Another 180 days have come and gone so quickly...

Well, I made it! Another year down, that's 5 years already, with only 20 more to go!

I can't believe that I've been teaching for 5 years! It seems like just yesterday, I began my student teaching. With this completion, I am also out of the "new teacher danger zone". This is the statistic, according to the National Education Association, that half of all new U.S. teachers are likely to quit within the first five years of their career due to poor working conditions and low salaries.

Having taught in one of the worst schools in my area and then at one of the best, the differences within each school are night and day. Unfortunately, usually the only openings for new teachers are in the schools that no one else wants to teach in. So being faced with this poor working conditions is very likely and I understand how new teachers coming into the field can be discouraged.

When teachers are in their education classes, they are encouraged to hit the ground running and change the lives of their students. In theory, it's a beautiful "yellow-brick road" scenario, filled with rainbows, sunshine and lollipops. In reality, future teachers are not prepared for the amount of paperwork needed to be completed on a daily basis; many students, who may be bigger than the teachers themselves and who are constantly disruptive in class; as well as teachers unable to relate to lives and home environment of their students. These are several issues that are NOT taught in college education classes. Inevitably, new teachers come upon these problems within the first few weeks of schools, and many who hit the ground running, end up hitting a huge brick wall. Multiply this with what seems like insurmountable odds year after year, and it is quite obvious why we lose so many good, young teachers.

The deck is already stacked against new teachers. Add to this the little salary that a first year teacher makes, and anyone with common sense would get out of the business. It's a sad, but honest fact, there's no incentive to stay in education anymore.

So why and how do I manage to do it? Why do I keep coming back? It's very simple - the kids! My students are the reason I continue coming back for more, year after year. Let's face it, no one gets into education for the money. There are not huge bonuses for meeting billable hours. There is not a huge salary to be paid if we go above and beyond. There is practically no way to ensure that you are even going to get a pay raise every year. But what we do have is HOPE.

Hope, that maybe a student we teach and inspire, will one day find a cure for cancer, save the lives of many, or become President of the United States. Hope, that in the great universe of karmic connections, the good that we do everyday will come back to us ten-fold. Hope, that we will make a difference in the lives of those we teach, and show each and every student their true potential of what they can accomplish in their future.

If you do this within one year, you have 180 tries to accomplish these tasks. Over your career, this number increases to 4500; more if you can hang in longer.

Make no mistake, teaching is HARD! You have to have a thick skin and a soft heart. But the rewards of your job are worth every challenge you overcome. When a child finally "gets" the lesson you are a teaching, and a light bulb goes off in their head and a huge smile comes across their face, that small fraction of a second, is MY yearly bonus. No, it may not be monetary in value, but it IS money to my soul!