4 Reasons Why The World Needs Fewer Educators Like Me

My first official experience in education began after my A-level exams: I taught Spanish and music for 2 years at an all-boys' secondary school. I never even thought about whether or not teaching was a passion. It was simply a job that would allow me to save up for a couple of years before heading off to university.

That's just the reality for many young Caribbean people after college. I wasn't the first and I most certainly was not the last. It's sort of a rite of passage. It's just what you do, unless you come from a well-off family that can afford for you to fly off to an American or British college or university without going through the awkward experience of being the oldest student in your class.

So, after an over-the-phone and an in-person interview with the principal and vice-principal, I started teaching. I obviously was very young, with little experience, apart from teaching catechism and working at a jump rope summer camp. (It just seems so crazy now that I was able to enter a classroom at 19 and educate teenage boys.)

Undoubtedly, teaching has always been the easiest way for me to both travel and earn a salary, albeit a very meagre one, at the same time.

This current isolation situation has given me more than enough time to reflect on my life and decisions thus far. I know, how original! But, this on-going reflection has led me to understand why the world needs fewer educators like me:

1.    I have other passions!

I've always hated limiting my experiences because I know that there's so much more I can learn about life and others. I love being creative, learning about other cultures, discovering new foods and travelling. As a teacher, it is important to share these things with your students. You have to show them that there's more to life than the town or country where they were born.

However, it becomes increasingly difficult to discover new things when you're supposed to: 1) be in the classroom from 8am-4pm, 2) grade assignments at lunch and after dinner 3) meet with parents during your only free period, 4) lesson plan on weekends, and 5) attend weekly staff meetings that can last up to 4 hours.

Sometimes, the stress of teaching can force you to shove your goals, dreams and aspirations into a corner because you become so enthralled with helping your students dream big and find their purpose. This leads me to my next point…

2.    I care too much

There's this old adage: "those who can't do, teach". I always hated hearing this because it always made me feel like I wasn't living a fulfilling life. As if I wasn't intelligent or clever enough to achieve any real goals so I had no choice but to resort to teaching to get by.

However, of late, I've come to the realisation that I am capable of more than just teaching, and that this old saying can also refer to those of us who only teach because we're so stressed out about our students’ lives that we don't have any free time to even think about doing anything else apart from teaching.

As an educator, you often find yourself as an advocate for even your worst students. You know the ones who hate your guts and are not shy to let everyone know it? They complain about you to anyone who will listen and even start rumours about how you're such a b**** just because you didn't grade the assignment they turned in 2 months late. Yeah, that one!

However, these same students will come up to you at lunchtime a few days later and share disturbing stories about their home life, why they started cutting themselves and which classmates started a disgusting rumour about them. Yet, you won't even bat an eyelash before deciding to spend the rest of your lunchtime with them in the counsellor’s office, and many lunchtimes after that with them reviewing the lessons they missed the week before since their parents couldn't afford to send them to school with lunch money.

And, even though you try your hardest to stay strong for these students because they need a shoulder to cry on, you can't seem to let go of their burdens because they eventually become your burdens i.e. the reasons you can't fall asleep at night because you can't get their traumatic stories out of your head and keep praying that their situation will soon get better.

3.    I hate receiving unsolicited advice

"Opinions are like a**holes, everyone’s got one..." - Simone Elkeles

For every piece of helpful, solicited advice you give your students, there are about 5 colleagues who are ready, willing and able to "help you out".

I remember returning home to teach after having lived abroad for 6 years. I was so excited to take on this new role and share what I'd learnt in Martinique with my students: to revolutionise language teaching. *This is where you insert the womp womp womp music*.

Little did I know that to the senior teachers, I was immediately supposed to take on the role of the new, inexperienced teacher, who so desperately needed their guidance. I was given some “much-needed” advice on my wardrobe. One teacher said that my style was too French (I guess that meant stylish?) and that I was back in Saint Lucia now and needed to dress accordingly. How dare I not wear dresses that were 6 inches below the knee, long-sleeve and buttoned-up to the neck shirts, and of course closed shoes to work in 28°C temperature every day?

Undoubtedly, the majority of their unsolicited advice was connected to my looks, while barely anyone cared about my actual teaching, except for those who were really in charge!

I have worked at many schools in different countries. I’ve worked for principals who creepily checked me out. I've worked for principals who didn't care at all about my existence, because the most important thing to them was that I showed up to work on time and taught, and I've even worked for principals who would just pop into my classroom unannounced and walk around to show me who's boss, while half of my students stared at me confused and the other half appeared scared to death.

I’ve always found the latter the most annoying because why do they think it’s necessary to interrupt my lesson just to show off their peacock feathers and then interrogate me for 10 minutes after the class about whether or not I realised that Tom started writing his paragraph without first heading up his notebook? Maybe it’s because I have 30 students in my classroom, each of whom has different needs and attention spans and I wanted to make sure that they all completed at least one activity before heading out for lunch.

4.    I like nice things

Anyone who has ever taught knows that a teacher's salary is small, tiny, minute, miniscule...

Throughout the years, I've seen teachers' posts on social media asking for better salaries and working conditions, while people (who have obviously never taught before) in the comments’ section somehow justify why we shouldn't receive more money because we have so many holidays, all of which we spend in exotic places like the Maldives and Dubai.

To be honest, we do get a lot of vacation days. However, I can’t remember ever fully being on vacation mode during my time off, because I've always had to respond to department e-mails (even while abroad on vacation), meet with the principal on more than one occasion, plan lessons, collect and read through new textbooks, prepare my classroom, edit my class list, contact concerned parents and worry about whether or not I'll be getting paid over the break since no two work contracts are ever even minutely the same.

I can honestly say that I have never ever met a filthy rich teacher or a teacher who fully enjoyed more than a weekend during any school break. Any teacher who is wealthy more than likely was rolling in the dough before entering the wonderful world of teaching, married rich or made a fortune from writing numerous bestselling books or giving awesome lectures that have transformed the world of education.

Now, for someone like me, who likes nice things because “they spark joy”, teaching just doesn't cut it. How am I ever going to visit the Taj Mahal or purchase a VIP package for a Rihanna concert if I can't even afford to pay my rent?

That's why it’s so funny to see the same parents, government officials and social media accounts who were talking incessantly, before Covid-19, about how teachers need a pay cut because they don't work during summer vacation are now the ones who are going crazy and locking themselves in their bathrooms with a bottle of wine after having home schooled their own kids for 1 week.

It's sad that it took a pandemic for many people to see that teachers do more than just teach: we educate, illuminate, create, and keep your spoilt kids in check before the nanny comes to pick them up at school! I’m just kidding…not all spoilt kids have nannies; some of them have au pairs!

For those of you reading this, I hope you understand that I do enjoy teaching because it’s such a humbling experience. You can spend an entire weekend planning one activity for your students because so many other teachers raved about how it changed their students’ lives on Pinterest, only to have your students roll their eyes and vote to play hangman instead!

In all seriousness, I have over 8 years of teaching experience and I have learnt so much about life, relationships and myself throughout this time. I always try to give my all to my students because I know that some of them just need someone to believe in them. However, it saddens me to see that so many teachers have inadvertently had to sacrifice their financial independence, mental health, hopes, dreams and aspirations in order to continue educating the next generation of leaders who will most likely be talking smack about them on the Internet and begging government officials to cut their salaries in half.

I, for one, am tired of sacrificing my happiness to help others realise their dreams. I’m trying to be more selfish so that I could finally stop answering e-mails from students 5 minutes before the 11:59pm assignment deadline.