And That is That

Here lies Rosemary's teaching career. Taken too soon, it will be missed.

Or not. Anyway, I officially got word today that I was not rehired for my old job. I made a few half assed attempts to apply elsewhere, but my heart wasn't really in it. Truthfully, my heart wasn't particularly in it for my old job either. At the end of last year, I got to the point where I understood a little of how the classroom worked. I was at that point where not everything is new and confusing. I had a framework to work off of and improve off of. And it felt good. I figured I wanted to go on and do it another year. I was just starting to get good at it, after all.

And then summer hit. I was bored by week one. I really had no idea what to do with myself. I found ways to piss away the time, but it was honestly kind of depressing. Video games provided a pretty good release, but truth be told, I wasn't feeling particularly fulfilled and I just ended up getting lazier and lazier.

I've heard people say the biggest three reasons to get into teaching are June, July, and August. Har de har. Well not for me. I became an absolute shut in recluse and it wasn't particularly fun. So by the end of it, you'd think I'd be itching to go back to school, but I really wasn't. Like really really wasn't. I started having horrible flashbacks to the beginning of school, which was truly one of the most miserable times of my life. The thought of having to go back started making me feel pretty unpleasant. I guess my gears had rusted a bit and I wasn't terribly excited to get them running again. The idea of getting everything set up and being back at work in a week's time was honestly pretty intimidating, and I mean more than just getting mentally prepared. Having to restock my classroom and fill it again with all of my old stuff, having to get all my textbooks, having to plan out the first week and trying to make it better than last year- all of these things started to feel pretty overwhelming. And then I thought back to the kids. I had some good experiences with some of them. Many of them were really good kids. But I didn't know how to handle them all, and there were so many to handle. The class sizes are huge in Hayward and they're only getting bigger this next year. The school year started pretty miserably last year with students sitting on the floor for lack of desks, and while I don't think it will be quite as bad this year, I don't think it's going to be a whole lot better.

So for a whole lot of reasons, I was pretty trepidatious about going back to teaching, but I decided to hold strong and reapply. I figured I would feel better about it once I started, and I wanted to clear my credential at least, which would mean one more year. So I walked in to the office and tried to reapply. It wasn't easy. The principal was out most days. It was hard to pin anyone down. But I kept coming in, day after day, and I finally got ahold of the principal. He was nice enough and had a conversation with me and then scheduled me an appointment for a formal interview. As much as I hated having to reapply for the same position, I went with it. I mean, the guy doing the hiring had never met me after all, so I didn't mind terribly. But jumping through all those hoops sucked. It kind of reminded me a little of what interactions with the administration had been like last year. I never saw hide nor hair of them. Until I messed up that is. Then they were there to set me straight right away. I never got any tour of the facilities or any instruction on how things worked there. I didn't even know I was supposed to get those things. I just got a room number, a set of keys, and a list of classes. I didn't even get a list of students until the day before school started. We were given a talk on gangs that scared the crap out of us right before school started. Oh and a booklet of school rules no one read, and if you did read it, the joke was on you because it's not like anyone adhered to what it said. It was horribly mismanaged and almost my every interaction with the administration made me feel like crap.

So that dread of school starting wasn't exactly going away as I got closer to the date. And it didn't help that I was still up in the air about whether or not I even had a job. I didn't really feel like starting at a new school either. Sure they might treat the teachers better (I'm almost certain they would because it would be hard to treat them worse), but I'd also be getting started at an entirely new place, which really doesn't sound fun at all. Getting to know a new faculty and a new student body and then having to transfer my sick days and my BTSA files just sounded like a lot of extra work for what was going to be still a pretty crappy job. I'd still have to work my hands to the bone for 9 months of the year and then be bored for 3. It was that more than anything else that made me reluctant to apply elsewhere. I know the job will get better as I work at it longer. If I keep putting in the hours, I'm going to get better at teaching. Even as soon as the end of last year I began to see the improvement in my quality of life. If I had tenure and got the admins off my back and if I got my lesson plans and tests down, honestly it wouldn't be such bad gig. I remember days last year where I just went home at 4 and chillaxed. I'd be there an hour early the next morning planning up a storm, but I got to the point where planning went pretty fast. I could whip up a lesson in 15 minutes. I had a system that worked, and as I perfected that system, I could see this job not being so crappy after all. But did I really want to put in the years necessary to perfect the system? If you go back and look at my motives for getting in to the this field, they are honestly pretty questionable. I had no idea what teaching entailed. I thought it was enough to know the content and be a good public speaker. There's a joke. It's really not what I thought it was. And sure, I could plow onward and attempt to master this thing. I could do it too. I've already seen myself improve drastically. But do I really want to? Do I want to continue down this path just because I'm already on it? It's kind of like a 4 year old who says he wants to be an astronaut and then doggedly never strays from that path. At 4, you're not really qualified to know what it means to be an astronaut. And until I taught, I really wasn't qualified to know what a teacher did. And it wasn't what I thought it was. Do I want to continue in that career path? The truth is, I don't even know what else is out there. I spent all my time in school, and then I went to a trade school, and then I went to that trade. It doesn't really give one a lot of perspective on the world. I think I need to see more of it. And I was thinking this even as I was still going through the interview process. And I gotta say I'm thinking of it even more now that going back isn't an option.

Frankly I was already seriously considering not going back, but I still hated being told I wasn't hired. I know I wasn't the greatest, but it's insulting not to get rehired. They knew me. Sort of. Steven was saying that he was sure there was someone more qualified to do his job than him, but he would have been pretty insulted if they had started the hiring process for his position while he was still available to do his job. I mean, they had me and they knew it. They knew I was reapplying and interested. I never let wind to them all the doubts I was having. Sigh. But I could tear my hair out thinking of all the ways things could be and all the slights I might have felt. Things are the way they are. I reapplied. I was not rehired. There's not much more I could have done. And I guess I could have busted my ass more to get hired elsewhere, but the truth is I didn't really want to work elsewhere. I like my colleagues. I knew the student body. I knew who to go to to get things done. I knew how things worked at Mt Eden and I didn't want to get to know how things worked elsewhere only to leave in a year to try to get a better sense of the world and of the different jobs there were out there. So things fell down as they have and I don't particularly regret the way it all came out. If they had offered me a job, there would have been a lot of pressure to take it. Also, I didn't want to burn bridges by turning them down. So that is that. The end of my teaching career, at least for now. If I hung around I could probably score a long term sub position, and I suspect they may even be hiring actual positions after the school year starts and they realize they don't have enough teachers. But I'm going to start looking at other fields anyway. It's kind of what I wanted, and sure I would have liked to choose it for myself, but there's something nice in having what I sort of wanted forced upon me as well.