Job Is Just Too Much to Put Up With

I always wanted to be a teacher. I still remember my favorite teacher, John Lewin--make that Mr. Lewin, who taught me advanced history at Marysville (Calif.) High School. He supported, encouraged, challenged and inspired me--and is still on the job today doing the same.

He had made such a difference in my life that I knew no better way to repay the favor but to emulate him and become a teacher too. When I graduated from the University of Southern California, I even sent a graduation invitation to Mr. Lewin.

The images of me as a teacher danced around in my head. I would be the one whom students would always remember; the one who challenged them to think as individuals; the one who helped them acquire a thirst for knowledge, a passion for books.

Then something happened. While going to college classes full-time, I took a job as a teaching assistant at University City High School. I am now shopping for another career.

My disillusionment with teaching built each day as I saw the contempt students had for learning.

I worked for five different teachers, teaching students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades. I was equally unsuccessful in all grade levels. No matter what I did, nothing got through.

The students I encountered didn’t want to be challenged. They didn’t want to be in school, period. I found them to be lazy, unwilling to do anything that would require work. They lacked pride in their schoolwork, didn’t care if they repeated the same mistakes over and over. They were ill-mannered and self-absorbed.

Students came to school unprepared--daily. They constantly forgot the most basic things-books, a pen or pencil, homework assignments, work sheets and even paper.

Perhaps what bothered me most was the disrespect shown teachers. A teacher would stand in front of the room lecturing, only to be completely ignored by a roomful of students--most talking to each other and oblivious to what the teacher was doing. Teachers would wind up repeating lessons and assignments because students refuse to listen or take notes. Students asked questions that the teacher had answered just minutes before. While teachers would be trying to teach a lesson, students would be busy buying candy from each other, passing notes, copying homework and doodling.

Teachers told me how exhausted it made them to constantly plead with and threaten students just to get them to stop talking and stay in their seats.

Some students wore headphones under their shirts so they could listen to music in class. They weren’t interested in what the teacher had to teach. They didn’t care if they missed information that would be on their next exam; who cares about grades anyway?

Girls would put on makeup and fix their hair throughout class unless a teacher took the products away. One girl spent an hourlong class applying three different brands of mascara every day.

Tenth-graders openly discussed their sex lives and drug use. I came into class and found students with alcohol on their breathe. Cheating is commonplace, even in advanced classes.

Like many of the teachers I was assisting, I found myself frustrated by the futility of the task that I confronted each day. I wondered how Mr. Lewin does it.

Teachers are required to do far more than teach nowadays. They are called upon to be disciplinarians, social workers and baby-sitters too. Shouldn’t there be a way to broaden the role of what goes on in our school buildings and still allow teachers to primarily be teachers?

So call me a quitter, if you want. The way I see it, the school system is so dysfunctional that it’s ridiculous for me to think that I can make a difference. That said, there are no reasons left for me to want to be a teacher.