I'm so hopped up on the idea of teaching, so I thought some good devil's advocate thinking would be useful. I've tried talking to lots of friends and family, but have gotten nothing but supportive "Oh! You'd be a great teacher!" sort of responses -- not quite the grappling opposition I was hoping for.
The wife has been the most devil's advocate-ey, though also overwhelmingly supportive -- she's awesome.
I thought it would be a good exercise to list out as many reasons as possible why it would be a bad idea for me to leave my computer career and go into teaching in NYC. I'm not saying all of these are real, practical, or even in the realm of probable worries one should have. It is really a list of any fear that has crossed my mind, if even for a split second.
In no particular order:
- Despite my valiant efforts at budgeting and my planning before hand, the huge cut in pay will cause me to not be able to pay my mortgage, or my utility bill or some other such important thing
- The kids that my wife and I will have, at some point in the not so distant future, will be lacking in basic crap because I'm not making enough money
- Money woes will cause stress between The Wife and me
- Teaching will be awful, and I'll hate it and I'll quit after the first year, or even after the first month
- I'll get stuck in a school where the kids are all monsters, and will end up not reaching a single damn one of them and the whole exercise will be a huge waste of my time
- I'll get put in a bad neighborhood and end up getting stabbed outside of the school
- While on the mend from that first stabbing, I'll then get stabbed inside the school
- In a poetic example of Karma, a kid in one of my classes will throw a potato at me while my back is turned to the class (remind me to tell you more about that one some day)
- The teacher's pension that I'll be relying on will go bust after I've put in 19 years and I'll end up retiring to a home for poor old white mother F-ers
- Teaching will be awful, but my stubbornness will prevent me from quitting and I'll end up being a bitter, nasty-ass teacher.
2 comments:
Well these are importan things to think about. not being able to pay your bills is a serious matter. I think this whole thing thru the NYCTF can be risky. After reading many coments from people who have been in the program an those who left it does sound risky. Does the negative out weigh the positive?
Well, I think that going the NYCTF route is no more risky than going into teaching via a more traditional route. If anything, it's slightly less risky, since you're investing less into it before you actually start teaching -- so if it ends up being the wrong move, you haven't spent 3 years of your time towards that end.
More pros than cons? Perhaps. But at this point, as I mentioned, I'm so hyped-up about it, that I'm attempting to convince myself NOT to do it.
Post a Comment