What It Takes To Be a Teacher

Hello, young teachers! Have you heard that there is a teacher shortage in the United States? We need you! Are you enthusiastic, intelligent, compassionate, imaginative? Do you love children? Are you dedicated to passing on the heights of human achievement in a vote for a brighter future for all? Well, come on in!! 

 

But before you start, just a few things you have to get out of the way. Here’s the list. 

 

• Fingerprinting for a FBI background check. (Martin Luther King, we will not be hiring you.)

 

• Seven hour training for mandatory reporting of child abuse. (Yes, we know we can communicate the necessary information in 45 minutes, but hey, you've got time on your hands. )

• Tech training to achieve fluency in Google Drive, Google Meet, Zoom, See-saw, Schoology, Parent Square, Padlet, Flipgrid, Powerpoint and the next ten technologies to come down the pike. (What you learn this year will be obsolete next year.)

 

• Diversity training that includes the new forbidden words and songs and stories. (If you are teaching yoga to the kids and say "Namaste" in Alabama, you’re indoctrinating the children into the ways of the Hindu devil. If you say it in California, you’re culturally appropriating the word that means “I greet the divine in you from the divine in me.” Unless you’re a Hindu Indian, this is off-limits.)

 

• Training in the school’s lockdown procedure should a school shooter appear on campus. (Consider training yourself in gun sharpshooting and have your weapon in your desk drawer next to your pencils and erasers.)

 

• Recommendations that you have a lawyer ready if you say something that triggers a student’s “trauma” or makes them feel uncomfortable or hurts their self -esteem. Should you touch a child who is smashing school property, beware of being charged with physical or sexual abuse. 

 

• Etc..

 

Now you’re ready to teach! By the way, our budgets have been cut, so we can’t promise you’ll have all the needed supplies and equipment. And we know your salary is close to a fast-food worker, but realistically, you can’t expect any raises for the next few years. Oh, just to let you know, if  a group of parents meet and decide you should teach this thing instead of that thing, this way instead of that way, we’ll have to listen to them. For some three hours while they whine and complain. But don’t worry, you can present your side of the story sometime during your five-minute bathroom break. 

 

So welcome to teaching!! Have a wonderful time!!!