by Kevin Finn, American Thinker:
In a former life I taught science in Catholic schools to students in grades 6-9. My undergraduate degree was in Forestry, but I later earned my teaching certification in K-12 Biology. I also spent a few years as a student database administrator, facilities manager, assistant principal, and principal. I didn’t get much enjoyment from the years I spent in administration. I entered the field because I wanted to teach. I found it tedious to sit behind a desk all day and so after a while I returned to the classroom, where I was much happier.
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It was not uncommon begin a new school year with a few teachers on the faculty who’d recently graduated and were eager to embark on their teaching careers. Catholic schools don’t suffer from the sorts of discipline problems seen in many of our nation’s public schools, so some new teachers began their careers with us, honing their skills in content presentation and classroom management. Sadly, many would leave after a year or two, transferring to a public school where the salaries were more lucrative.
I bumped into some of those teachers afterwards and learned that a few of them had followed the same path I had — classroom teacher to administrator. When I would ask how they were doing, some of them shrugged and gave me a lukewarm response. They missed being around the kids, but found administrative work to be safer. One person referred to the higher salaries in the public school as “hazard pay.”
A few left the profession entirely, citing various reasons for their discontent. A common response was that they had an opportunity to earn more money doing something else, but some mentioned burdensome bureaucratic details like meetings that interrupted the school day, lack of support from school administrators, apathy and hostility from the students and their parents.
For a few years, I kept track of the number of weeks in the school year where we did not have an interruption such as a fire drill, school assembly, or more often a shortened day due to a faculty meeting. Our school year ran for forty weeks. For the years I kept track, there were no more than two uninterrupted weeks of school per year. Each interruption distracts the students and breaks the educational rhythm. When I brought it to the attention of the principal, he told me that those interruptions were important because “We’re educating the whole child.” Granted, fire drills are crucial and some assemblies are worthwhile, but many of those faculty meetings could have been accomplished via email.
Some teachers complain about longer working hours while others mention being assigned classes that are outside their area of expertise. For example, I was once asked to cover a 10th-grade chemistry class in summer school for a week while the regular teacher attended a seminar. I took two semesters of chemistry in college, but that was back in 1976. I managed to stay a few pages ahead of my students but it wasn’t an experience I’d ever want to repeat.
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