My job, and my passion, prior to becoming a mother was teaching. To be a good teacher, I believe, a person must give of themselves freely and selflessly, whenever a student may happen to require assistance. In my eight years of teaching, I made myself physically available to my students from 7:00 in the morning (school started at 8:00) until 4:30 in the afternoon (school ended at 3:00), during whatever times of the day I wasn't teaching. They had my e-mail address as well, and my assurance that if they sent an e-mail before 8:00 pm, I would respond by 10:00 that same night. I set up online chatrooms to review for midterm and final exams. I encouraged students to see me for any problems they might be having academically, and along the way discovered that most of those with academic issues needed to talk more about personal issues.
Teaching is an all-consuming job, if done right. Students become your family, and you want nothing more than to see them succeed. You spend hours making sure you are doing your part to ensure their success and hope that they are doing the same. This is why I could not return to teaching after having my daughter.
I cannot imagine being able to teach well and raise a family well simultaneously. It seems an unreasonably difficult thing to ask of a single human being. And although a great number of women work and raise a family, I wonder how well either of those tasks is accomplished.
I'm leaving out a great many details that I'm sure readers will fill in. I've thought of a lot of different points to raise, but it's late and I just needed to write this.
3 comments:
David was talking a little about this the other day, too. How when he's doing his "military" thing, he really can't think about anything else. For him, I guess, things kind of get compartmentalized. Women don't really work that way, though. Everything kind of gets blended together, and I imagine it's very difficult to reconcile a consuming career and a consuming family. It doesn't matter, of course, as your decisions and the consequences are only yours to deal with, but I've been proud of you for making the choice you did.
You're an amazing teacher and an excellent friend!
Hey lauren! Thanks for dropping a line! I hope everything is well with you!
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