What is...

For as long as I can remember I wanted to teach.  In high school I had a couple amazing science teachers, and decided to pursue chemistry.  Looking back, the first year was great.  I had a full course load of six chemistry classes.  I planned one night, graded papers the next night, and had a little bit of a life outside the classroom.  Then I was transferred.  The school I was teaching at had a decrease in population due to redistricting to accommodate a new building that was opening.  This meant positions had to be cut, and positions were cut based on seniority, not the grades taught.  The year I left there were enough students taking chemistry to need a second chemistry teacher, but because I was the newest hire, I was the one who was moved.  Fortunately there was an opening at another building, so there I went.

I went from a school where most of the students had some ambition in life to either go to community college, a four year college or a tech school right out of high school to a school where almost half the students just want to graduate HIGH SCHOOL.  Some of these students would be the first in their family to graduate high school.  Most squeak by passing classes with straight Ds, very few want to pursue some sort of higher education.  I was lucky enough my first year with the Warriors to teach two sections of chemistry, the rest biology.  My attitude that year was different.  Instead of thinking that teaching would be cake, that these kids could go far in chemistry, I realized that I had to not only teach chemistry, but also math.  This was 2007, and I am still a Warrior.  Over the years I have realized that I am in this particular building for a reason.  Some of the kids need an adult who will listen to them and encourage them.  Some need a safe place to be during the day, but almost all still need me to teach them algebra.  I have never been able to cover as much content as I did my first year.  I have had more students fail as a Warrior.  I have never felt more defeated than I do this year, and wondered what has changed over the years.

In the seven years that I have been teaching I have grown seven years older, watched my first group of Warriors graduate high school, and many of them are heading into their senior year of college, gotten married, and had a child.  Of all those things, I have thought about which one or ones have changed me the most.  It was having a child.  I knew being a working mother was going to be hard.  Not just dropping off Little Man every morning with someone, but knowing that in the evening I would have a short amount of time with him before he went to bed, only to start thinking about work for the next day.  The work of a teacher is never ending.  This year I haven't brought a lot of work home, but I am always thinking about what's next.  What I am teaching, which kids I would love to see stay home, how I will impress administration if they HAPPEN to pop into my room.  It's exhausting.  Lately I've even been thinking about how I can manage to stay home next year.  That's the hardest for me.  Knowing that for my family I need to work, knowing that for my family I need to be home with our son.  If it weren't so vital that I replace my entire salary, it would be easy for me to stay home, work part time tutoring, but I can't make enough money tutoring to stay home.

It's not that I think Little Man isn't being well taken care of at day care.  I know he is.  The family watching him are wonderful friends of ours.  They are his godparents, and love him like one of their own sons.  My attitude needs an adjustment.  Not only does my amazing son need me, but so do my 100 students.  They need me to be present every day, I need to be focused on them, not on my new dream.  I am confident that eventually I WILL be able to be home with Little Man, and maybe at that point we will start thinking about more children of our own.  One of my dreams is to be home with Little Man and to be able to homeschool him.  I am sure that this will happen, at some point.  Right now my patience is being tested, and instead of focused on the "what could be," I need to start focusing on the "what is."