My clients are a motley crew. My clients don’t hold back. Because of their honesty, our meetings tend to take a different direction than originally planned because we get caught up talking about life, their problems, their successes, and their dreams — the agenda for the day becomes quickly altered so that I can help them find success outside of my office walls.
They trust me with their futures and I don’t ever want to forget what a huge responsibility they place in my hands.
On top of what I am hired to do, I am asked by my clients to listen to them talk about divorce, unplanned pregnancy, relationship struggles, sports, parties, movies, music, communication breakdowns, sexual abuse, drugs, cutting, school — although not one of these topics are on my agenda for the day.
Like I said, my clients are a motley crew. They are gangly, socially awkward, driven by hormones, and their mind’s filter has yet to be developed; they can’t drive, they can’t work, and society just doesn’t know how to relate to them — or care to, for that matter. So they send them to me, and to thousands just like me.
I am highly qualified with years of experience in my field. I have my master’s degree. I am a member of professional organizations and read professional journals; I attend professional development. I believe in my work. I am good at what I do.
I said I would never do the math. Ever. I was worried that once I did, I would want to crawl into a forced hibernation rather than think about the implications. But in a moment of poor decision-making I did — and I was right, I should never have done the math.
I make $18 an hour.
The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future proffers statistics that are worth careful examination, estimating that one-third of all new teachers leave after three years, and 46 percent are gone within five years in the field.
Can you blame them? When recently searching Craigslist for potential summer jobs, I found out I would make more painting faces at the Denver Zoo than I do teaching middle school.
Yet our nation is surprised that when it asks our teachers to not only meet the curriculum standards set forth by the state, but to serve as coaches, advisors, counselors, chaperones, and stand-in parents, that our young bright teachers burn out especially when they are being compensated 18 dollars an hour.
According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, it costs our nation, conservatively, 2.2 billion dollars a year to replace the teachers who leave the profession.
Echoing such findings, and elaborating on why teachers change careers, The Alliance for Quality Teaching named teaching salaries and employment opportunities outside of teaching as the primary reasons newer teachers leave the field in droves.
I don’t have answers on how to remedy this education crisis, but I do think it is an issue that requires careful reflection.
If quality teachers are the number one indicator of student success and performance in schools, we need to take steps to ensure that teachers will stick around for more than three years.
Until then, I will still head into my classroom every day feeling blessed that my clients are pre-pubescent teens that allow me to be a part of their lives, to teach them both about literature and life.
However, I won’t be surprised to learn that half of my peers, the fine young teachers who go to work early, stay late, and are defined in their hearts by the many hats they wear for their clients, have left the profession to pursue other endeavors.
Even if they are painting faces at the zoo.
Maria Verti lives in Denver.
