

By Audrey Nieswandt



I do not love my job. There: I said it.



As a teacher, this is a particularly perilous public statement. Nevertheless, it is true. Allow me to clarify.



I am a teacher. I am a single parent. I am a grad student. I am a house cleaner, grocery shopper, cook, chauffeur, laundry folder, yard maintainer, trouble-shooter, homework monitor, moral guide, writer, reader and bill payer. No one helps me with these tasks; I am alone in my responsibilities.



I am also the primary income in my household. And that income is not enough.



Don't misunderstand me: I get up. I launch my children into the day. Then, I go to my rural high school and persuade more than a hundred adolescents to read, write and think. It is a joy and a privilege -- sometimes. Other times, not so much.



I am a darn good teacher. I can inspire and cajole and inform and explain and pose questions on 21 different neurobiological levels. I am enthusiastic and encouraging, demanding and optimistic. I've been tirelessly motivating students for 13 lucky years.



I go home and flip on the news: In Technicolor certitude, recycled candidates bask in their enviable wealth and political righteousness. In their empty utterances: not a single mention of education, students, teaching, college or the creeping poverty that is slowly, insidiously leaching into the middle class.



I am a teacher, and I am the new face of the working semi-poor.



We live from month to month, from paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't matter how hard I work, what new ideas I present to my students, what classes I offer for enrichment or how thoroughly I prepare my students: I am paid a salary, divided by 12 months -- no less, no more.



"You're lucky to have a job!" "Teaching is a vocation!" "Think of the impact you have on the future!" These public arguments, like all fallacies, contain some meager germs of truth. My job is one of importance, philosophically. Not economically. Financially, teachers are unimportant. Monetarily inconsequential.



Our great nation does not esteem teaching, learning or education.



We may be losing our house: I can't afford the mortgage.



Did I mention I have an expensive grad degree (and am working toward a doctorate)? That I continue to educate myself in order to better educate my students? Did I mention I am a public employee?



I work with impoverished students: Over half my population lives at or below the poverty line. This year, I received $280 for classroom supplies for these young Americans (intended for 116 students for 183 days of their schooling). This is how we value our youth and their education?



This will be the third year of salary freezes at my school. ("You're lucky to have a job!" "Throwing money at a problem doesn't fix it." "You get the summers off.")



I love teaching. If I could, nonetheless, I would leave. I need to make more money, to ascertain and assure the future of my own children and my own future.



I do not own a credit card; I do not qualify. I cannot purchase another home should I lose this one; I do not earn enough. I am a teacher, and I cannot afford to send my eldest son to college.



The existential questions loom large: Do I work for love or money? What is the true nature of work? What is necessary for happiness? Fulfillment? Survival?



I care deeply about my students. I want them to learn enthusiastically, live joyfully, absorb information limitlessly, to demonstrate superior proficiency and exude exuberant vivacity in their chosen academic pursuits.



I flip off the news, switch off the endless sunshine smiles of these posturing, vacuous politicians. I, unlike them, must live and function in a sad and broken reality called working-class America.



Audrey Nieswandt teaches high school in the Mount Angel School District.



