At first the thought about talking about teacher’s guilt was a bit scary for me. As a new teacher, I don’t have a lot of experience dealing with student’s families and their home lives. However, once you get into the thick of it, you realize how much guilt their can be as an educator..
For those of you who don’t know what teacher guilt is here’s the basics of it.. We go to school everyday from sunup to basically sundown. We see these same 100+ students five days a week for eight hours each day.. We start to recognize those students who don’t necessarily go home to the best environment. This could mean that they don’t have a supportive family, food on the table (or food in the house at all), or even a change of clothing.
Now some of you are reading this and saying, “but you’re their teacher, just teach them and move on” or something like “that’s sad but what can you do about it”.
But that’s exactly why there is the guilt.. I get to go home everyday, sit on my couch, eat dinner and watch the Roku while I grade papers without a second thought. But all the while, I’m silently thinking about if my kids are going to be able to come to school starving again or if they are going to come back to school in the same pair of sweatpants again tomorrow for the 5th day in a row.
In my heart, I want to go out and buy every student a new outfit and fill up their houses with groceries. But in my mind(and my wallet) I just know that’s not possible. That’s why I have, and most other teachers I know, have this guilt. While eventually we learn to separate ourselves from these feelings, they never truly go away and we must learn to deal with it..
