Mrs. miner
Tomorrow is my first day back to work. I feel like I can’t move. I need to get out of the pattern of being stuck, of being afraid to move. I don’t know if going back to my job is the answer, it doesn’t feel like it though. I know that I have to make money, and teaching is really the only job where I can have the schedule that meets the needs of my family. But, my values have been completely overhauled since I was in the classroom last, and I’m not sure how effective I’m going to be anymore. There are a lot of things that I just don’t find important anymore. I think that is what would be hard with any job. I don’t have the ability to fake care about ridiculous policies and I think I’m going to have a hard time doing things I don’t agree with (which is 1/2 of what any job actually is.) I’ll give you one example that I have been reprimanded for multiple times. I teach kindergarteners-ones with a lot of emotional and behavioral needs. If a kid is tired, I will let them (even encourage them) to go lay down and take a nap. My first year I just had a nap time in the afternoon, but that got kyboshed. I can’t teach a tired kid coping skills or how to read if they can’t keep their eyes open. I’m not forcing a practical baby (a baby who probably doesn’t have a very good home life) to stay awake so I can meet my minutes of ELA. That literally seems like mild torture to me. Maybe it’s going to be hard because I’ve never been a teacher that teaches because I want high achieving academic students. I’m a teacher because I might be the only person that gives a child love that day. I’m a special ed teacher, because I know how it feels to be a special needs parent, I truly understand the difficulties of having a non-neurotypical child. I teach kids with mental health issues, because I too had a traumatic childhood and can feel their pain.
I’m honestly worried about my general attitude. My tolerance for unimportant nonsense is about a zero. I don’t know how capable I am of keeping my mouth shut when I feel like people aren’t being treated fair, and as a lot of us realize, you aren’t treated very fair, in this profession, out of the gate. I literally don’t know what class I’m teaching and the kids come back in a week. God forbid I don’t have everything prepared in time. I haven’t worked in 6 months, so I have no money for supplies (money I shouldn’t have to spend anyway), and if I’m teaching a different grade, I have no curriculum done either. And with all of the new covid and political changes that might be made, it just feels like walking into instability. Instability is not a welcome scenario for someone who’s entire life got demolished in the past year.
And there is nothing, and I literally mean nothing, that will come before my family. All I can think about is how I missed Ian’s PreK graduation, and that I never got the opportunity to see his kindergarten one. Don’t get me wrong, I would always put work second anyway. There was absolutely no way that my child was going to be alone in the hospital because I had something at work that day-wasn’t going to happen. So it puts me in a position to weigh my priorities. How am I ever going to be able to hold down a job again, when will it ever be my priority? How is it going to be possible to focus on things when all I am thinking about it if my other children are ok? How am I going to handle the inevitable backlash when people find out that I have been so open with mental-illness and substance abuse? I don’t know if I’m upholding the moral standing of being a teacher anymore. I can guarantee you wouldn’t pick someone with my background to be your kids teacher.
But, with starting the new year tomorrow, it does give me an opportunity. An opportunity to help some broken babies put some of their pieces back together. An opportunity to show a child that they matter, that they are worthy of love. Maybe some of them can help me with my pieces too.