Yesterday, my office threw me a non-surprise farewell party. After 1071 days of service, I was presented with a tear-eliciting card, an office lunch (Thai), and a leather shoulder bag so that I would no longer commute to work using a rather hardcore bike messenger’s bag. While we ate, I fielded the usual barrage of tenure-expiration questions:
What subject will you be teaching?
High school science.
What is the school like?
It’s a small school, where the majority of students speak English as a second language.
When do you start?
Monday.
What? No break?
Can’t afford to – I gotta feed the kids.
Despite my financial situation, Mr. Franklin’s knowing gaze from inside that card immediately spurred my calculation of how many Patrón shots I could buy at that night’s celebration (8.33). However, before I could get the limes ready, the medical director quickly corrected my errant reasoning, “That’s to help you with your school supplies.” But I’m not going to…school. And then the gravity of the situation razed the heretofore illusory conception of my next career.
Becoming an educator seems to be the path of choice for many of this country’s recent college graduates, individuals suffering midlife crises, and other unemployed members of the population (as my Grandma oh-so-lovingly reminded me, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach). Despite this, there is still an overwhelming shortage of teachers, especially in schools where disadvantaged/underrepresented/underprivileged children of color are the majority.
I cannot debate the merits of teaching fellowships as a solution to the vacancies across the nation, because I have no grounds on which to judge them. I know several highly motivated and dedicated individuals who have thrived in the face of adversity while in these programs. At the same time, I know a handful of individuals who do not appreciate the extent to which they are adversely affecting children’s lives through consistent negligence of their daily wards.
What makes me, yet another uncertified teacher, any different from the droves of twenty-somethings ready to save the world, one at-risk youth at a time? I don’t know. But the way I see it, I share more with my students than the same blackened bubble on the census form. We’re all getting pimped. I’m turning lesson tricks for a system that permits an uncertified teacher to enter a classroom full of the students who need the most qualified and experienced instructors. They’re going through the motions of learning for a system that is supposed to guarantee equal access to quality education. At this point, the only certainty is that class is in session.
