#40: get a permanent teaching job

#40: get a permanent teaching job (in progress)

I decided I wanted to be a teacher when I was in 8th grade.  In 11th grade I decided I wanted to be an accounting teacher, because I loved my accounting class so much (Math! Organization! Spread sheets! Balancing!  It made my brain happy).  Upon the realization that in order to be an accounting teacher I would have to take a lot of business classes, I decided to follow my true love and be a Social Studies/History teacher.

I ignored all the people throughout the years that warned me about how difficult the job market is for teachers because it was simply the only thing I wanted to do.   So I plugged on, making my way through three different schools.  In the last year of my college education, I started to teach lessons.  To my classmates, to 7th graders in a Catholic school in a team-teaching setting, and eventually to my 7th and 8th graders in my student teaching placement.  Each step of the way, I was more convinced that teaching is what I'm really supposed to be doing with my life, that I'm really good at it.  (Well, okay, that lesson I taught to 7th graders about White Man's Burden was a little awkward, but it was my first time teaching a lesson to real students all by myself.  The students still seemed to get a lot out of it even if I was really dry-mouthed and stumbling over my words a bit.)  I'm not sure how to talk about my teaching skills without sounding arrogant, but I'm not being arrogant, I just know that I'm a good teacher.  I've got proof from others to back it up (I was NMU's History Department's Student Teacher of the Year, but most importantly, I've got a whole stack of recommendation letters from my students).  I just know this is what I'm supposed to be doing, it's what I'm best at, this is how I can be of most benefit to my community.  Not only that, but when I teach, I have so much fun.  It makes me happy, and it feels natural.  While others complained about how stressful and difficult their student teaching experience was, all I could say was that mine was going great!  I loved putting together lessons, hearing my students' ideas about the world, even grading quizzes and projects, it made me content, gave me purpose.  For my own selfish reasons, I want to be a teacher, because it makes me happy.

I graduated college in December, 2009.  I've been looking for a teaching job ever since, and substitute teaching in the mean time.  I have applied for 102 jobs since graduating college (54 teaching jobs, the rest non-teaching, mostly office).  I have had 6 interviews, 4 for teaching jobs.  I've gotten one job, at a spice store.   I love working at Spice Merchants, but I only work 2 or 3 days a month, so it's definitely not paying my bills (except during the holiday season).  It's a little disheartening that this year I've applied for the same amount of teaching jobs as I did last year, and last year I had four interviews, and this year I've hadnone.  It's very true that the job market for teachers is rough.  It was rough when I was in college, and it's only gotten worse and worse each year.  The combination of Michigan's economy, our republican governor, and the increased disrespect of teachers in the media and overall in society is making it hard to 1) get a teaching job; 2) keep a teaching job/not have your job or district consolidated or cut out due to rising class numbers (You all know that some Detroit classrooms have 60 students now, right?  60 students, 1 teacher [and for their sake, hopefully a couple of those students have aides to help out].  And the teachers get blamed for the schools not performing); and 3) get paid a decent wage, or not have your pension taken away.

I've subbed for two and a half school years.  I have to say, I'm exhausted.  The last two years, at the end of the school year, I was so dedicated to getting another job, any job at all, so that if I didn't get a regular teaching job for the next school year, I at least wouldn't have to return to subbing.  The majority of my days subbing are not that bad, even boring (I work semi-often for these two middle school Special Ed TCs where I spend most of the day reading in their help lab, occasionally helping students with math, but mostly just reading).  But the days that are bad completely overshadow those days in my memory.  For my own sanity there are certain districts/schools/types of classes I avoid (middle school band?  no thank you!), but that also means I work less.  I make enough money subbing to cover my bills, but nothing else.  (Thanks in part to my job at Spice Merchants) I did manage to pay off the debt I had racked up from last summer of not working...at the end of May.  Just in time to get back in debt once school was out.  As someone who is in the process of buying a house (well, Robert's buying it.  I'll be paying off my portion of the house to him once I get a real job), and wanting to get married, go on a honeymoon, hell, be able to travel at all, I long for some type of steady income.  What I wouldn't give for a regular monthly income so that I could budget, actually be able to save money for the first time in about two years.  But it seems that's not in the cards for me at this time.  And it's getting exhausting.  Having to obsess about ever dollar that I spend, having to turn down parties and events and just hang out time with friends because I can't afford the gas to get there.  And what's really hard, is not being able to be generous.  This past year, I've had so many people buy me food and drinks, share their meals with me, that it's touching.  And heart wrenching at the same time because I can't repay the favor.  I'm getting depressed, and I'm utterly exhausted.

And yet, I try to remain hopeful.  The idea of going back to school and trying to enter a different field has crossed my mind during many difficult days of subbing. But I literally cannot think of anything else I would rather do.  (Other than stay home and be a writer?  But I know I don't have the chops/enough good ideas/the skill for that.)  I still believe that this is the field for me, that I need to be teaching.  While trying to find a student teaching placement, I was the very last person of all the students that I knew in the education department to get a placement.  I got turned down by teachers in two schools, and I had no idea why.  I was starting to feel really crappy about it, and get worried that I wouldn't have anywhere to do my student teaching.  And then I interviewed with Mr. P (a process most student teacher prospects didn't go through), and it was a good fit.  And the classroom I ended up in was the best place for me.  I try to remember that.  I try to tell myself that I don't have a job yet because the classroom that's going to be perfect for me just hasn't opened up yet.  It's hard, but I have to believe in that.