The End of an Era
64 Days until TASTE TEST meets the world.
Time for the fun to begin!
And so ends my career as a high school teacher.
It was far less emotional than one would expect it to be. I didn’t cry or get all nostalgic or make any dramatic speeches. On my last day, there was a morning meeting. A friend/colleague of mine spoke and presented me with a very nice gift card to a restaurant I love. I probably could have left soon after that, but I didn’t. Instead, I walked around the building I’ve worked in since I got out of graduate school and did some saying goodbye.
I’ve said since the beginning, since making this decision, that the students and my teacher friends are what I will miss about the job. The people/human interaction of teaching is what I love best. The main reason I decided to leave was my (lack of) quality of life. I was working from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm five days a week, then coming home to write for a good 4-6 hours, depending on the day. Every spare moment was used to write, even on weekends. That wasn’t fair to my family — especially once the world dug itself out of the bleak and depressing winter we had this year.
But, let’s be honest — there are lots of writers who keep teaching, even after they hit the NYT Bestseller list or receive some sort of literary award. Sharon Draper comes to mind. But I decided to stop because I was burnt out — completely and totally ready to step away. In fact, I had already made my decision when I was dealt a final blow — a nail in the coffin of my teaching career.
In mid-May, I was accused of racism.
In my classroom, there were often a dozen or more nationalities represented. This school is proud of it’s diversity and it’s something we celebrate. In the decade I spent there, I never once was accused of anything like racism. So when a parent accused me of grading her children based on their race (they are African-American) I was intially hurt. Then I was horrified. And then I was furious.
The majority of students I’ve taught are lovely and my interactions with their parents have been either cheerful and pleasant, or a non-issue. What shocked me, and continues to shock me, about this woman’s accusation was that I spent hours upon hours with her children, assisting them in all the ways a good teacher would. I accepted late work multiple times. I gave them extra chances to make work up. I repeatedly went above and beyond to assist them.
And then she reported to my direct supervisor that I had graded her children unfairly based on racial bias. Even more frustrating was the fact that she had no problem withher kids returning to my classroom. I mean, if I thought a teacher was discriminating against my son, I’d have him out of there immediately. Ultimately, the students sat in on the meeting with myself, their mother, and two of the Assistant Principals; the kids didn’t have much to add.
In case it wasn’t obvious by the tone of my post, I was cleared of all accusations. In private, my APs told me that there was no evidence of anyt racism whatsoever and that the mother was clearly only interested in getting me in trouble so that I would be forced to change her kids’ grades. I didn’t get in trouble. I didn’t change their grades.
At the end of the day — or at the end of the year in this case — leaving was the best choice for me. I was no longer comfortable in the role I’d been playing. I needed to bust out and be me — which, yes, involves cursing and honesty and opinions and mess and disorder and fear and love and hyperactivity. I needed to be myself and I felt unable to continue doing that in the confines of a public high school.
Like I said, I know that I’ve left my students in good hands. I have friends who’ve been there for a decade, like me, or a whole lot longer. I’m happy — really happy — that I’m out in the world. I think it’ll be weird in August, when everyone is going back to school. Guess I’ll just need to write another book to occupy my time!
