Teachers

I'm a teacher. I always wanted to be a teacher. I went to college from the time I was 24 until I was almost 34. I was determined to be a teacher.
Lately I have been hearing people on t.v. talk about how, "Teachers don't teach because of the money, they teach because they have a love for kids and they want to help them be the best they can be." I hear this similar message a lot and I have to be honest: I COMPLETELY disagree with it. I was a substitute teacher for 4 years in all grades, K-12 and about 98% of the teachers I interacted with taught because, one, they wanted to control a group of people and be "The Boss" and/or two, they did very well in school themselves and thought that ALL kids should do well too; that these "dumb" kids need to learn from them and get the good grades they just "should" be getting. I heard a lot of blame toward parents and I heard awful things spoken in the teacher's lounge. I heard one student teacher speak so horribly of a student one spring. She got a full-time teaching job the following year. Something is terribly wrong with our public school system and I get frustrated when people deny that or wonder why that is. I've subbed in 12 different schools and there are about 3 people in each building who should be working with kids. That scares me.