I enrolled in college a little over 4 years ago with an major in elementary education. I've known I wanted to be a teacher from a young age but I got sidetracked in my early adulthood. I had the misfortune of being born into a fundanentalist Christian sect* that i left, which meant leaving my home and everyone I really knew on a close personal level.
So anyways. College. I enrolled as a married woman and mother of 3. Chose education because, growing up, the thing that gave me respite from a chaotic life was my time in public school. There were some negative experiences for sure but for me, the good outweighed the bad and I grew to love working with children.
So I enroll in college. I went into my community College classes and aced all my prerequisites. Transferred to a state college. Due to personal reasons, we moved out of state which created all kinds of nightmares with ouf of state tuition but my family and I really wanted me to complete my degree, so we took out some private loans and I only enrolled in two courses. We wanted this. My family based our lives on this decision.
A year later (this past December) I re-apply for residency in our new state, comply with the excessive paperwork and runarounds, only to get denied residency and told “reapply for residency next term” and to pay the out of state tuition for the coming term (spring) or to drop my classes. Having exhausted all of our family's financial resources, we decided that I should drop my classes.
That was in January. Spring came and went. Book bannings happened. My LGBTQ friends who are teachers are accused of heinous things based on nothing more than vicious lies about their sexuality. A shooting. Another shooting.
I'm looking at the numbers. When I get out of college, ill be on the hook for a lot more than what I'll get paid to do, tolerate, and risk as a teacher. I used to not care. I used to say that it was worth it, that the kids are worth it, that the system can be changed, that open-minded, forward-thinking teachers were what saved me and that maybe I could save others.
But, for what? So that I can make $45k a year, continue being a renter, and slowly bleed green into a loan ill never pay off? So that I can send my kids to school or go into a classroom myself to teach not knowing if any of us will be gunned down? Why? Why should I do that?
Why should I participate in a system that pipelines children into constraints based on their monetary value to society?
I homdschooled our 5 and 9 year old this past term due to other personal matters/months of my oldest begging me to homdschool them, and it was the most fun any of us have ever had. Low-key, low-pressure. The kids learned so much. It was awesome.
Why would I trade that for all of that for potential deathand a lifetime of wage slavery? The loans will have to be paid back, yes, but they'd have to be paid back anyways, and I can do that and maintain a reasonable life expectancy.
What do yall think? Ya got anything? Just one fucking reason to keep on with this degree.
*The sect is IBLP, roughly the same belief system as the Duggars. Theres a lot of nuance there that I'm forgoing for the sake of brevity but it is not easy to leave, especially if you are AFAB