I Have No Ambition

Sometimes my job relegates me to the role of being a sixteen year old trapped in a twenty-five year old's body. Okay, more like being a sixteen year old trapped in an eternally sixteen year old's body trapped in a twenty-five year old's life. I never quite lost that maiden form. Too much information? Sorry, I think my sense of humor is regressing too.

It's just that sometimes I feel like I've been possessed by a sulking teenager. I know I can't blame my job, but this phenomenon is at least correlated with my job. I mean injustice in education world is not unlike injustice in teenage world. I just want to sulk sometimes because "It's not fair." I want to have a bad attitude and be sassy.

Last week, my mom was asking me about my upcoming graduation and what I planned to do with my Master's degree.

"What are you going to do with it in the long term?" she asked me.
"Probably, spend an additional twenty years getting screwed over by the education system; it's just digging my hole deeper," I informed her.
"Very funny," she continued, "Seriously, do you plan to become a principal someday?"
"That is the last thing I want to do. Being a principal is like asking to have all of the politics and parts of the teaching job that are miserable multiplied. It's masochistic."

Tonight, as we started our final class toward the Master's program, Issues in Administration, I realized how much I really do not want to be a principal. I was thumbing through one of the recommended texts tonight. It posited the maxim that as an administrator it is important to always keep a minimal level of anxiety about the feelings of teachers when intervening. I could never ever do that. I just have no desire to. Teaching is the hardest job, and if I were a supervisor of teachers I would always care about their feelings.

I do feel anxiety if I have to confront a sensitive student. I have anxiety if I have to fail a student. I have anxiety if I have to give a parent news that will be difficult on them. It should be impactful to hurt another human--even when it is a necessary evil.

Anyway, my point is that my total lack of desire to ever be involved in educational administration is a little alarming. Honestly, I am twenty-five. I have already been teaching full time for three and a half years. I will probably not be able to retire until I am well over fifty-five. That gives me thirty more years. I can't imagine thirty years of doing the same thing either.

I don't know. I guess in the analogy of my growing up being like my maturing as a teacher, we have entered the teenage years. All I can say is that my life is not fair and no one understands!!!

I guess that parent was right about young teachers. Damn the irony, but I am feeling the part I am trying so hard not to look. Yikes.