(Note: This one’s for the teachers. If it comes across as anti-public education, that’s not my intent. It may showcase my limited understanding of the law as I reference a Georgia House Bill as it relates to a teacher’s termination and her journey to get that decision reversed. So be it. It’ll definitely shine a light on my own past feelings and behaviors as a classroom teacher—sometimes rash and embarrassing, but oh, so human. And that, my friends, is my point. All teachers have superpowers. They make tough decisions each day. They excel. They fail. They’re human. So, teachers, I want you to know: I see you. I respect you. We need you. Here’s wishing you all the best!)
Recently, my daughter Quinn, who teaches kindergarten, brought up the book, My Shadow is Purple by Scott Stuart. A teacher here in Cobb County purchased a copy from her school’s book fair last spring and read it to her gifted fifth grade class. According to the book’s back cover, it’s a story that considers “gender beyond binary in a vibrant spectrum of color.”
A couple parents voiced concerns that the teacher’s sharing that book violated their rights under Georgia House Bill 1084. Passed in 2022, the bill bans educators from teaching so-called divisive concepts. The teacher who read the book was asked to resign or be terminated for violating HB 1084.
“Oh, my God,” I said to Quinn. “You didn’t read that book to your class, did you?”
“No, Mother.” She rolled her eyes at me. I could tell, even though we were talking on the phone.
“Actually,”—I felt my lips twitch, fighting off a wry smile—“it sounds more like something I would have done.”
And it does.
Back in 2003, after years as an at-home parent, I felt called to go back to teaching. A friend who had done the same thing warned me the lay of the land had become very different.
“It used to be 80 percent creativity and 20 percent B.S.,” she said. “These days that’s flip-flopped.”
Still, I felt that calling. I went back to school for linguistics and Brit Lit, the classes required for my recertification. Then I pulled together a portfolio containing my resume, teaching philosophy, and a writing sample—a critique of Alexander Pope’s Rape of the Lock. And I interviewed for positions.
Wonder of wonders, I landed a job teaching middle school language arts--three sixth-grade sections and two at the seventh-grade level. Giddy, I signed my contract mere days before school started. Off the bat, I learned the language arts lead instructor was on leave with a newborn. Her stand-in replacement, overwhelmed, stumbled to know how to help me except to say that textbooks were backordered with no teacher editions on hand. And then I found out a PTA scandal the previous year meant no discretionary funds for classroom supplies. I hadn’t expected much, but this meant nada.
I dug in, determined to answer my calling. And maybe I could have, if I’d just had more time. But I didn’t.
From the get-go, time was not on my side. My personal planning period got filled by team meetings. At lunch time, I—like my fellow faculty members—got half an hour to wolf down my own food while watching the kids do the same. In-service days focused on accreditation assignments and discipline how-tos. Granted, I needed the latter. Kids were different from when I’d last faced a classroom, fifteen years earlier. Yet I had no mentor assigned to me because—well, I wasn’t a new teacher. I just felt like one.
In the classroom, the range of maturity, learning styles, and abilities stunned me. I had core curriculum guides to follow, with timelines and standards designed to “encourage the highest achievement in every student.” It didn’t sit well with me, introducing new lessons before previous ones got mastered. But time demanded it. Standards had to be met. Reaccreditation depended on it.
Time—well, also age—continued to work against me personally, too. A doctor who looked fourteen diagnosed my prolific, long-lasting menstrual periods as symptoms of perimenopause. I couldn’t thank him enough. It was easy to purchase and stash massive amounts of super-plus feminine hygiene products. Finding enough student-free moments to tend to my business proved more challenging.
On the homefront, my own kids faced challenges, too. We teachers were told not to use our personal cell phones in class, so I told my kiddos to call my school office in case of emergency. The day one of my daughters called, the office failed to let me know. I was livid. But what could I say? One of the front-office clerks had called out, suffering side effects from chemotherapy.
Here I was, eight weeks into the school year, twenty pounds down (stress), and living on five hours of sleep a night (from planning and grading and filling out answer keys into the wee hours). My own kiddos no longer counted on me when they suffered a personal crisis. I was having too many of my own.
Around this time, one of my sixth grade students—let’s call him Benjamin—came into class in rare form, making jokes and asides every time I started to talk to the class. Finally, I'd had it.
“Benjamin!” I pointed a finger at him. “Shut the hell up.”
A little girl in the front row gasped. My heart cracked, seeing her brow furrow and her face go slack. I liked that girl. Shoot, I cared about them all, even Benjamin. But there was no undoing my deed.
“That’s right.” I squeezed my fists and shook them. “I said it. I said hell, hell, hell, hell, hell.”
Each time I repeated the word, I stomped a foot, left then right and repeat, until I’d completed my tantrum. Then I wrote Benjamin up for class disruption and sent him to the principal’s office.
Bless my naive little heart. Benjamin told the principal what happened (!), and I got reprimanded. Understandably so. But that day I went home with a realization: This middle school teaching gig wasn’t working. I never dreamed I’d break a contract, but that’s what I did. Over tears that night, I typed up my letter of resignation.
Three weeks later, I walked out of that middle school’s doors one last time. I spent months mourning how I couldn’t cut it. Years later, when Quinn went to college, I told her: “You think you’d like teaching? Well, take time to weigh all your options. It’s harder than most folks will ever know.”
Quinn remembered my struggles. She opted to study interior design—for a semester, maybe two. But the call of the classroom persisted, luring her back to her passion.
She’s taught at the same elementary school now for nine years. I’ve watched her superpowers grow. God willing, they’ll keep on eclipsing her more human moments.
Given time, I like to think I could’ve grown into a decent teacher, too. Sometimes I think bizarre circumstances and timing rigged my chances. Other times I blame the public education system. And then there’s this: Maybe I just couldn’t cut it. I have to accept that I’ll never know.
What I do know is this: Teaching is hard, hard, hard. That’s why I salute all the teachers out there with a virtual hug and a THANK YOU! Teachers: May your superpowers carry you through your toughest days, and may this year be one of your best ever.
Cheers ~ J
Comments