Why I don't do elementary

Elementary teachers have it tough. It’s amazing what they have to deal with on a daily basis, and I know it’s something I could never do… or do it happily, anyway.

I know that elementary teachers everywhere are thinking the reciprocal…that they would never be able to deal with a high school setting, but this is why I’m (high school teachers) right more than they (elementary teachers) are.

As high school teachers, we are trained to (essentially) show up, know our stuff, teach that stuff, hope the students will try some practice question, give them an exam, and then…repeat. Classroom management, between the grades 10-12, seems to take care of itself. We also build relationships with the students that make our lives relatively easy. Lastly, students are (usually) more mature. Students start to realize that grades and credits actually mean something…so effort and attention goes way up…usually. I realize there are always outliers (have dealt with many).

Basically…we just teach.

Elementary teachers, on the other hand, have to deal with a smorgasbord of tasks and duties in addition to teaching.

Not only are you attempting to deliver curriculum from an absurd amount of subjects, you are also a parent/guardian, babysitter, nurse, counsellor, supervisor, dictionary, calculator, janitor, judge, and jury…tee-hee. They are everything that the student needs to survive. Now that’s responsibility.

I’ve had one experience with being in an elementary classroom, and it was enough for me to realize I never want to go back. Maybe that makes me weak…I think it makes me smart. I’ve got friends who are high school trained, who have been working primarily in elementary schools for the last few years. These friends are not happy. These friends are considering taking a year off from teaching because of the frustrations they are feeling in elementary school. I don’t want to put myself in a position that would result in my hating my career choice…so I stick to high school.

As for that infamous, one-and-only, elementary school experience of mine…here it is.

It was my very first day, ever, substitute teaching. Like… very first work day of my teaching career. I had been called to work for an afternoon of grade one Math and English…easy enough, right? That’s what I thought! I’m a math major, and I speak English. This sounded like the greatest/easiest start to my career I could have asked for.

I roll in to the class, only for the teachers (who were involved in internal meetings for the afternoon), to greet me and inform me I would be taking care of both of their grade 1 classes… so, 38 grade ones. Excited and confident, I brush it off like nothing, and say that I’m ready to go. They tell me that the first hour will be primarily English (Some reading, writing, and drawing), followed by some basic number stuff in math for the last hour. The only “teaching” I remember from the afternoon was about 15 minutes of reading I did for the kids. Past that point, it was chaos. The following 45 minutes, the kids were supposed to write five sentences about the story I read them, then draw a picture about one of their sentences. Never have I ever spelt so many three letter words… they knew nothing, Jon Snow.

Next, I dealt with two cases of assignment papers getting crinkled, and the tears that followed. I flattened the papers, dried the tears, and moved onto the next issue. Some kids needed Band-Aids. Not because they were cut and bleeding, but because they felt like they were cut and bleeding. Imaginary wounds. So that was awesome. Whatever. I gave them Band-Aids and they were happy. Next, requests to go to the bathroom every 2 minutes. Legitimately every 2 minutes. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Just a steady carousel of kids coming and going from my class to the bathroom. Was crazy.

The one that takes the cake, however, is one little girl. The poor soul. Her hair elastic broke. She then tried to fix it, by tying it back together…in her hair. She tied a string into a knot… on the back of her head. Absolute rat’s nest. Disaster. She casually saunters over to me and asks me to help her with her hair elastic, and of course I try to help. I take one look and realize this is a mountain of a task…but also a great opportunity for me to get a little peace and quiet. I tell the kids that Mr. Gabriel needs a quick five minutes of silence to take care of the hair mess, and that they could have a little nap. I turn off the lights, their heads go down, and I finally have silence. I sit down behind the rat’s nest girl and start plucking hairs out of the knot she created. One at a time. Eventually, after a very painful five minutes, I got the hair elastic out, and she was able to brush out the mess. The biggest mistake I made came immediately after that…I gave the elastic back to her. It was back to full rat’s nest mode in less than 30 seconds. Luckily, the day was five minutes from ending, so I just ignored that business and rode it out.

The other, major thing I was dealing with for the entire afternoon, was my excessive sweating. I was dripping sweat. Not only was I hot as hell, but internally, I was losing my mind and going insane…so that contributed to the waterfall as well.

That was the first and last time I set foot in an elementary school classroom.

It takes a special breed of person to be able to deal with all that on a daily basis…and I am not that breed of person. Kudos to those who are…seriously. Congratulations on your patience. I’m jealous.

In short, It’s not the teaching aspect of being an elementary teach that’s so unappealing to me, it’s everything else that comes with the age group you’re responsible for. Teaching is easy… in all grade groups. Dealing with the circus that is elementary school classrooms, is not easy. Craziness like that isn’t in the realm of possibility in high school. It’s a whole new adventure, but one that I am much better equipped to handle. It’s also an adventure that elementary teachers can eventually adjust to and become successful in if they ever get called up to the majors.

I’ve had many teachers tell me they started in elementary, moved to high school (terrified), only to realize it’s the greatest things that could have happened to their career. So good, in fact, they would not make the move back to elementary.

We’re all good at our jobs. Fantastic, really, but proportionally elementary teachers are…well…more complete, simply because of the situations that comes with the job. Make no mistake, high school teachers deal with some serious stuff…like…SERIOUS stuff, but the madness elementary teachers deal with is just… well…insanity.

You got dis. I believe in you. You're all Rock-stars and Legends and I love you.​