Angela Tonn on Becoming a Teacher

My name is Angela Tonn,  and I am a public high school teacher. I teach biology and AP biology. 

You know, we always talk about, we didn't go into this for the money. Um, but at the same time you cannot, the argument they always make about CEOs, right? Well, if you want to get a good one, you got to pay them, but teachers should do it for the love of it. Well, Hey, I got to read between the lines, buddy. I'm very concerned that my generation of teachers, when we leave, we'll be the last career teachers. And this bothers me because I'll tell you I was very good my first 10 years, not as good as I became. And I hope that doesn't seem arrogant, but I am very proud of my career and I've worked very hard at it. And there is such thing as people who are natural to it, I didn't mean to be a teacher. I didn't study education. I was a biology major. I had whole other plans, but I read this. I was in graduate school at the time. And I read this article, Georgia needed teachers. And I was like, I can do that for a little while. While I figure out exactly what I'm going to do with my great scientific self. And I, um, I just fell in love and found my place. And it was just been an incredible gift. I have had a fabulous career. I'm so lucky. 

But I'm very afraid that there'll be no more me's, not that I'm the only answer to the world, but close, just kidding but because the pay is terrible. 

Saying, you know, basically all the things we've asked of teachers, you know, I just wanted to teach your kid, but now I have to throw my body in front of a active shooter and I have to teach in a pandemic. And before that I needed to fix their social emotional problems. And, you know, it's like what's expected of teachers, including spending a lot of your own money. As this is truly painful to say, I don't know that I could recommend this career to a bright young person. Because it is some days not the kid part of it. But I would be hard pressed to look at a, a bright young woman or young man and say, Hey, have you thought about going into teaching? Because you know, you got these nuts in the government who want to give you a gun to go with your chalk. You know, this is insane. You, these other nuts who think you need to just like risk getting a deadly virus because society has dropped the ball. And we're the only answer we were never set up to solve all of society's ills. And we certainly aren't funded to solve all of society's ills.