Teaching is a lot like drowning in the middle of a lake when someone throws you 180 babies to save along with yourself and then someone comes along and yells to you "I'll be dropping by for some unexpected observations. Make sure to rock those or you'll get fired."
My first year of teaching I told myself to quit every single day until December. I was sure I was failing the kids and working too hard and killing myself. All of those things were probably true, but by the time December rolled around I started figuring things out like how to not grade every single piece of work I assign and wait another day to answer that parent email and things like that so I could get home before 10pm.
Do you realize that I could have taken a lot of the same classes in college and graduated with a degree in engineering, rather than education, and be making literally 3 times what I am making right now? I wonder on a regular basis what is wrong with me mentally that makes me stay in this profession. I don't have an answer yet, but I at least know there is something keeping me here.
The drowning thing doesn't go away, at least it hasn't for me yet. It might eventually...but I think it's more likely that we just learn to deal with it. We're okay with that feeling of drowning all of the time. We know how to not drown and grade papers and plan lessons and straighten desks and count calculators and call parents and pass evaluations and fill in for sick teachers and get that one student that assignment they missed and help with lunch duty and scrub the swear word off the desk and make copies and buy more pencils and actually teach--actually make a difference in the lives of real people--all at the same time. It's terrifying and hard, but it's okay. It's worth it too.
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