Student Teacher

[Stellar89]

Hi all--

I am 22 and have had MS for ~1.5 yrs. I have started pre-student teaching and am at the school 7:30-3:30. I am having a lot of trouble not being able to nap mid-day like I did in college. Also, fitting exercise in, which I try to do 5x/week and value seems impossible. I am getting enough sleep, on Gilenya, and am getting frustrated. Does it get easier with time?? Also, do you think guidance counseling would be any less energy draining. I am middle school, I really like it, but feel worthless by 1 PM

[chalknpens]

"as it was in the beginning..."

Your post brought a twinge to my heart ... I just retired after thirty years in the classrooms. I started as an elementary special education teacher, and finished as a middle school classroom teacher. MS took me out of the classroom two years earlier than I had planned. I'm 61.

Would I do it again? I loved the classroom, I loved the middle school, sitting at a table with team mates instead of facing an angry parent alone ... brainstorming with each other to help each student solve issues ... I felt privileged and blessed to teach.

More than once, a guidance counselor or social worker or student adjustment counselor would say to me, after a parent meeting "I don't think I could work with lesson plans, correcting, and grading kids, and then defending that numerical grade ... " and other such comments which were given as compliments but which revealed a truth: teachers have very demanding jobs, physically, cognitively, and emotionally. We are asked to judge students numerically ... no one else in schools have to do that. We have hours and hours of essay correcting, and our intent is to help the students, each one individually, become better writers and more accurate researchers in whatever content we are teaching. Students and their parents, though, want to know what the grade is, and how it might be improved for a better grade, not necessarily for a better understanding of the process or the material.

If, earlier in my career, I had pursued the Ed. D or Ph.D in counseling, psychology, neuropsychology ... I would still be working today, perhaps part time, perhaps in private practice. Classroom teachers don't have part time opportunities, and MS does demand rest and sudden absences; teaching demands consistence, competence, compassion, communication and courage.

I don't doubt you have much of that. Look carefully at what you can offer to students. Look carefully at what the teaching career can offer you. Satisfaction, collegiality, and life long learning. Then look carefully at what a counseling position will demand and will offer.

Wishing you the best no whatever path you choose. I am a writer, and have posted a few small books on teaching at Amazon. You can go to my profile to find my real name and search for the books. I'm biased, but think they might give you food for thought as you look forward in this career. My next book will be about MS in a teacher's life. It will be done in about a month's time.

Remember that the pebble you toss will have wide reaching ripples.

[nabean]

Chalknpens makes some really really good points. A wise teacher with MS.

I recently changed my teaching position and my life is completely different. For the better, much more manageable because my work load and planning is so much less than it has been for the last 8 years.

I don't know where you are but in most parts of Canada you need to have your ed degree and a masters of education in guidance in order to work as a guidance coun. in the public school. In the province I live in you need to have two years of teaching experience to be accepted into a masters program.

My advice would be to do some research into what it takes to enter those other jobs you mentioned you were interested in.

Also, I recently followed some advice on here about making myself exercise even when I feel really drained after a day at work and it is really helping as well.

I can't comment as to if it will get better. Teaching is tiring for everybody. I have only been dx for two years but have been teaching for 9. I found my first year exhausting, then it kind of evened out for a few years and then I started to be exhausted all the time. I am attributing the last couple of years worth of exhaustion to MS.

If you love it, keep going, keep the doors open to those other career pathes. Do your research and you will have a better idea of what is available. Oh and don't be afraid to ask for help. I recently got a voice amplification system and it has made a huge difference.