Real Talk Intervention

All of us have been asked the question at one point or another. What made you decide to become a teacher? You've been asked it in job interviews, where the right answer seemed critical. You've been asked it by incredulous family members, where the right answer seemed impossible. You've been asked it by students, where the right answer seemed loaded. We've all got our response memorized. Whether that response reflects your deeply felt, inspirational path into the classroom, the safe-for-work, sanitized version of your winding road towards respectability, or is simply a rehearsed tale that carefully avoids saying "I don't know why I do half the things I do." I don't know about you, but I'm bored by my story. It's not particularly inspirational, and, frankly, it's not particularly interesting. You want to see into a teacher's soul? Don't ask us why we started. Ask us why we  stay .  Why do we stay in a career that...

What Happens After... 2/14/2018 5:50 PM Another 10 hour day….I never knew I would have to wear so many hats at one job. Exhausted, I walk in the door of my home and fall onto the couch. Time to switch off, turn on Facebook, pictures of cats and babies.  Only instead of a smiling baby, there’s a woman embracing a child. She has an ash cross on her forehead and her mouth, silenced by the photograph, screams only in my mind…not my child….not mine!  My husband interrupts my moment of national connected horror. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’ve all had the flu for the last month, and we finally have a babysitter and a night to go out to see The Greatest Showman.  9:45 PM   Humming “This is Me”, I wait for my husband to get out of the bathroom, and what else would I do in 2018? I grab my phone, mindless scrolling time.  The reactions are starting to feel familiar.  Thoughts and prayers.  Thoughts and prayers don’t work.  Stop trying to ca...