About halfway through the day on Tuesday, I wasn’t feeling very well. I figured maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten lunch or drunk enough fluids, which sometimes happens at work. I get into the swing of things and if I don’t deliberately set time for me to eat or drink, I can go through a whole day without eating or drinking enough. It’s not good at all, I know, but it happens and it’s one of those things I need to work on self-care wise.
Anyways, so I’m feeling horrible, it’s a struggle to stay awake, and then I made the call at the end of the school day to go home. I had an afternoon meeting followed by an orchestra concert I was helping out with, but it just wasn’t happening. And while I figured in my head I could power through feeling the way I did, I’m glad I didn’t. Because when I got home and immediately fell asleep with the feeling of a severe hang-over, it was clear that there was no way that I could have made it through the evening.
Teachers sometimes develop a hero-complex: we are essential to our students’ learning, the school is not going to survive without us, and because we are working with children, if we don’t sacrifice our time, energy, resources, and health then we aren’t doing our all for our students. It’s a nice feeling knowing that we are heroes, that we are important and that we can have a life-changing impact of the people and influence the course of history. That last part is not an overstatement. Teachers are that powerful.
It is not illogical with the importance of what we are doing to want to give it our all and make the moments, each class, each interaction, as meaningful as possible. The start of this is simply by being there.
The fundamental flaw is that teachers are more often limited not by their efforts and sacrifices, they should never be asked or pressured to make, but by systemic structures that exploit the good intentions of teachers. When teachers have to fight for their kids it feels like a war, and being involved in a fight is satisfying. It's appealing to the activists in many teachers, but if we are doing this right, teachers should not have to be advocates at all.
Add in the fact that music teachers unlike other teachers have less access to substitutes who can teach their subject, and the fact that often our work is publicly displayed in concerts unlike most other subjects, and you have a very stressful situation.
I had all of this in my head through a decade of being a teacher in America as I’m trying to figure out whether I should go home when I’m sick. And I’m in a uniquely privileged positions as teacher with plenty of resources and administrative support to go home sick, but it’s still a difficult decision.
To do the best for our children, we need to do the best for those charged to serve them. No one should consider putting their health second for their students, but it happens, and far too often. Some of it is a need for perspective on teachers’ part but more of it is how teachers are under paid, not-supported and put out there to solve problems the rest of society fails to address and sometimes even recognize.
I'm glad I went home sick. It was the right thing to do, and it's a sad state of affairs when so many teachers are pressured to do what's wrong.
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