuit, I respect you so much.  You are giving so much for some children that really need a helping hand.  I admire your nobility and am sorry that I myself am not nobler.