Originally Posted by kathdavis

Teachers in my area do not make six figures. We also aren't paid overtime like most are in the corporate world either. I could grade papers until midnight at my desk every night and not make a single dime more. By mid-October, my students are out of notebook paper, so I stock up on spiral notebooks by the cases in August because my students will go through them in a school year. The last several years, my students have stopped bringing in tissues, so I have purchased at least $50 in tissues each year. I went through over three grosses (432) of pencils by the 1st of December last year and had to order more. I teach manners, respect, tolerance, appropriate dress, social skills, and vocabulary, along with my core subject, English. Almost monthly, I'm cursed out by students, as well as, parents who aren't doing their job in the first place and wonder why I'm bothering them about their child. And, the government is thinking about basing my salary on their child's test scores.

I still think what I do is important. I don't expect nor receive many gifts from my students, since I teach middle school and it just isn't cool by then to give teachers gifts, plus many of our students don't get much themselves around the holidays. Money is very tight for many of our families and I would much rather my students come to school with their tummies full, than give me gifts. I do love when my students come back to see me several years down the road to tell me they are finishing up high school or doing well in college. That really makes everything I do worth while.

Thank you out there for thinking about us teachers.