Grieving the career I never had

A big part of me always wanted to be a teacher.

When thinking about work and careers, we’re often asked to focus on the things that we find easy but others find hard. For me, a few things come up:

I have found myself in the position of a teacher in a few unexpected ways in my life; primarily as a choir director. And I was this close to actually taking the path of becoming a full-time teacher.

But the more I spoke to my teacher friends about their experiences, the clearer it became that teaching involves some serious sacrifices, and rarely meets our expectations.

There’s the rigid holiday schedule — sure, you get loads of holiday time, but no flexibility around when you take your holiday. Then there’s the out-of-hours work: things like lesson planning and marking. This lack of flexibility around free time would preclude me from participating in the hobbies I treasure so much.

Plus, there are huge systematic problems with the education system here in the UK which mean teachers are overworked and underpaid, because schools are understaffed and underfunded. Many management teams in schools are too busy trying to make ends meet to worry about professional development or career fulfilment for their teaching staff.

Coupled with that, so many families are under huge pressure. This includes financial and economic challenges, and struggles with mental health. All of this adds up to kids who are set up to fail when they come into school; they’re under-nourished, under--stimulated, and under-nurtured.

The reality of being a teacher became apparent to me very quickly as I was speaking to friends and family. It’s not about inspiring or mentoring young people. It’s often not even about teaching them; so many teachers just have to take one day at a time, and make it to home time incident-free.

It’s bleak, and I wish the situation could change. I really think I  have something to offer as a teacher, and I spend a lot of time wondering what life would have been like if I had pursued this career. Could I have made the sacrifices so many teachers make every day, in the spirit of service to my community?

In the end, I don’t regret the choices I made. But it makes me sad to think how many other great teachers never actually set foot in a classroom, because something scared them away. 

I believe that delivering good education is the most fundamental and important role of government. Without an educated population, all other problems are exacerbated. I don’t really know what the solution is, but I really hope someone finds one.

And maybe teaching is still in my future.