“Funemployment”

“Funemployment” 6-02-2010

Thanks to Miss Eyre [NYCeducator] for that word and the writing prompt for this entry.  She says, I quote

I have to admit that I’m still a little confused about what’s going to happen when and if the layoffs actually transpire. Will the ATRs land back in classrooms? Will my summer vacation stretch out into one long span of funemployment, since I have no idea what I would do if I wasn’t teaching? I’d come up with something, I suppose, but, perhaps without even realizing it, I came to believe that I’d be teaching forever.

This sentiment really does touch my heart.  Since I lose my first job teaching, I admit life has been a period of “funemployment.”  I haven’t necessarily been able to figure out what else I could do as a replacement for teaching.   While teaching teaches the person instructing something, I don’t really know how to re-classify or fix it onto a resume.  Is there a way to say that on a daily basis you (and your coworkers) worked to insure that the next generation of human beings can speak to each other.  How do you translate into or summarize in a short sentence or two that not only did you have to prepare and maintain order over 27 or more students at a time, but that you had to make sure that that time spent under your car was purposeful, and that if any of your “employees” have parents that have no issue with getting in your face, well, it’s more than appropriate that they do.

“Funemployment” is the equivalent of being relegated to Dante’s Purgatory.  It’s like not even being recognized as a part of this work force.  So many programs (the Teaching Fellows comes to mind instantly) recruit career changers into utilizing their skills into teaching.  However, how vice-versa, where’s the detox for people who smile inside when a former student surprises them walking down the street?  Where’s the rehab for the former English Teachers who can’t walk by a pile of discarded books without thinking “Maybe I can teach this to standards.”  What becomes of a person who has realized and defined themselves by chalkboards when there aren’t any chalkboards left anymore?

Who knows?

The way the economy feels about teachers....

[Chester Kent]

www.GetintheRye.com

(With special thanks to NYCeducator

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