Employment

The good news is that I can stop whining because I've been offered a job and I've accepted it. Some might call the job itself bad news.

Knowing that I’m a great student, but possibly not a good enough teacher to teach anyone who really doesn’t want to be there, when I decided to try out teaching, I figured I’d stick with college-level courses. But then after moving when we did, I wanted a job bad enough that I decided to apply for teacher’s aid positions in the local school districts. I figured I’d make copies or grade papers. Two days after submitting a teacher’s aid application I got a phone call and a job interview. The guy on the phone explained that he was looking for a teacher’s aid who could work with kids who are in state custody either through foster care or juvenile corrections.

At first I wasn’t interested. I wanted to teach college in part to avoid such kids. But I’m a softie at heart, and the thought that these are the kids that actually need help motivated me to agree to an interview. At the beginning of this week, I found out that I got the job. I accepted this job because I wanted to do it, but just about everyone I tell about it offers condolences or tells me how hard it is going to be to teach these kids.

I admit that there’s a teeny part of me that wishes I were more like Jaime Escalante. Of course it’s great to help out troubled kids, but I think what I want more than anything is to be smart enough to trick troubled kids into actually getting an education. Because those sorts of kids don’t actually care about getting an education, right? And it’s thoughts like these that make me see how self-serving teaching can be. When you teach, your classroom can feel like a stage with your students as the audience. They have to listen to everything you say and write it down.

Okay, okay. So anyone who has actually taught knows that these students who are supposed to hang onto your every word also have the ability to completely humiliate you if they want to, or at least make life difficult. And after you dedicate thought, energy, and heart to teaching them, they complain about you on public internet sites like Ratemyprofessor.com, writing things like “She is funny in her own weird way” or “don’t take this class from herrrrrrrrr” (I’m not sure what’s up with the excessive Rs). Yup, I’m on that website.

I admit that this upcoming job scares me, but not because I’m worried about my physical safety. I’m nervous because I’m not sure what I’ll face. There’s a good chance that most of my work will be clerical type stuff, but there’s also a chance that I will do some teaching. I worry that if I do get a chance to teach, I’ll spend more time disciplining or just arguing with students than teaching. And I worry that I’ll be too stiff and too distant to actually help any of these kids. Anyway, there’s plenty to worry about, but I took this job because I believe in helping the underdog and I wanted to see if that’s something I could do. And because I want to be more like Michelle Pfeiffer.