A Day in the Life...

I spent my entire day today at school doing mindless paper work. This is why I don’t want be a teacher anymore. The sheer amount of paperwork that we are required to do at any given moment is ridiculous. I have spent the last two weeks doing paperwork and that leaves me VERY little time for actual lesson planning.

People wonder WHY schools are becoming worse? It’s because teacher’s are so bogged down with work that their administrators require that they are unable to focus on developing creative and inspiring lesson plans. Students don’t like having to do worksheet after worksheet, and you know what, neither do we! It’s boring! Sadly, we do it because we have very little time to spend on coming up with lessons that would otherwise be interesting for both students and teacher.

I find it frustrating when people complain about why teachers are so terrible at their jobs, when they haven’t the first clue as to what is required in the job. I wake up each day between 5 and 5:30am and I’m lucky to be home by 6pm. I have preparations to make, planning to attempt to do, grading to finish (which I desperately need to do this weekend), intervention plans to work on, and small group lessons to develop. This will take days to complete, and that’s only part of everything. I can’t even put it all into words! There’s too much.

I hate that I come home from school more exhausted than my students. I hate that they have virtually no repercussions for their behaviors, which is why I don’t get to teach as much as I’d like. It’s insane when a fellow coworker is threatened by a student with a pair of scissors and he gets NOTHING done to him. Why? Good question. He has no emotional issues that are medically documented, yet he is treated as though he does, therefore, he’s let off the hook far too much. I wish he were the exception and not the rule, however, that isn’t the case any longer.

If you want to know why it’s difficult to keep teachers anymore? Just ask one, “How’s your work environment?” and you’ll have your answer really quickly.