Why graduate school? (At my age) A reflection about teaching.
2020-2021
For the last two years I have worked as an art teacher at a local public middle school. What began as a "Temporary Emergency" substitute position due to the surging COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be a fantastic opportunity and invaluable life experience for me.
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| 6th grade student's masks |
I am not going to lie, it was tough. The first year I was assigned to teach 6th grade "Art in World Cultures" in both virtual and brick-and-mortar classroom settings. Nothing I had experienced as a staff or freelance artist, online or private school teacher, homeschooling mother or Girl Scout leader prepared me to face the challenges of that year. Not even my previous experience in a public classroom as a technology teacher years before prepared me for what I encountered. This was the year of mass mayhem, fear, uncertainty, grief and discomfort for everyone, including our young students. Parents who never imagined homeschooling their children were eager to give this unconventional methodology a try with the hopes of keeping their children safe at home. Unfortunately, the concept of homeschooling is widely misunderstood and as consequence, many remote students were often missing from their virtual classroom. Some were barely present via voice only, showcasing a black screen with their name as they busied themselves surpassing the next level of their favorite video game while pretending to attend class in order to appease their parents.
Although I don't consider myself a tech guru, I am comfortable enough to not sink from lack of knowledge, so the new technical aspects of the job did not intimidate me. Apps like Google Classroom and Go Guardian saved every teacher in my district and demanded that everyone stepped up to integrate technology in their classrooms like never before. But even with these conveniences at our fingertips, teaching in the public school classroom in 2020 was a heroic act of massive proportions and one that no one outside of the education field will understand fully. I have never been more humbled and grateful towards my co-workers: fellow teachers and administrative staff who fought the same battle along side of me, day in and day out. I can assure you that we all received the well deserved summer vacation of June 2021 with open arms.
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| My first classroom ready for summer. |
The year that I worked as a long term substitute teacher I earned less than half a teacher's annual salary while fulfilling the same responsibilities under extenuating circumstances. I also kept up with training demands made by the school district and state department of education because I started to work under a "
Temporary Teacher Certificate", valid for only 3 years. As a good Girl Scout, I left the place ten times better than I found it, organized to the T and ready to be refreshed. I never considered joining the union because I needed to hold on to every penny I made. Mistakenly, I figured that I would join it the moment I got my full teaching credential.
