The Catharsis of Getting Rid of Orchids

[Raqsharqi]

I worked my butt off, and most of my colleagues did too. There are always poor teachers...like there are poor almost everything else. I corrected every single paper that a student turned in, and then corrected the ones I made them do over to show me they finally understood. Paper grading went from 7-9 Monday through Thursday, and from about 10-9 one day of the weekend. But I expected to be paid for my 40 years of experience and two MAs. Sorry. That doesn't make me a bad teacher.
I think lots of folks seem to think we should all be school marms that lived in the school and got paid in chickens, apples, and firewood. Or be like the television teacher heroes who had heart attacks and/or divorces because of their total dedication to their students. If that is the criterion you use to judge "good", then I'm most certainly not! We have spouses and children and lives like everyone else. If I had wanted to be Mother Teresa, I'd have joined a convent.

[Leafmite]

Not saying that the teachers that get paid well are bad teachers, not at all. I mentioned this because, when you have a good teacher or a group of good teachers, you never forget all that they have done or whatever sacrifices that they have made. (Same goes for crummy teachers.) It doesn't matter if the teachers are highly paid or paid nearly nothing (I do believe, though, that it is wrong not to regard teaching more highly as a profession as an education determines a person's entire life). My kids went to a school that pays teachers well and they can tell you the teacher that made them love science or the teacher that inspired them to choose which college degree to pursue. They also can tell you about the teachers that were always busy on their cell phones, talking in the hall with other teachers, or planted in front of the computer, writing email. As one who was dedicated to your students, you should be very proud of the difference you have made in the lives of those you taught.

[bil]

Originally Posted by Raqsharqi

I worked my butt off, and most of my colleagues did too. There are always poor teachers...like there are poor almost everything else. I corrected every single paper that a student turned in, and then corrected the ones I made them do over to show me they finally understood. Paper grading went from 7-9 Monday through Thursday, and from about 10-9 one day of the weekend. But I expected to be paid for my 40 years of experience and two MAs. Sorry. That doesn't make me a bad teacher.
I think lots of folks seem to think we should all be school marms that lived in the school and got paid in chickens, apples, and firewood. Or be like the television teacher heroes who had heart attacks and/or divorces because of their total dedication to their students. If that is the criterion you use to judge "good", then I'm most certainly not! We have spouses and children and lives like everyone else. If I had wanted to be Mother Teresa, I'd have joined a convent.

Teaching is a vital and praiseworthy profession.. Teachers have a profound effect on children, sadly, not always a good one.
I had a lot of problems at school, - there were some inspirational teachers that I will always remember with great fondness, even now, 5 decades on. A lot of them were pretty indifferent, who blamed the students for everything, never realising that it was their job to light the flame. As for the really bad ones, and I have known way more of those than a child ever should, well.. you know that phrase "I'd like to meet him in a dark alley with a baseball bat?"
Nope. Reason being, I'd be having so much fun, I wouldn't stop till the only way they could identify them was from the fog of DNA settling out on the buildings.

School days the happiest of your life?

No. Were that the case I would have killed myself long ago.