A Debt Worth Paying.

Sometimes I feel useless.  I'm on the brink of becoming a teacher. A career, which so far has cost me $40,000 and about 5 years.  If I want my Masters, that time and money will continue to increase.  I love teaching; I love working with my students.  To be able to expand a mind, to be able to spark that passion for literature that burns in me, in another person, excites me in so many ways.  To be able to dedicate my life to the field of service, to avoid spending my career in the soul-crushing world of private companies, the world of bottom lines and corporate shills, puts a endless smile on my face.  To be able to say I'm a teacher makes me proud.

But, I feel like chaff.  The task of looking for a job makes me feel in excess.  Jobs are hard to come by.  There are hordes of desperate educators flooding into every available port.  Those hiring are smiling in gleeful anticipation.  Knowing they can demand more experience, demand more certifications, demand the moon on a stick.  For a new teacher it seems unattainable.  We are expected to be community organizers, volunteer super-heroes, multifaceted in our certifications, extra-curricular martyrs, social-workers, psychologists, experts in educational theories, all this and more, for less pay, and less health-benefits, all in a country which values the teacher less and less.  Bend over and smile, because if not, there's a thousand more behind you that will.

For the new teacher these requirements seem insurmountable.  We have little experience, little inside knowledge, little to no connections, all whilst burdened by the loans we carry.  There seems little hope for me and my kind in such a flooded and selective market.  I need someone to take a chance on me, despite my lack of experience, to let me show  them my worth is more than words on a sheet of paper, to prove to them that their faith would not be in vain.  The social expectation that is my curriculum vitae is bullshit.  They know I've jumped through the hoops.  They know I love to teach (I've spent the better part of a decade to get a chance to do so).  They know I have the theoretical know-how, but I need them to give me a shot at learning the practical.

 In an era of anti-intellectualism, we need to regain our faith in those that chose to be the bearers of knowledge.  We need to help them with their first steps into teaching.  See it as a repayment of a debt; a debt to the teacher that encouraged you to read, a debt to the teacher who saw in you, what others did not, a debt to the teacher who helped spark that passion you never knew you had, a debt to all teachers that came before and those still to come, a debt to their dedication, both to us, and the passage of knowledge.