I'm trying to explain to myself where I am in my career here. Read if you please. It might be boring.

 I'm a middle school teacher.  And I've wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember.  When I was taking education classes in college, it only affirmed my desire to do this and for the first 5 years I taught, every day was bliss. I was in a downtown school. It was hard, I wasn't very good at it (I now realize), but I loved it.  The kids were a blast and I was running my own classroom.  I even got to use the faculty bathrooms!  I was legit.

I am now in my 10th year, which is totally freaky. I can't believe it's been that long. And I have been circling around the drain of burnout off and on in the last five years.  This year especially I have seriously considered what else I might do.  Should I switch careers?  That question is really frightening because being a teacher is all I've ever wanted.  I literally have no idea what else I'd do.

It's also a troubling question because I feel like I'm finally on the verge of knowing what I'm doing. When I started, discipline and management came naturally.  Lesson planning and improved instruction came with time.  But you know what I've finally discovered the secret to teaching is?  You have to care about the kids. Grand, I know. Everyone talks about the kids, but they're not clear about what "caring" means.  What I believe is that you must see each student like you would want to be seen.  And this implies being able to fully look at yourself and take responsibility for everything that's there, flaws and all.

So there's the kid who has ADHD so bad that simply writing down four words in forty minutes on what (to me) is a simple graphic organizer isn't annoying anymore, it's information about who he is and how he works.  Because I have had days where I couldn't focus, and I would want someone to see me instead of themselves.  There's the girl who is out of dress code and absent a lot because she lives with her addicted parents in a motel room. When my parents were getting a divorce, my life was a mess too and it wasn't my fault either. And there's the girl who wants to do so well that she tears up when she won't have enough time to finish.  I once cried to my chemistry teacher because the only way I knew to define myself was through my grades and the relief I felt when I saw the A is something I still remember.  (This girl is the same girl who will write a scribbled note that says "Best Language Arts Teacher Ever" when you give her more time.)

I am them; they are me.  And this knowledge brings the responsibility that I must give them boundaries, expectations, and endless compassion because being 13 is really hard.

I recently passed my own note during a training to a teacher friend who has taught longer than me that said,
"How do I not burn out?  I'm dangerously close."

Why am I burning out if I'm finally getting the hang teaching?  In summary, I'm tired.  First, and to be annoyingly vague, the system has some real issues both on a local and national level.  Those systems come down and affect the classroom in frustrating, futile ways that year in and year out are wearing.  Second, teachers who are the most capable in a school are asked to do more things.  I feel spread thin.  This has increased since I've gotten married and am learning new responsibilities at home too.  Third, the kids I teach have copious amounts of need (we were just made Title I), which can feel draining.  Last, 10 years is a long time to do the same thing.  We humans need change.

Part of her reply to me was, "Identify the cause and then focus on the students and not on other crap."  I have come back to that over and over.  Especially after parent teacher conferences last night where I had at least three parents thank me for teaching their child.  They meant it.  This imperfect process of being there for human beings who are learning who they are is making an impact on some of them. I am helping; I am making a difference. I left feeling like I want to be better.  I left feeling like I want to keep doing this.

The kids are not the cause of my burnout, and I think that as long as that is true, I should keep teaching.  It's such a unique profession.  I get to interact with kids I really like and with some excellent adults who are amazing at what they do.  I may need some change perhaps in where I teach or what I'm doing. My best teacher friend just became National Board certified, which is a big deal in the profession.  Perhaps I need to pursue something like that to continue growing.  But I can't give up.  It's not that I am so important, but that I want to leave something good after I leave the planet.  And I can do this through teaching. I know it in my bones.

I must discover what my next transformation will be.  This profession has the potential for endless personal growth both in skill and life. There are those teachers who never adapt and give the same lessons over and over again.  Eventually they see the kids as problems who do or not do their work.  But there is a very different path where you change what you teach every year based on the needs of your kids and you are always updating your knowledge base in both formal and informal ways.  If I can stay on that path and keep seeing the students, then I want this.

Besides, in what other profession are you given original pictures of cowticorns?  A creature like no other.  There's a metaphor in there somewhere.