A Teacher’s Life

Teaching is a soul-sucking job. Okay, let me back up a little bit. I have the utmost respect for teachers. I have had the pleasure of knowing many of them through the course of my life. My mom was a teacher for several decades. Her friends were teachers, so most of my adult influences were teachers. I would spend days in the summer and weekends helping my mom get her room ready for the year or hanging out while she and her students worked to make the upcoming yearbook deadline. In middle school, I would get a ride with a teacher after school to meet my mom at another school where she would lead monthly meetings of the district’s AP and Pre-AP English teachers. 

In my own time as a teacher, I had the pleasure to know and work with many more teachers. Out of the probably hundreds of teachers I have known, I have never known one who didn’t have the very best of intentions, but the work is exhausting. The word “exhausting” doesn’t really do it justice. If you’ve never been a teacher, you can’t imagine the number of things you are juggling on any given day. 

Teaching the class is just the beginning. You are also attending meetings that may or may not relate to your classroom (if you teach an elective, it probably doesn’t). You are covering someone’s class on your plan period; you are grading assignments and entering grades into the online system; you are preparing supplies or papers for what you are doing tomorrow; you are contacting parents for disciplinary, attendance, or any other concern. When you plan assignments or tests, you have to create variations for all the students on IEPs. You have to plan a huge, annual fundraising event because the school doesn’t provide a budget for the arts department. I won’t go into the million details involved in that one item, but it is a lot. Additionally, there are other school events that you have to attend (which, by the way, are outside of your contract hours). You find out at prior-to-the-beginning-of school meetings that administration is beginning an initiative to boost student attendance, so you will now have two students that you have to mentor throughout the year to make sure they understand the importance of being in school. These are in addition to the four or five seniors you are advising on their Capstone projects. While you are doing all of these things, you are thinking about the students who are dealing with poverty, sexual assault, racism, bullying, the death of a family member, mental health issues, physical health issues, and many other kinds of trauma. I could go on and on.

On top of all of that, your job and the work that you do is politicized to the point that lawmakers, public figures, and the public at large question your intentions, your credentials, and your value. You are vilified as an indoctrinator when all you were trying to do was care deeply about the humanity of every one of your students and teach them something about your subject area. 

Since we don’t live in a world where we can actually sever our work and home lives, you are also dealing with things in your own life. Maybe your dad is in the hospital; maybe you are pursuing a graduate degree; maybe you have children of your own that you are trying to keep alive and raise to be decent human beings. And this life at home is really (and should be) your number one priority. It should be where your energy and your joy lives. But there is a constant expectation at work to do more, contribute more (for the same amount of pay), and never have a bad day or make a mistake. 

Personally, I never wanted to be a teacher. There. I said it. Parents probably don’t want to hear that their child’s teacher feels that way, and administration wouldn’t see it as a very hireable quality. However, I grew up seeing the demands expected of a teacher, and I didn’t want any part of it. What I did want to do was create art and learn more about art. The summer after my freshman year of college, I actually landed a job that was art-related assisting with summer camp at Philbrook Museum. I continued to work there for many summers and after college. When I got married, I was fresh out of graduate school with a Master’s in Museum Science and Administration. I was in search of a full-time job to contribute to my, now, party of two. I applied all over the country for a museum position, but got zero interviews. With my background in arts education on the local museum scene, what I did get were interviews for teaching positions. So, I accepted a job teaching art to ninth and tenth graders at the same intermediate high school where my mom taught for many years. After two and a half years of teaching full time, I realized I was not making any art of my own. It sounds melodramatic, but my heart kind of ached for it. I wasn’t making any art because I didn’t have the time to do it! Or if I did have time, I had no energy for it. I was able to create space for art-making when I transitioned to part-time work. As a child-free couple, we did not need two full-time salaries. But I was still spending much of my time in a job that was never my dream even though I greatly respected it. I decided to go back to school (again). This time, I would get an MFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). I had always really wanted an MFA, and I hoped that I could eventually change careers from education to illustration. I have been working my way through the ninety credit hour degree by taking one five-hour course at a time since the Spring of 2022. I currently have about a year left. 

This spring, my husband’s boss retired, and he was promoted to that position, which came with a raise that was substantial enough to replace my part-time teaching salary. So I took a big step and told my principal I wouldn’t be returning for the 2025-2026 school year. 

I recognize that I am extremely privileged to be able to follow this dream. I have a husband who is supportive and encouraging, and we have the financial freedom for me to take the time to work to build a career. I guess I should modify my initial statement to say that any job is soul-sucking if it is not what you dream of. And also, please be kind to teachers.