>I can say I’m happy to be overworked because it means I have a job, but that gratitude doesn’t create more hours in the day.

Class sizes get bigger, my clerical needs get greater, but clerical services (already slim to none) dry up like a puddle in the sun. Perhaps a more appropriate simile in this Northern climate would be to say that support services melt like a snowball in the sun.

So…I spend more hours at my desk doing paperwork. My pay doesn’t increase. My benefits don’t increase. Expectations, however, keep growing.

Special needs, medical and academic, increase. My expertise needs to grow to keep up. But training in ADHD, child and adolescent mental illnesses, specific learning disabilities, serving gifted students, differentiation, and more… well, training isn’t readily available unless I give up more of my own time and (you guessed it) money. The aforementioned money that didn’t increase with my growing workload.

So instead of blogging, despite the deep satisfaction of ranting through my laptop, I’ll log off for now and work on more of my own homework. Today it’s preparing a seating chart that takes into consideration state testing, pullout for English Language Learners, Learning Disabilities, students who are easily distracted (some medicated, some not), and more.

I enjoy the rewards of my career, both the tangible and the intangible. But I wish, really wish, that the general public would understand the challenges we teachers face each and every day.