What keeps me here

I have to start with that, with what tips the balance today, with what keeps me at Arts and Technology.

The students lead the list. (They are also, paradoxically, first on the "cons" side too.) When I thought of leaving at the end of my first year -- a visceral reaction that was going to send me as far away from here as Tanzania -- I decided to stay to teach my 10th graders in 11th, then it became 12th; now I'm staying until my next set of charges graduate in 2009. It may go on indefinitely, though for the sake of my sanity I think in one to two year increments. The students are the energy, the life force really, the motivation at the center of your practice. I don't want the abstraction of that description to deny the power that a single student can have over your day. Take "Jamaal" who I have now taught for 3 years. His 35 year old mother attempted suicide last week, one brother just returned from jail and has been missing for 5 days, his youngest brother is selling weed and was jumped over the weekend, and both antagonize him for being gay though he enforces the rules in the house. This is just the surface of his story. And what did he want from me? "I need you to be hard-ass Ms. Galazidis, not the loving one." "Teacher" only describes one part of my job, and though the sum of what I do is frightening I couldn't imagine a more valuable way to work. It's the students that keep me honest and responsible and adult; I am a better person because of them. I suppose that if my first reaction had been to name something other than students as the top reason to stay teaching at Arts and Tech I should start looking for something else.

In no particular order, the other things that bring me to work every day are: my colleagues, my inexhaustible love of literature, my vacations, my salary, and my pet projects. I can't file support for every member of the faculty, but by and large we are a hardworking and very competent bunch who are also good to hang out with. I'll skip the self-evident love of teaching reading and writing on all levels because for me it's as huge as the category of students and the two are intertwined. But the salary deserves at least a sentence. We work like mad 180 days of the year. I get up too early and haven't left school in daylight since September. I have 5 preps and 140 students. I keep track of the academic and personal progress of 31 advisees and contact their families weekly, on average. I graded for 17 hours last weekend. But I'm also going to Chicago in 2 weeks and to Italy in February, and Greece for a month to see my family when summer comes around again. That's plenty for my $56,000. Finally, last year I began the school newspaper and this year I started a chapter of the National Honor Society, and while that takes another 5-10 hours a week of supervision and organization, it's so good for the school and I'm unashamedly proud of my students and myself.

The things that make me long to work as an editor or go back to school or do ANYTHING ELSE, are the students who get under my skin because they don't ever seem to give a damn what you want to teach or that their peers want to learn in a safe environment. I had all my patience stored up when I began 3 years ago and that has eroded into a modicum of tolerance for knuckleheads who know that they could succeed (and that's a very loose term that takes shape only when applied to an individual student) but choose not to. They are the "I know Miss"s, but they so rarely break into action. Witnessing this atrophy that may or may not be accompanied by self-awareness is tragic. In an epic sense. And it is even an epidemic.

The incredible work load this year is also wearing me down too soon. Sadly, the reward for being an effective teacher is an unreal amount of work. In a small school like mine, anyone with adequate ability and some school spirit is enlisted for administrative duties in addition to whatever you have chosen to take on yourself. This is a particularly busy time of year anyway since seniors need recommendations, so really the last thing on your mind is writing the 10th grade ELA curriculum, though it's still your job, somehow.

We once suffered from an attrition rate of nearly 50%. I think that was largely because our administrative staff was new to their positions and lacked any real leadership. Part of how that filtered to us was a discouraging lack of organization. Plans would be changed and changed again even as we were bringing the students to the assembly. We had no concept of a school mission or policy and that undermined our authority and assuredness. In turn, the students were wilder -- perceptive as they are -- and took advantage of teachers who, for one reason or another, did not command their classroom the way the school itself ought to have been led. The school leaders that remain have developed and altered their reputations to some degree, and several "senior" faculty have taken leadership roles as well. As turnover slowed, our morale increased and we were galvanized to create teacher initiatives that would solve for us what the administration had not. If you do not have a proactive and ultimately positive faculty there is no ameliorant for poor leadership. And poor leadership alone is enough to drive away teachers who are both great educators and not.

Anyway, I am here and sincerely hope you will join me!