Teacher, Daniel Seeber, spills all about his career as a 5th grade Elemantary School Teacher, here at Riffenburgh Elementary, Fort Collins, CO
“I do” says Daniel Seeber, a 51 year old elementary school teacher when asked, “do you love your job?” He’s been a teacher for almost seven years now, and he says that he’s always loved it because, “every day is different. Every year is different.”
Prior to becoming a teacher, Mr. Seeber says that he used to work in a bank, and he hated it. People were rude, annoying, and childish. “I struggled with that for years,” he says. “And then I realized maybe I could help kids learn to treat each other kindly.” And so, he fell into the role of becoming a teacher.
He says that his kids have taught him a lot. They always impress him with how quickly they can just pick things up. Especially in the cases of his monolingual children, who’ve moved from out of the country, and know no English. He says that they’ve been so quick to learn, to pick up English, and they can always keep up with the class, even though they may not understand everything. He's never ceased to be amazed by the questions his kids ask. "They'll ask something that's just amazing, like I never thought of that." He says that, throughout the years his kids have taught him to try, and he says that he’s been able to apply that to real life. He shared a story from the past summer of learning to wakesurf, (surf behind a boat) for him, he found it to be incredibly challenging. But, he said that each time he was about to give up, he thought of his kids and how they're always trying, and it inspired him.
However, he says that it’s a career he wouldn’t recommend. It’s rewarding, but you have to be able to give up a lot of time, and energy. “There’ll be these constant sleepless nights” he says. To top it off, it’s not an easy career. Teachers are underpaid, they’re often times disrespected by parents, and that the career is concerning because public education itself is underfunded, and its' future is headed south. But despite the large scale issues, he says that the worst thing though is having a kid struggle, because there’s not much he can do. He says that a lot of kids have rough home lives, and they’re struggling, and it’s so hard to be supportive of these kids, and help them. It’s caused him a lot of stress and worry. “You’ll have these days where you can’t go to sleep, you’re just so worried.”
Mr. Seeber says that what really bothers him is the fact that adults often ask teachers to take on parental roles, and that it’s not his place to do them. It’s part of why the ‘glorified babysitter’ term is so offensive. “We went, we got a degree, we’re professional, just like a doctor. It’s like, you’re handing your child, probably like the most precious thing in your world, to someone else, for them to learn. It’s really offensive to just call us a babysitter.”
But despite all of the negatives that come with an already difficult career, he says it’s very rewarding. And as someone who loves building relationships with his kids, and getting to know them, and watch them become adults, he finds it to be an incredible career, and a fun one at that. Mr. Seeber remembers one kid, who hated math, and who constantly annoyed Seeber, and one day, two years after the kid left him, he received a memo from the kid’s sixth grade teacher, who said that the kid was just working away in math. And he remembers being really struck and thinking, “wow, he hates math, and he's just working away. It was like, he’s making it.”