Jobs

I think that most people probably think their job is the hardest/most exhausting/most emotionally draining/highest energy/toughest job. But let me make a case for teaching at an international school.

In what other profession do you spend 8 hours a day trapped in a small room with 60 - 100 hormonal teenagers attempting to teach them something that they generally don't want to learn in a language that is not their first?

In what other profession do 25% of the people you work with, live with, and interact with every single day move out of the country each year?

In what other profession do you pour everything you have into others until you have nothing left to give, all the while knowing that the end result will be those people moving halfway around the world to start new lives and possibly never even seeing them again in this lifetime?

In what other profession do you do all this and get paid less than half of the US poverty line?



This has been an extremely hard week full of many tears. I said goodbye to 15 seniors that I've taught since my first year here. They were freshmen back then. I've seen them grow up, and I've grown with them. I know their families, I've been to their homes, I've gone to their birthday parties, we've had sleepovers together, we've gone on class trips to other islands, I've hiked mountains with them, I've gone on adventures with them, and I love them so very much. They are going to America, to Korea, to England, to Hong Kong, to Holland. All around the world. This was the hardest class yet to say goodbye to. On top of that, nearly half of my coworkers are leaving. Both of my neighbors are moving away. Those who aren't moving away for good are leaving for the summer. By June, I will be the only single teacher left in Salatiga.

It's not all sadness though. Bittersweet is the best word to describe springtime around here. There is much sadness, yes. But there is also an understanding that I have to grieve these losses, and then I have to move on. Because life does. It brings new coworkers, new friends, new students, a new class of seniors. There is also joy. Joy because I know that my students will change the world. But they have to leave this small town first. They need to go out on their own, to be independent, to have their own experiences. Away from their families. Away from their teachers. Away from their high school friends. To find who they are and what they are capable of. I think I see much of who they are, possibly more than they do at this point in their lives. And I am overwhelmingly impressed by the men and women they are becoming. They will move mountains.

In May, my heart breaks with every goodbye. It is a hard job I have. But there is no other job I would rather have, because no matter how many goodbyes I have to say, I know that goodbye is not forever.