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Worked with the Worst, Hope for the Best?
When I first graduated school after earning an English degree with an Education Certification, my hope was to teach high school Language Arts. Unfortunately, the first year out of school is often not when you get the career you hope to achieve, so I got another job. I worked at a residential home for teenage girls for about a year and a half.
Some "perks" of the job were:
-Having 4-8 teenage girls in close quarters (hormones raging and rampant)
-Many of these girls had narrowly avoided or had already been to a juvenile detention hall or rehabilitation/psychiatric center
-Most of these girls had problems with authority based on years of dealing with irresponsible parents or over-intrusive social workers
-Attitude, attitude, attitude
-Over 50% of girls admitted had drug and alcohol problems before age 15
So really, not an ideal situation. It was a very emotionally, mentally, and physically (14-hour weekend shifts) exhausting. Now while I still would love to share my passion for literature, I find myself so cynical of teenagers that the thought of standing in front of a classroom of 15+ students frightens/angers me.
I've heard that I've really only experienced the worst of the worse and that teaching in a classroom will be so different, but if my student teaching experience told me anything, it taught me that the low (wo)man on the totem pole usually gets the classes most teachers run from, and I don't know if I can go back into such a stressful environment.
Is this a profession still worth pursuing?
Re: Worked with the Worst, Hope for the Best?