Bringing Mae Flowers

Once, I dreamed of being a teacher.

At first, it was just because I loved school. As a kid we aren’t exposed to the realities of most professions, because we don’t see them first hand. Perhaps that’s why so many kids want to teach. It’s something they can wrap their heads around. So, if they like school, they imagine that teaching in a classroom would be a lot like learning in a classroom. The environment is fairly consistency. For a poor kid with an unstable upbringing, that sense of consistency (no matter how many schools I went to) was a comfort. School was a safe place for me, and place where I thrived. On some level, part of me wasn’t sure I could succeed anywhere else.

Then it was because I loved to learn.

Education was an escape. I could bury myself in books, wrapping myself in a safe cocoon of words and forget the chaos erupting all around me. As I got older, I started to see education as a ticket to a better life. Millennials were always told that education was the only way we could make anything of ourself. We were told that we had to get good grades and had to go to college, or we would be poor and miserable our entire lives. As someone who already loved school and loved to learn, this sounded reasonable. Education would bring me opportunities I would otherwise never get. One day, I thought, I’d get to help other kids find those opportunities through education too.

Then it was because I saw education as social cure.

My grandfather always says that “the root of all evil isn’t money, it’s intolerance” . I believe that intolerance comes from ignorance, and the best way to cure ignorance is through education. I still believe this. I wanted to be a part of the system that would build a better world through truth, knowledge, and empathy. I thought that being a teacher was the most noble profession a person could aspire to. The problem is- no one else sees it that way.

The disillusionment was sudden and severe.

When I started university in 2012, I was sure I wanted to be a teacher. I double majored in History Education and English Education, and completed all the course work. I went all the way through the education program, except for the student teaching. When I was filling out the paperwork to get assigned a school, I realized that I didn’t want to do it. I still loved the idea of teaching. I still loved the lesson planning, the classroom, and the students- but I didn’t love what teaching had become; a thankless job filled with long hours, low pay, low respect, and bureaucratic nightmares. In the few minutes it took me to fill out the forms and hover the curser over the “submit” button, the reality of what being a teacher would really be like sunk in.

I immediately changed my major.

The next morning I went to my academic advisor to change my major. Luckily, many of the classes I had been taking transferred over to an English degree, so instead of student teaching, I would just take 2 extra semesters of classes. I ended up graduating on time, with honors, and with a job in marketing.

I don’t regret my decision.

I still believe that teaching is a noble profession, and that education the best way to build a better future. But, I also know that I couldn’t do it. There is a reason that there is a nationwide teacher shortage. Everyone I know who went into teaching is burnt out, in debt, and miserable. I hope that one day we can reverse we’ve done to education in this country, and maybe then I will return to the classroom. But as it stands now- I know I made the right decision for me.