Announcing my new career plan to teach and developing an action plan to do so, along with obtaining teacher certification were high on my priority list after my serendipitous experience at Bay St. Louis Middle School. I knew nothing about certification rules in New York, the state in which I grew up, and planned to pursue my new career; but I had heard science teachers were in such high demand that the New York State Education Department offered abbreviated certification pathways. It all sounded doable to me. Especially appealing would be the thrill of having my own classroom and cultivating students’ curiosity and appreciation for science. Last but certainly not least were the reasonable work hours (8:00AM-3:00PM), long breaks, and summer vacations teachers received. Seemed pretty easy. Wrong!
The director of the International Hydrographic Training Program, a project I was heavily involved with, was the first to throw cold water on my notion of teaching. “Steve, you have no idea how hard teachers work. Yes, school days end around 3:15, but it’s the lesson planning, meetings, and grading that eat up evenings and weekends. Trust me, my wife is a teacher and it’s not an easy job.” Well, the director was a trustworthy person, but I thought there was a little hyperbole in his fatherly advice. Besides, the fire was burning strong and teaching was calling.
Eleven short months later, I would learn (in my first year at a small Catholic K-12 school in upstate New York) how spot on my former colleague was regarding a teacher’s workload. To be frank, I never worked harder in my life-and that’s not hyperbole. Learning physics and chemistry content, writing lesson plans, designing activities and labs, and grading student papers took 20+ hours each week—no exaggeration. And that doesn’t include the regular day’s work of student discipline, classroom management, communications with parents, etc… Finding mentors to help me sort out what I had gotten into and how to teach certainly helped, but wow did I underestimate the time commitment.
Pacing myself that first year was important to my sanity and emotional well-being. Racquetball at YMCA with friends at 4:00PM, dinner at 5:45, and school work from 6:30-9:30 was the weekday schedule. Weekends were half play and half work. My time increments were 90-minute cassettes (no Internet or CDs back in 1987) of new age music (Kitaro, Vangelis…), with ten-minute breaks between sides. Two cassettes on weekdays were the limit with no limits on weekends. I was so deep into work at one point that I remember telling a cousin I wouldn’t have time to attend her wedding. She properly admonished me, and of course, I had a great time at the wedding and reception. Year one was the toughest, but to be very clear, teaching is much more complex and time intensive than what it appears to the non-educator. Thankfully, the workload did diminish somewhat with experience, but my appreciation, respect and awe for educators grew exponentially during those early years.
Many people in the United States have flawed understandings of teachers and education; perhaps none more than I had for reasons I will elaborate on in a future post. Maybe it’s the common experience of having gone through a K-12 education system as children, or possibly our cultural view of education. Whatever the reason, it is primarily teachers or those living with teachers who fully understand the scope of work and responsibilities associated with the profession. Teaching is truly a labor of love, with one metric of success: the graduation of self-directed individuals ready and able to contribute to a democratic society. It is also a profession that demands time for restoration and rejuvenation. My director may have been right about the amount of work, but it was not a mistake for me to pursue a teaching career. In fact, it was the best move I ever made.
Lessons learned: Teaching is a much more complex and time demanding profession than many people realize, and mentorship and support of others are critical in those first few years.
Peace.
Research
-Data1 from the National Education for Education Statistics found 8% of teachers leave the profession each year, with the greatest numbers in high poverty districts where resources are limited and student needs greatest.
-Unfortunately, a Special Report from Education Week2 found the Covid pandemic has exasperated teachers’ fatigue, increasing their likelihood to leave the profession by 40% within the next two years. Note: their primary reasons for remaining is love for students.
-A 2022 study3 of Belgium educators’ reasons for leaving the profession identifies first year work load and job insecurity as key factors for novices, with other factors for veterans.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2022). Teacher Turnover: Stayers, Movers, and Leavers. Condition of Education. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved [date], from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/slc.
Education Week Special Report. (May 5, 2021). Why Teachers Leave—or Don’t: A Look at the Numbers. Retrieved June 18, 2022, from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-teachers-leave-or-dont-a-look-at-the-numbers/2021/05
Amitai, Ama, and Mieke Van Houtte. “Being Pushed Out of the Career: Former Teachers’ Reasons for Leaving the Profession.” Teaching and Teacher Education 110 (2022): 103540–. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103540.
You made it look easy to us kids, Steve, but then again, maybe we just couldn’t see the signs! But to my recollection you seemed to have it all together even during that first year. Actually, you ended up being one of the reasons that I tried the Secondary Education track at SUNY Plattsburgh. After my semester teaching a unit on theater to 7th graders, I decided that the profession wasn’t for me. There’s a story there of course, but suffice to say it wasn’t the kids, it was the other actual teachers at the school that made me decide to refocus my so-called efforts :) Very much looking forward to following you here!