Teaching Pains-What Is The World Coming To?

I would not normally write this in a public setting but I believe it is important for what I am about to say.

My grandmother is mentally unstable. She has many different mental illnesses that hurt the relationships she has with her family members. Because she is a fully functioning 75 year old, she chooses not to take her medication, goes to multiple parties every week and attends 3-4 day excursions to the beach once or twice a month.

This lifestyle has put her so far in debt that she lost her house and is now living at my great grandmother’s mold infested house.

While there are many reasons why my family cannot help her it is not what I want to address.

My grandmother retired about 10 years ago, and is collecting social security. She put about 20 years into the system and she and her husband were not smart enough with their money to have a savings. So, why doesn’t she just go back to work? She’s able to, she has the energy and the strength and she’s out of money.

She doesn’t like her job?

I’m not sure if she liked her job, but I know that being a teacher doesn’t pay enough. Teachers in Hillsborough County are trapped in every school they work at. The average teacher is supposed to have two planning periods a day, one to plan, and the other to cover lunch duty or other various jobs that need to be done around the school. Now, teachers are lucky if they get one planning period a week. They are forced to cover other teacher’s classes because the county can’t afford substitute teachers.

This is a huge problem. On top of that, new teachers who haven’t figured the system out yet, are put into the pool. The pool is a place where you are still a worker of Hillsborough County, but you don’t have a guaranteed position at a school. But many teachers choose to stay because they love teaching the kids.

No wonder my grandmother doesn’t want to go back to work.

A teacher I know works on the weekends as a bar tender just to make ends meet. She claims she makes more money during the two days of being a bar tender than she makes all week teaching school. Full time jobs are supposed to cover everything, don’t you think?

A friend of mine has been trying to search for a teaching position for two years, finally found an aid position. She is getting paid $8.50 an hour and she is one class away from having her Masters in Mathematics Education. I thought if you had the education you would be taken care of. Not anymore.

Tell me, what experiences have you had with teaching?

My problem (besides the above mentioned): What if I become a teacher? What will happen to me?