After reading this chapter and the two detailed, eye-opening stories, I feel extremely lucky to have gone to St. Joseph High School where our school climate was clean, safe and energized. The most drama we had was one or two fights over the course of a year. We had a plethora of extracurricular activities offered and a very supportive community.
I don't know if I could teach in a school like the two described in this chapter. Emotionally I would drain by the end of the week and beat myself up for not being able to be a superhero and help out the at-risk students more.
I applaud the teachers who are able, and actually care about their students, unlike some of the dead-beat teachers described in this chapter.
Danielle, you bring up a good point about the portrayal of teachers. It seems that teachers are often portrayed either as deadbeats, just in it for the money (though the money isn't so good!), or superheroes. In reality, a "superhero" teacher (like the ones on Freedom Writers and similar movies) is likely to get burned out really fast. I found that in my first years of teaching, I was able to give 110% to my job, but eventually it was too much. I had to pull back and take care of myself. I also had to face the reality that I couldn't do extra for every single student. There were limits on my time and energy. I think you're smart to think critically about your own limits. Sometimes our culture expects a good teacher to be a martyr (not concerned about the salary, only in it for the kids, willing to go above and beyond for every student) when really teaching is a profession and a career. Sometimes we lose sight of that.
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