Why I Continue Teaching

NPR recently posted two articles about the decreasing number of people going into the teaching profession, and ended with a call for why current teachers continue in such a difficult career. Here are links to the articles and my response to NPR.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/03/03/389282733/where-have-all-the-teachers-gone

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/03/03/389282733/where-have-all-the-teachers-gone

I just read your articles, "Where Have All the Teachers Gone?" and "There Are Fewer New Teachers. And No One Seems Surprised," and as a high school math teacher, I wanted to weigh in on why I continue teaching. 

My answer is simple and yet increasingly complex: I stay for my students. 

Every day I enter my classroom with plans to help my students improve in one way or another. They deserve to have someone in their lives who is dedicated to fostering their improvement. Over the last eight years of my career, I've found I'm good at that, and I don't want to let my kids down. They need me. 

When I think of the big picture, my students need me for far more than answering questions on study guides, helping them graph polynomials and calculate their derivatives. They need me for far more than helping them prepare for the next Common Core assessment or the ACT they'll take as juniors. 

They need me to help them understand how to problem-solve, how to think for themselves, how to take responsibility for their words, their actions, and their lives. They need me to coach them in persevering through whatever problems they face; they need me to remind them that their self-worth is not tied to a test, but that not giving their best on any assignment is cheating themselves out of the rewards of triumphing over the challenges of life. They need me to hold them to high expectations and help them believe they can actually reach them. 

The students I teach today will change our world tomorrow.  By committing to fostering their success and improvement, I have hope that the change they bring will be positive. 

So I suppose I stay for more than just my students. I stay for the future of our society.

The problems we face as teachers -- aligning to new standards, spending an inordinate amount of time testing when we could be learning, working 10+ hour days even during our vacations for pay that is a mere fraction of other professions' -- may plague my colleagues and me for my entire lifetime, or they may change. One facet of our career will remain steady, though: our students will need us. My students need me, so I stay.