On the Facebook page of the Badass Teachers Association, Jessica a future teacher commented I hear so much negativity about teaching on this Facebook page. Tell me something good about teaching?
Jessica, at 66, I could not think of a more rewarding career. The pay is not great, the work is tough, but the stories keep me alive. I did not enter teaching blindly. I knew from the start it would be hard. I entered the profession on a mission to be different. School of Education of Kentucky Dean Julian Vasquez Heilig recently said if new teachers are mission-driven, they want to change the world. I chase this mission to bring joy, equity, and justice into my teaching and learning. Someday it looks like I am making some headway, and others that mission appears elusive at best.
The stories keep me going, and if I had to start again, I would not change anything.
With that in mind, part of the stories that crush me is the stories of teachers being abused by failed education policies that demoralized them. So, part of my mission is standing with them, and that has become part of the stories that inspire me. Teachers inspired me as a homeless kid, and teacher stories inspire me still.
On the night Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died he said:
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” Martin Luther King, Jr., told an overflowing crowd in Memphis, Tennessee, on 3 April 1968, where the city’s sanitation workers were striking. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now because I’ve been to the mountaintop … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”
Something in my bones tells me that there is a promised land for teachers and our good and tough stories lead the way. Come teach, for a while, a lifetime, and know that it is also fine to leave when you need to. If you stay? Know that staying requires a mission worthy of staying If you leave? Know that leaving requires a mission worthy of others to pick up.
Every teacher new, old, retired, and in between is worthy of some teacher love,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
Uniting to Save Our Schools
Proud Badass Teacher
PS Future Teachers don't let our battle scared stories taint you, teaching takes a lot out of you, like all work it can wear you down, but it also gives in return. Teachers leave when they need to leave, and every teacher whether they are leaving or starting new deserves our respect.
"Don't believe the hype, its a sequel
As an equal, can I get this through to you
My 98's boomin' with a trunk of funk
All the jealous punks can't stop the dunk
Comin' from the school of hard knocks"
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