I used to think that the reason I did not like being a teacher, or rather that I enjoyed being a teacher less and less because I was frustrated with the unpredictable nature of the job.
Now I have learned that not so much the unpredictable nature of the work — who does not want some spontaneity in life? — but rather the unmanageability which I faced on a growing basis. This matter was the most pressing for me.
As a long-term substitute, especially, I had no support whatsoever. At any time, they could have told me to take a hike. In the long-run, I had every reason to follow up on that option, I suppose, but at the time I felt that I did not have a choice, but that I had to stick it out for the long haul and make the most of difficult circumstances. Such are the dangers which face a man when he does not know where or how to sit, walk, then stand.
Still, the unpredictability of the job is not the biggest problem. Rather, the growing lack of power and control which teachers are permitted to exercise, herein lies the greater issue. As schools keep losing funding, they are more pressed to maintain their enrollment. As lawsuits loom menacingly to hurt the budgetary bottom-line of schools, they are thus less inclined to issue severe disciplinary penalties for students, lest they risk confrontation or worse legal action from the parents or another interest group.
This bind had forced many teachers into a vice. They are expected to carry out a lesson for their students, which means that students have to be held accountable for the poor choices that they make, yet at the same time dealing more stringently with more strident disruptions is a greater cost and a growing liability for schools that cannot take the risk of backing up a teacher who needs to take down a serious problem in a classroom.
The classroom needs to be predictable for the student, but more importantly manageable for the teacher. In more cases than not, I found that I did not have the freedom or the necessity to send out students who were a chronic disruption. Even a retired veteran educator was at a loss at how to deal with one class that she was covering long-term at the beginning of the school year. I am not certain of the students were aware or not that she was a substitute who had no interest in furthering her career at another school, yet the students began to give her — as well as me — a real hard time.
Unmanageable — that is the dominant word for many teachers, many of whom now must resort to being friendly or "buddy-buddy" just to get anything done. They cannot force or threaten any serious consequences with students, many of whom have become used to running their classrooms and telling their teachers what to do rather than vice versa.
We all willingly take in unpredictability. In fact, mystery is essential to life, but not if a teacher, or anyone else for that matter, cannot command the requisite respect to hold students accountable or respond to challenges properly.