How Is Teaching Portrayed In The Public?

 Teaching in the public's perspective looks much different than what teachers are actually facing in todays world. Many occupations can be blasted on the news and shown to the whole world in little snippets of biased information, but who really knows what its like to teach in a real classroom? that would be real teachers. I recently watched the movie "Freedom Writers" where first year teacher Mrs. Gruwell came into a school system that had been broken, a place where students had little room to succeed. Many teachers had given up on trying to provide these kids the proper education because they felt as though they would never reach to their fullest potential. These kids were living in areas that weren't the best, living in fear that they would get beat up on every corner and getting shot at. Mrs. Gruwell decided to take her teaching to the next level at vast lengths and really get into what she saw her students were interested in and in turn, they finally started to learn and grow and she had finally mended this system that had been broken for so long. In a perfect world, most of this would be ideal as to what a teacher should be, but teachers do have lives outside of schools and they can't be expected to ruin the life they built in order to change the lives of others. Mrs. Gruwell gave up her marriage, finances,  and mental wellbeing to be the best she could be for her kids and I feel like sending this message is not okay. In order for teachers to help others, they must first help themselves and make sure they are taken care of behind the scenes. You can be struggling in life and still be helping others, but you must practice some type of self care in order to maintain sanity. Another unrealistic message this movie presented of Mrs. Gruwell is that she never seemed to get burned out despite how much effort she was putting for her kids to succeed. I am all for pushing yourself to be the best teacher you can be, but there comes a point where drawback may be necessary for personal reasons. In the end, teaching in the public portrays educators as a type of superhuman who is capable of miracles. We need to take a step back and understand that teachers are still people and that we need to see their efforts and look at the positives of this instead of tearing them down for what we think they should be doing instead.