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On Resigning My Job
By Teachers.Net News Desk
Posted by a teacher on Teachers.Net Chatboard
I have a student I adore: half the time he’s on planet who-am-I-where-am-I-and-where’s-my-notebook? The other half he’s demonstrating what a truly old soul he is: surprising, empathic, insightful.
Last Wednesday, at the end of the day, the girls in the class were lining up to attend an
after-school science program that happens a few weeks out of the year; a partnership between our school and Duke to encourage more girls to get interested in science. Feisty
Friend LOVES science and hates that this is only for girls. Mistake number 1 was made when he asked when it was going to be the boys’ turn and I responded flippantly by saying that some people think every day is science-for-boys day.
It took him glaring at me to realize he wasn’t playing, so I immediately embarked on mistake number two: explaining the rationale for the program to which he responded, at the top of his lungs: “I DON’T CARE!”
Oh.
Right.
Of course not.
He then informed me he wasn’t going home, he was staying right where he was. I suggested that it was possible he didn’t really want to stay in the classroom, he just wanted someone to understand how unfair he thought this was and that I did understand it.
He then gave me to understand as well how the onomatopoeic expression of “grrrrr” came to express anger. He grrrr-ed. Literally. Tears streaming down his face, his hands
in fists, his shoulders hunched, he stomped out of the classroom, grrrrring. I went after him of course, with mistake number 3, asking if maybe, eventually, when he
calmed down, he might….
“I WON’T CALM DOWN,” he yelled.
Oh.
Right.
Of course not.
I don’t want you to calm down, I said, I want you to fight with me for something the boys can do in science that would make it seem more fair. He gave me a very fishy look, saw that I was in earnest, stopped crying, stayed clenched, but did allow me to walk him down the stairs to the car riders’ lobby where, I was certain, the rest of my class would be wreaking havoc.
Which, being my class, they were.
And, of course, being a kid, my feisty friend came in the next day, calmed down and with a plan.
I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately. Not just my atypical mistakes and misreadings, but that moment, that moment that summarizes precisely where I am. I’m grrrring. Have been since August. Or even last January when I began teaching to the test and against everything I believed in. Swore I would never do it again and now here I am, doing it again.
Yet my outrage is at things so global, so difficult to negotiate, so seemingly impossible
to remedy, I’ve lost my way. I don’t think there’s anyone who can advise me how to find it again, or if there is, I’ve yet to find that person. Can’t decide if the problem
is I’m just too stubborn, too tired, or too immature and rash. Too something clearly, just not sure what.
I do keep feeling that a perfect storm is forming in education, and wondering just how high the body count will be. I love what someone wrote here about being optimistic,
that come 2015, looking forward to that perfect class she’s going to have. ‘Til then, the clouds are darkening. The pressure will only get worse as 2014 approaches; corporate
influence is getting stronger with children regarded more as widgets than people, and the disempowerment of teachers is growing more widespread.
If the ed-brokers continue to hold teachers solely accountable while taking away all
their options and decision-making, we can leave the job, as I’m now considering and will probably do Monday, when I meet with school admins. We’re grown-ups, after all, even
if some of us (well, me) behave otherwise. That’s the option that’s left. The options had by children are nowhere near as accessible. So I guess it’s up to the parents. I
guess it always has been. I wonder if they know.
