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It’s been awhile since I posted anything work related, so I’m making a concerted effort to try and catch up tonight (…and to procrastinate on lesson planning/test correcting/etc.etc.etc…). So, here goes.

I recently came across a blog by a guy who had a really bad first year teaching, but still encouraged and determined, came back for a second year to give it another try. His second year turned out to be just as crappy as his first, and despite this, he came back for a third. Needless to say, the third year followed suit and he ended up leaving the profession altogether after that, exhausted, disillusioned and feeling unsupported.

If I could say anything to any soon-to-be first year teachers out there, it would be (among many, many other things) to find and establish a solid support system for yourself as soon as you can, because honey, you’re gonna need it. To say that the first year of teaching is overwhelming just doesn’t cut it. I mean, honestly, it really doesn’t. The words just are not sufficient to encapsulate all of the time you have to spend doing various things (outside of the classroom, mind you.. just to prepare you FOR the classroom), and the endless requirements of energy that the job seems to constantly demand and simultaneously sap from you every single day.

Please don’t get me wrong – I love my job. I really do, for real. I like getting up in the morning knowing that I’m going to work somewhere where I’ll be helping someone, where I’ll be making a real difference in some small way. It helps too knowing that the day seems to absolutely fly by. What still gets me though, is just how utterly wiped out and exhausted I feel every single day after I leave work. There are so many things I’d like to do after work. So many other, unrelated, un-educating things that I could enjoy once my day is over that could help me feel like a real person again with a full and eventful life…

But I never seem able to muster up the energy to do any of them. Instead, I get out of work at 3:30, end up staying after everyday until just about 5, pick my husband up from work and by the time we fight the evening traffic and finally make it up our three flights of stairs to home, it’s pushing 6:30 pm. A solid 12 hours since I left the house that morning, and I’m just now walking back in the door. That’s on a regular, ‘short’ day. If I have certification seminar after work, that’s another three solid hours of class and an hour commuting, so I’m not back in the house till 9pm. And dinner has to be cooked. The house has to be cleaned. Papers have to be graded, IEPs have to be written, emails have to be sent, parents have to be contacted, etc., etc., etc.  And we haven’t even gotten to spending time with my family yet or lesson planning or God forbid, working on one of our ridiculously long work products for our certification program.

I love my job. Love it. Love what I do each day. But I would also love having set hours. Like, when I get off work, I’m actually OFF work. Until the next day. To have a life like regular people who are not teachers. We soooooooooooooo do not work 40 hours a week. Teaching is easily (and I do mean easily) a 50+ hour a week job, and that may be a seriously lowballed figure. I think that’s one of the most difficult things for me at this point in my journey… that people who are not teachers do not always realize just how exhausting this job can be, and especially how difficult and completely overwhelming being a first year teacher can be. They mistakenly think it’s like any other job, like any other 9 to 5, so what’s the big deal? Ohhhhh, if they only knew!!!

Although you love the kids and love seeing them learn and build their confidence, you have to wonder sometimes what the cost is to your own life. My family sees me everyday, and yet they don’t see me. I’m with them every evening, and yet I’m not with them. I’m on the couch, in the living room, but I’m grading papers or planning lessons or pouring through the mounds and mounds of textbooks and binders and workshop materials that have now taken over our family’s living space, and my mind and attention are a million, million miles away. There, but not there.

I’ve got to get better at juggling all of this. I’ve just got to.