******************************************** From Newsweek [Society], June 4, 2001, pp. 43-44. See http://www.msnbc.com/news/578838.asp#BODY -------------------------- More than 20 percent of new teachers leave the profession in the first three years; after five years, more than a third have gone on to other careers. Money is the major reason. But rowdy kids, apathetic parents and long hours also push even idealistic teachers out. To find out more about what makes some stay and others leave, NEWSWEEK asked three first-year teachers to keep diaries. Here's how they did [below] ---------------------------------------- This is PART I of three parts. ******************************************** A Year In The Life Three novices talk about what it's like at the head of the class-and why teaching is the hardest job to love By Barbara Kantrowitz The statistics should scare every parent. The nation's public schools will need 2 million new teachers in the next decade, according to a recent government report. It'll be tough to recruit them and even tougher to keep them in the classroom. Elizabeth Jackson, 23, teaches middle-school language arts in Evanston, Ill. Elizabeth Jackson looks so young that more than one parent has mistaken her for a student. And this is middle school. But her youth hasn't spared her from shouldering the responsibility of educating six classes a day at Nichols Middle School, and 120 students representing an amazing cross section of America: white and black, rich and poor. She says she learned to teach by paying attention to the good and bad teachers in her own life. Her mother, who teaches elementary school in Iowa City, was her first role model. But Jackson is also haunted by the memory of a high-school English teacher whose rules for writing were paralyzingly rigid. Years later Jackson still recalls agonizing over a paper. "I sat writing a sentence, then deleting it, for over an hour," she says. "In the end I dropped the class, but the damage was done, and one thing was sure: I was not a writer." At Minnesota's St. Olaf College another teacher-a trusted professor-undid that damage by recommending that Jackson take a class in expository writing to help overcome her fears. It worked, and at the end of the semester Jackson wrote her professor a note: "There is nothing to say but thank you. You know what a struggle this has been for me. I still have a lot of growing to do, but at least I'm no longer scared." Jackson's getting notes like that from her own students these days, as well as some amazing pieces of writing. One boy, Gareth, "writes as well as the best writers I knew in college," she says. "He wrote a story early in the year that had me completely spellbound." There have been rough moments, too: trying to help her students with learning disabilities, difficult home lives and the inevitable agonies of being stuck somewhere between childhood and the glories of being a full-fledged teenager. Marlyn Payne, Jackson's mentor during her student-teaching days at Nichols in the fall of 1999, says that when Jackson first entered her classroom, she knew immediately that this one was a keeper. "She had a strong sense of herself," Payne says, "and she knew what she expected from the students." After a year in the trenches, that hasn't changed. "I became a teacher," Jackson says, "because I understand the power to change a person, for good or ill. And I hope, because I paid attention to my teachers, that I will know how to nurture. I teach writing not because it was easy and I was good at it, but because it was hard and I learned to love it anyway." DIARY "There are no magic words that will motivate every student" OCT. 13: Another Friday. I want nothing but silence. The low buzz of Juan's vacuum cleaner is about all I can take. I never appreciated Fridays before. Never in college, not even during finals. Now, on my drive home from school on Fridays, I take a deep breath and slowly allow myself to become 22 again, to become Elizabeth rather than Ms. Jackson. I look forward to a night on the town, maybe a date even, but more than anything I think of how I will really sleep for the first time in five nights, how I will allow myself to let go of my students-the ones who never turn in any work despite my calls home, the ones who won't sit still and can't stop talking, the ones who work diligently every day and never get the praise they deserve because I'm too frantic and disorganized to worry about anyone except those who aren't "meeting the standard." I will not think about the hours of grading I have to do. And I will not fret about what, and how, I'm going to teach next week or next month. My dreams will be school-free for at least tonight, which is the most relaxing thing I can imagine. Three different teachers told me what a wonderful job I'm doing today. Would they still say that if they sat in on my first-period class today? If I'm doing so well then why won't my ninth-period class shut up? If I'm wonderful, then why do I feel that on most days I'm treading water and it's only a matter of time until I drown? OCT. 23: I have spent so much time and energy chasing after students who are not turning in their work-offering them extra help after school or at lunch, calling their parents, practically begging them. I brood during the day and dream about them at night. I tried every angle, and slowly I became less understanding and more frustrated and threatening. I was a basket case. I was burning out to the point where I could hardly enjoy the often phenomenal work I was getting from many of my students. So, over the weekend I pounded it into perspective. I said no to the guilt, let go of the anger and faced facts. I cannot make my students work, and I cannot force them to succeed. If teachers had that kind of power, no student would fail. There are no magic words that will motivate every student. Teachers find it hard to let go of the idea that we can be that one person who guides all to success. And so many people seem to want us to be able to fill that role. I wanted to scream when I watched George W talking about "holding teachers accountable" during the debates. Give me families that have enough money to feed their children and time to read to them before bed. Give me 15 students in a class and a copy machine that works more than every other week, and then we'll talk. NOV. 27: When I came home last night and still had a pile of papers to read, I just sort of froze up. Is this my life? One of my roommates asked me what was wrong, and I peered up pathetically from under my stack of papers. "I feel like my life, everything, is racing past me at 90 miles per hour, and all I can do is just sit here like this and watch it zoom by." I am a picture of confusion, dumbfounded inadequacy, panic, failure and guilt. Regardless of how many hours I give, I always feel like I could have/should have given more. So why do I do this? Why not join my roommate, who works at an ad agency, with an office on the 31st floor with a beautiful view of the city? On days like today I have a hard time answering that question. Then I open my desk drawer and see one of the reasons staring back at me. A card and picture from one of my dearest students. "To: Ms. Jackson/From: Dulce V./ you are the Best teacher/ i have ever knew./ And you are so/nice like you're own/Heart." That's Dulce, honest and unedited. Because she grew up in a jumbled world of English and Spanish, she doesn't have a strong linguistic foundation. But she's only in seventh grade and she has time. That's why I'm here. FEB. 13: I was the chaperone at the Valentine's Day dance. I really didn't want to be there, but then I started to receive some of the perks of being the youngest teacher in the building, the "rookie." The students never seem to mind my being there and some even want me to join in the dancing (which I of course refuse because they already take advantage of every possible opportunity to see me as one of them). They don't even mind as much when I break up their bumping and grinding, as if, again, I somehow understand their raging hormones better because of my age. And I suppose I might. I sometimes have flashbacks of my own junior-high dances, which didn't look much different from theirs. When a girl is shaking her ass all over the floor and a little boy behind her just can't help but grab onto it, I simply pull him aside and say sternly, but with a smile, "You can look, but don't touch." MAY 3: I have found reasons to love almost all of my students. Some of them for their kindness and insight, some because they make me laugh every day no matter how I try to hold it in and deny them the satisfaction, and some simply because they get up in the morning and come to school even though their home lives are more difficult than I can ever understand. As long as they surprise me, I will continue to love this job. Marlyn Payne, my first mentor and close friend, told me earlier this year that if she ever sits down and writes a book about teaching middle school she has the perfect title: "Dancing on the Edge." When I think about my first year of teaching, which has also been my first year in the "real world," I can't think of a more accurate image. I'm sure many young teachers leave because they can't maintain the balance, or they never find it in the first place. Teachers leave because, in this country, the entire profession is under-appreciated and misunderstood by everyone who has not done their time in the classroom. Time and time again, people who haven't spent a day in the classroom, let alone a week, are given the power to dictate our salary, our pre-teaching training, our standards, our curriculum and "requirements for re-certification." Despite these insulting truths, I think that I will probably stay. I work with outstanding people every day. I have models for keeping the balance and reinventing myself as a teacher when the time comes. My two teaching mentors will leave Nichols next year. One to lead the English department at the high school, and one to tackle new and different challenges at the elementary level. Although most of me wishes they would stay to see me through a few more years, I know that they need to make these changes for themselves. I also know they will continue to be models for me, when my time comes to reinvent myself. ----------------- Photography by Grant Delin. ------------------------------------- PART II will follow shortly. **************************************************** -- Jerry P.Becker Department of Curriculum & Instruction Southern Illinois University Carbondale, IL 62901-4610 USA Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O] (618) 457-8903 [H] Fax: (618) 453-4244 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------- This is the CPS Mathematics Teacher Discussion List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
