My Story: Trials as a New Teacher

Once Upon a Time…

My story as a new teacher probably started before some of you were even born.  It started in the early 90’s when it was difficult to get a teaching job.  Can you imagine? When I graduated from San Diego State University, I applied to a few public schools in the area to no avail.  Then I saw a job opening at a Christian private school in San Diego. My first few years were filled with times of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” (and no, I’m not just talking about my 90’s hair.)

The Good…

My first job was as a kindergarten teacher in a 100% African-American school.  Man, I loved my little babies.  I can still name each one by name.  I can’t believe that they are around 31 years old now.

I relished teaching my kids how to do the morning calendar in both English and Spanish (I wanted to be a bilingual teacher), taught them to read up to small chapter books (it helps when you have them all day), and laughed, sang, and danced a lot.  I loved decorating my room (decorations bought with my money and donated by my awesome teacher aunt), learned more about the Bible through our Bible studies, and thrived on learning about my students.

The Bad…

I taught for 9 hours a day, for $10/hour, with no benefits.  We didn’t have a plan time, and the teachers served the students their hot lunch in between bites of our own.  The women had to wear panty hose and dresses every day, even if we were doing art or PE later that day, and the men had to wear ties.

The Ugly…

Around January, a main pipe broke and our school flooded.  My classroom was on the bottom floor.  There went all the materials bought with my money!  My classroom was moved to the WOMEN’S BATHROOM LOUNGE in the church across the street.  Yes, I just said I taught in the bathroom.  (At least the kids didn’t get lost on the way to the toilet.) I taught my 17 kindergarteners in the bathroom for a month until we moved into the public school next to it while that school was on break.  I shared a classroom with the other kindergarten teacher and her twenty kids.  Well, at least until she decided to quit.

Now, I had 38 kindergarteners to myself, and I was now making a whopping $15/hour.  Hard to believe.   This went on for a few more weeks until our school was ready to move into again.  It was like the first day of school starting over with new materials bought with my money and putting up new bulletin boards.

Second Year of Teaching Story

For some reason, I don’t remember a lot about this year, except for one story.  My students were doing an art activity, which included scissors, glue, glitter and markers.  After art, it was nap time.  Nap time was heaven for me.  It was the only time I could grade papers and plan my lessons.  The students would sleep under the pod-shaped tables with nice quiet music playing.

Well, it was quiet until I heard a blood-curdling scream.  I ran over to the girl who was yelling only to find her holding one of her pigtails in her hand…and it wasn’t attached to her head anymore.  One of the boys had stashed a pair of scissors in his pocket and decided to cut off a girl’s braid. She screamed all the way down to the director’s office and continued until her grandma picked her up.  I felt terrible!

A Strange Occurrence

I made the big move up to second grade my third year of teaching.  I had many of my same kids as my first year, so we became very close.

What I remember most about this year was a strange event.  A park was across the street from the school, and we would take our students there to play at least once a week.  I would go into the bathroom and ask the drug dealers to leave.  They were kind and left with no arguments.  One day, we decided to just stay at the church playground, which was connected to the park, because the other teacher wanted to keep it simple.

Suddenly, I heard a bunch of shots fired, and my students hit the ground.  Being the city girl that I am, I just figured it was a car backfiring and didn’t react much until my students yelled at  me.  Come to find out, there was a drive-by shooting at the park, and one man was down!  I rushed my students back across the street while they were crying and scared.  Questions of “Why does God let that happen?” were asked many times by my kids that week.  Of course, I didn’t know the right answer.

You Want Me to Teach What?

After those first three years, I decided it was time to move on to a public school.  I applied as a substitute teacher to get my feet in the door.  One day, I received a substitute job as an 8th grade language arts and social studies teacher in a school in Santee, CA.  I was incredibly nervous because those kids were going to be scary.  I was wrong.  (What was scary was the fact that I didn’t have to have a credential in teaching history, and I had to teach American history now.)  Let’s just say, from then on, I knew I had found my right age group to teach, and luckily, I was pretty good at faking my history knowledge, even before the internet.  Middle school teaching never entered my mind…not even once, and yet, it has become my favorite.  Yes, on some days I question my sanity, but on most days I laugh many times throughout the day.

27 Years Later

This year marks my 27th year of teaching.  A lot has changed throughout the years; some occurrences have been good, some bad, and some ugly.  Would I do it all over again?  Yes.  Do I wish things were different for teachers today?  Yes.  Can I look back at over the 3,000 kids that I have taught and smile?  Definitely, YES!

So, the question is, would you go back and do it all over again?