Teachers: Ditch the Guilt

     Today I stayed home from school. This morning I woke up at 5:30 am and felt ill, but like most other teachers I decided that staying home from school would be way more work than going to school with an upset stomach. So I drove to school, arriving at 6:30 am like I do every day. I felt horrible, but I still tried to get my day started. After running to the bathroom about six times, I realized that this would not work once my classroom was filled with boys. Thanks to the exceptional help from two of my amazing teaching partners, I was able to go home.

     After resting for a few hours, my symptoms passed and I started to feel a little better. I decided that since lunch time was almost over and I only had the boys for one more class after lunch, there was no reason for me to get dressed again and head to school. I decided to go to the grocery store instead. While at the grocery store, I started to feel a suffocating amount of guilt.

     Guilt. I felt guilty for "abandoning" my boys. Yes, I was sick most of the day. No, it wouldn't have made sense for me to drive all the way back to school to teach them for a total of 30 minutes. But in those moments at the grocery store, none of that mattered. I had denied them a day of instruction. We would be so behind! How would we catch up? This is all my fault!

     As I left the store covered in these hopeless thoughts, my subconscious screamed, "STOP IT! This is INSANE!" ...and she was right. You see, I can count on one hand the number of sick days that I have used in over three years (which is a minor miracle considering the petry dish that I teach in every day). I get to work 45 minutes early every day and tutor (at no extra charge) on Tuesdays after school. Still - there is guilt.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time, and I am not the first teacher to feel guilt. We always feel as though we could do more. More hands-on activities. More foldables. More intervention groups. More writing. More games. More individual attention to each child. More, more, more. We compare ourselves to other "super teachers" and hold ourselves to their standards. We pour over Pinterest and wonder how these other teachers have the time and energy to come up with this stuff? When our children bomb a test or can't grasp a concept, we feel personally responsible. There is guilt for not feeling like we are giving them more.

   My best friend is one of the hardest working teachers I know. She had a dream of teaching in a low income school district so that she could really make a difference with kids who really needed her. She first taught in a middle school in HISD, and now she teaches in a low income school in Katy. She pours her heart and soul into her job and her kids, but still she feels like she should be doing more.

    My mom taught school my entire life. In her last few years of teaching, she had to start teaching English in addition to her reading curriculum. She worked tirelessly to find fun and creative ways to teach grammar and writing while still meeting the INSANE standards put on her by the state of Texas. She gave 110% until the day she retired (and gave even more when she returned to be a long-term substitute last year). She was always working to give them more, but she still fought guilt over times when she felt as though she wasn't doing enough.

     Now, don't get me wrong. We all beam over success stories and laugh over our silly stories. We all love our jobs and wouldn't trade them for the world, but we all have felt that guilt more than we should....

...and I think it's time we ditch it. We work hard for these kids that we love. We go without certain privileges (a lunch break, being able to use the restroom whenever we want) so that we can serve these kids. And you know what? They're worth it. And you know what else? We deserve better than what we're giving ourselves. We are good teachers. We care about these kids and would take a bullet for any one of them. What we are doing is good, and honorable, and enough. If you are reading this and you're a teacher, then I think you should repeat that out loud: "What I am doing is good, honorable, and enough". Any time you feel as though you're giving everything you have, but you're still not giving enough, just remember...

What you're doing is good, honorable, and enough.

...and then go pour yourself a glass of wine.