Career?

A career is something you strive to create that gives you purpose and an income, that is generally the goal anyway. I spent the last ten or so years of my life preparing for such a career-a career in teaching. A so called noble profession focused on helping children become all they were created to be. My passion is urban education-striving to give students who happen to live in underserved, forgotten areas the same educational challenges and opportunities that students who happen to live in privilidged areas. Here's the thing...I have done that. I am good at it. My students love me...eventually. I hold each student to high standards, giving them the tools they need to succeed. At first, they struggle with it because they are not used to being held to such high standards to dealing with someone like me who treats them with respect and expects the best from each student at all times. I never took excuses from them or allowed them to feel sorry for themselves. I know that my students respected me and appreciated all that I did for them and even liked me because they still contact me.

I left Chicago in June of 2008 after my first two years of teaching at very challenging schools. On Sunday I got a phone call from a former student. Not just any student, but Dominique. The student who at Doolittle East was the thorn in my side and challenged me every single day. If a day went by where she didn't call me a fat bitch I knew something was dreadfully wrong in the world. Still, every day I said good morning to her and continued to challenge her, support her, and do my best to show her respect and show her that I cared for her. And I guess it worked.

Here's the kicker though, for some reason, administrators and other teachers tend not to like me. Why? Hell if I know! I still get random emails from my first students and even from my most recent students...yet, I can not keep a teaching job. My students succeed. My students are better off after having me as a teacher than before having me as a teacher. They are challenged, they are encouraged, they are inspired...yet, I don't have a teaching job.

So the question is, what do I do with that? Do I give up and find another career goal? Perhaps working in a university setting, perhaps doing administrative assistant work again? Do I keep pushing myself to find a school where I fit so that I can work within my passion or do I just give up?

At my most recent school, it all ended horribly. I was accused of things I didn't do, it felt like a witch hunt. There were teachers who, from day one, did not respect me or like me because I came from a different generation of teaching, with new ideas and a different communication style. Rather than showing me basic respect and getting to know me, they simply wanted me out so they came up with accusations after accusations to sabotage me. Mind you, these teachers were never in my classroom and did not care to know how my students were doing. They simply wanted me out, and that is what they got.

Right now, I don't know what to do. I am stuck. Lost. Confused. Unsure of what direction to take. I obviously need an income....but I crave a career, not just a job. What to do, what to do?