Closing Monologue of a Burnt Out High School Teacher

By 2002, I’d been teaching high school for seven years.  I had also been in a relationship with a narcissist, and I was also just beginning to come to terms with the revelation that my childhood had not been normal.  I was realizing that everything and everyone I’d ever invested my heart in had abused me or exploited me in some way.   I was burning out on being a teacher among other things and I wrote this because that’s how I deal with my emotions.  I’ll warn you now, it’s long and slightly manic.  But those who have read it have given me good feedback.

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The Closing Monologue of a Burnt-Out High School Teacher, Age 32
By Jenna R——

I work in a classroom that had never seen a coat of paint.  It is one of several large, portable buildings set way back on the opposite side of the blacktop from the gym and the rest of the school.  The walls were bare plywood when I began.  There are certain places in the room where the desks cannot stand because they will fall through the rotten places in the floor.  The ceiling is dingy brown and water-stained.  The floor has cracked and missing tiles.  The curtains are vinyl, and the color reminds me of the grayish-yellow part of the yolk of a hard-boiled egg.  I tie them back with their own cords to keep them as invisible as possible.

The whiteboards in this room were paid for and installed by me – $53 of my own money to buy 4’x 8’ sheets of shower tile that works as well as anything else.  My partner and I applied about $100 worth of paint to these walls.  It is a lovely paint job that brightens up the room, and when I finished I was told that I had violated policy and that there are laborers who would have been paid to do it.  I was not told why they haven’t been able to get around to it in the 30 years that this “temporary” classroom has been standing.

There are three rows of fluorescent lights in my classroom on two separate switches.  One switch controls the middle row of lights; the other controls the two outside rows.  The two outside rows have hummed loudly since I began teaching in this classroom, so I leave them off whenever possible.  The middle row provides so little light, that it is necessary for me to leave the ugly vinyl curtains open, regardless of the temperature.

Of course, open curtains come with their own issues.  Indeed, they allow the glorious sunlight in to brighten the room, but they also provide restless freshmen with yet another distraction as they gape out the window at anything and everything that happens outside.  It also provides entertainment for those students who have managed to find themselves outside of class during class time, who wish to peek in through my windows and make faces at their friends and family members.

Last summer, before the school year began, I bought the fabric to make small curtains that could hang on tension rods from the middle of the window to the sill.  There are seven windows; the sills of each are three feet from the floor.  The first pane is eighteen inches tall and covered with a solid Formica-like material, yellow and white textured.  There are five glass panes above this one, each measuring eighteen inches tall, making the glass part of each window about seven and a half feet high. I bought seven tension rods and made seven curtains — $49.  These curtains not only eliminate the distractions, but they brighten the room considerably with their color.

My curtains served another purpose, also.  They covered my filthy windows.  I don’t know if my windows have ever been cleaned.  It is not a priority.  My floor, which gets trampled by 165 students per day, gets mopped once per year.  Any dusting, washing, waxing, polishing, repairing, gum-scraping, graffiti-removal or installing of anything is done by myself or the unfortunate student who happens to be serving detention when I need one of these tasks performed.  Of course, this cannot get out.  If it were known that teachers use students for such labor, we could be cited for violation of child labor laws, or so I’m told.

When the weather heats up, which in this part of California is April through November, I turn on the air-conditioning unit that was installed only two years ago.  I don’t turn it on until 4^th period, however, because if it runs longer than two hours, it begins to spray water out the front and stops cooling.  Between the California heat and the thirty-five sweaty teenagers in my room, it is often well over a hundred degrees.

Before these air conditioners, we had nothing but the two box fans that I purchased on clearance at Target, and the one painted black and purple that I gleaned from my late step-aunt’s estate.  On days when the outside temperature was over 100 degrees, it was easily 120 in my classroom.  Students would leave with nosebleeds, vomiting, and headaches.  I went home every day with a migraine, myself.  Students organized a protest, and ironically, the day of the planned walkout, the temperature cooled down to seventy-five degrees.  Students who walked out were suspended, and administration mocked them for walking out when the temperature was so low.

My desk is a large, beige, metal structure with two side drawers and a middle drawer.  If I pull hard enough, they all open.  I have two file cabinets, one small brown one with a rusted top, and one large dark gray one that, when I took this classroom, was crammed with papers dating back to the 1970’s.  My desk and both cabinets have locks, but no one knows whatever happened to the keys.  I put hasps and padlocks on a couple of the drawers – $24 – to keep important and personal things in.  Otherwise, things come up missing, money included.  I mounted a toilet paper roller to the side of my desk. The school does not supply tissues, TP is cheaper, so I keep a roll of toilet paper for those who need a tissue.

I store most of my supplies in a sideboard-like cabinet that my mom gave me a couple of years ago.  It’s polished pine and has four doors.  The doors have a floral design on them.  I was very excited to bring it to my class – storage space, counter space, and a lively touch all in one.

I must remind students daily not to sit on that counter, that it wasn’t designed for the weight of so many candy-fed and Pepsi-hydrated teen-aged butts.  I don’t tell them that part, of course, but I really wonder if there are actually 1 in 20 children in this country with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder when I see 1 in 7 students in first period drinking Coke and eating Snickers bars for breakfast.  Once, after having been ill for a few days, I returned to find the word “fuck” carved into the top of my cabinet.

I have a mobile phone in my classroom.  I pay $39 per month for it so that I can make calls to parents, contact the front office, call for assistance if there are students fighting, call for emergency services if necessary.  I also give the number to parents, so that they can contact me.  Otherwise, they call the office and a note is put in my box that I may or may not find for several days.  Before I got this phone, I had to make the trek to the main building, which is a several-minute walk from my classroom, to use the one telephone that is provided in the teacher’s lounge.

The lowest math class taught in high schools in my district is algebra I.  We have a one-year version and a two-year version.  When we were told that the district was going to eliminate anything lower than algebra I, many math teachers, including myself, argued that that was foolish since many of these students don’t know how to do basic math much less complicated calculations.  We were told that we were being too negative – that if we assume that students cannot do it, then they won’t do it.  Make it work.  Apparently learning how to teach math to students was a waste of time.  These administrators knew so much more about it than I did, despite never having been in a math classroom.

I have 4 periods of algebra I this year, two of the one-year version and two of the two-year version.  I have at least 30 students in each class and no assistants.  Many students are right where they should be.  They know their multiplication tables.  They know how to perform functions with fractions and decimals.  They know how to add and subtract negatives and positives.  Many more, however, do not know how to do any of those things.  They don’t even know how to bring paper, pencil, or their textbook to class.  I have a very sweet student who is unable to put the months of the calendar in order.

Make it work. 

We do what we can.  We try to give the more advanced students (who really aren’t advanced at all, but who at least know what they’re supposed to know at this point) something challenging to do, so we speed up to challenging pace.  Then we lose the slower ones and they get bored and act out.  To counteract this, we slow down to the level of the less prepared.  This gets boring for the more “advanced” students, so they get restless, then they act out.

I have been commended on more than one occasion for the use of individual whiteboards in my classroom.  It is an excellent way for me to gauge student comprehension immediately and on a day-to-day basis.  It also keeps students interested, because they enjoy writing on the whiteboards.  I bought these, too — $35.  I brought washcloths from home, cut them into quarters, and distributed them to the kids so that they could erase their boards with something other than their hands.

After a week, some of the cloths and the backs of most of my whiteboards were covered with graffiti: “Hmong Pride,” “XIII,” “Fuck you, bitch,” “This sucks.”  “Ms. R—— eats ass.”

The fumes from the markers were overwhelming.  By the end of the day, after thirty-five students per class, each using one of those intoxicating markers five periods in a row, I would get headaches so bad they would make me vomit.  But it was for the children, so I endured.

Then parents began to complain because their children were complaining about the fifty-five minutes they had to spend in the room with those markers.  God forbid children should complain about school, so parents complained.  The school agreed that something needed to be done to stop the complaining and that something was that we needed to use odorless markers.  Yes, the school agreed that to resolve the complaints I needed to use odorless markers, but the school wouldn’t supply the odorless markers, so I had to buy those with my own money, too — $35.

Before long, some of my markers began to come up missing or I would find that the tips were mashed down to nothing.  So, I spent an hour after school one day, labeling each marker: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6, F1, F2, F3, F4, and F5.  Five rows, A through E, contained 6 seats.  Row F had 5.  Each row had its own baggie.  Each baggie contained the appropriate numbers of pens and cloths.  The first person in each row would be responsible for checking the markers before they were returned to me.

Students complained that the markers, which were clearly labeled and bagged by row, were too confusing and couldn’t they have a blue one?  Red sucks.  They complain that the washcloths make their hands dirty.  Why don’t you take them home every night and wash them?

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The paycheck that keeps me at just above the legal definition of poverty, and which allows me to have such extravagances in my life as whiteboards and painted walls, is distributed from the district office building, a brand new mammoth structure with sparkling windows and working air conditioning.  There are stone floors, textured wall-coverings, and beautifully matched office furniture.  Toys for the children of people who come in for various services, two reception desks, elevators, hi-tech phones, computers, and people who get paid much more than I do for processing my paycheck.  They complain that the air-conditioning blows too cold, and how can they be expected to work in such conditions.

If there is a problem with my paycheck, I call this building, and though there is an abundance of people there, there is never anyone available to take my calls.  Most business with that office takes several days to complete for all the messages one must leave.

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When I meet new people they ask me what I do for a living.  “I teach,” I tell them.

Oh, what grade?

“High school.  Mostly 9^th grade, but I have sophomores, juniors, and seniors, also.”

That must be tough.  It takes a special kind of person.  I remember how I treated my teachers.  I admire you.  Teachers don’t get paid enough.  The problem with the public educational system is . . .

The problem is that everyone has an opinion regarding the problem with education, but no one ever asks those of us in the trenches.

Do you like it?  

There was a time when my immediate answer was “I love my job.”  There are so few jobs in the world in which we have the opportunity to touch the lives of so many in such subtle but profound ways.  I love having the opportunity to talk to young people.  I love to share my experiences with them.  I grew up in a not-so-great environment.  I made good decisions and bad decisions, but I made it out all right.  I made it and I’m here and I’m setting an example to these young people whose lives may or may not be better or worse than mine was.

It is truly an honor to me when a student comes to me to confide that she is having a difficult time at home.  That she trusts me makes me feel like I’ve finally accomplished something as a teacher.

I love the sound of the “light clicking on.”  That breathy “oh” that students make when a concept that was once foreign to them finally makes sense.  I love that sound so much it makes me want to jump up and down – and sometimes I do.

Yes, there is always the odd student whose main goal in life is to make mine as difficult as possible.  But I’ve learned to cope with such behavior problems.

I’ve learned a lot in the last few years.  I’ve learned to put the responsibility for students’ actions on themselves.  I’ve learned that when you give them choices, they’ll generally do the right thing.  I’ve learned that it only takes a handful of students in a class to make the whole period unbearable, even when the other 80% are people that I would take home if I could.

I’ve also learned the definition of the word enabler.

One day several students in my 4^th period asked if they could attend an LGSA meeting because they were having an important guest speaker.  LGSA is the Lesbian, Gay, Straight Alliance, and many students participate in the group in an effort to promote tolerance.

I told these students that if they planned to attend this meeting, they would have to write a brief essay about it so that I would know that they actually went, and didn’t just go to 4^th-period lunch.  I told them that if I did not receive the paper, it would be considered a truant and they would be referred to the office.

The following Monday, I was called to the office of the vice principal.  When I arrived, there was a man seated in a chair across from her with a confrontational posture.

Close the door, Ms. R——.

I did.

Ms. R——, this is Mr. Rossi, Antonio Rossi’s father.  Could you please tell us what happened in fourth period last Wednesday?

“Last Wednesday?  I think we were reviewing for a test that day.  Could you be a little more specific?”

You didn’t take your class to the LGSA meeting?

“No.  I didn’t.”

Antonio told his father that you took the class to the LGSA meeting and required them to write a paper on it.  Antonio claims that he was offended that he was forced to go to such a meeting and refused to write the paper.  Antonio says you gave him a referral for not writing the paper.

Antonio is a goddamn liar, Mr. Rossi.  Of course, I didn’t say this.

“No, Ms. Smith, I did not take my class to the LGSA meeting.  A few students told me that they wanted to attend to hear the guest speaker, so I told them that they could as long as they made up the work that they missed and did a paper to prove that they had attended and hadn’t just gone to 4^th period lunch.”

You didn’t take your whole class to the meeting?

“No.  I did not take my class to the meeting.  Antonio asked to attend the meeting but then failed to do the paper.  I gave him the previously discussed referral, and it stands.”

Mr. Rossi leaned forward with a glare.  I could smell alcohol on his breath.  That meeting shouldn’t have been on this campus in the first place!  I’m trying to raise my children right, and you’re teaching them how to be homos.  Why don’t you just set up a Budweiser stand on the football field and offer free samples while you’re at it?  My son will not be serving that referral.

Ms. Smith tells Mr. Rossi that she understands his frustration.  Ms. R—— is new to this campus (that was my third year at this school) and doesn’t know the proper procedures.  Students should have had parent permission slips to get out of class to attend.  Ms. R—— will not make that mistake again.

Mistake?  I didn’t make a mistake.  I didn’t do anything that isn’t done on a weekly, if not daily, basis on this campus.  And what parent permission slips?  It’s an open forum at lunchtime.  If my students had been on the other lunch track, they wouldn’t have had to have parent permissions slips.  Students get out of class all the time for other extra-curricular venues.  What parent permission slips?

Thank you for coming in, Mr. Rossi.  Ms. R—— appreciates parents who are actively involved in their child’s education.  Antonio will not have to serve this referral.

“Wait a minute.  Antonio cut my class, using LGSA as an excuse.  He lied to me.  Then he lied to his father in an effort to get himself out of trouble.  And now his father, who claims to be trying to raise his kids right, is trying to get him out of serving his referral on completely irrelevant grounds.  His referral stands.”

Ms. R——, you don’t understand.  I’m covering my ass and hanging you out to dry.

Oh, I understand.

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I belong to a school-sanctioned organization for teachers on this campus called SEED.  SEED stands for Seeking Equity in EDucation.  We gather to discuss such things as racial issues, religious issues, issues of sexual orientation, issues of economic status.  We discuss these issues and then discuss how they might affect our students.  We share ideas and experience and discuss ways to discuss these issues with students.  Then we discuss ways to take these issues into account when dealing with students in our classrooms.

Teach algebra in a way that is racially diverse, culturally open, non-exclusive of students with alternative lifestyles, and attainable to students of all economic backgrounds.  X + 1 = 3.  Subtract 1 from each side.  X = 2.  Is that safe enough for everyone?

SEED started out as an enjoyable experience.  I’ve always loved learning about other cultures.  I love to travel for that very reason, and I love it when the kids want to talk to me about their customs, beliefs and holidays.  They often bring me foods from their celebrations, and I give them time to talk about their customs and practices.

There is nothing better than Hmong egg rolls.

Initially, I was resistant to the idea of white privilege, a concept I had never heard of until I came to be a part of SEED.  I was also resistant to the open hostility that some seemed to have with regards to the oppression that they have felt.  Then one day I realized that just because someone is angry does not mean he is angry with me.  So I continued with the group and grew as a person from the experience.

Unfortunately for me, I was one of few people in the group who was aware of this notion that one person does not an oppressive group make.  In addition to this, being straight and white, I soon became the object of the rants of a few less-adjusted individuals.

What?  You mean you didn’t know that about my culture?  How ignorant you are!  What?  You want me to educate you on my culture?  Educate your damned self.  What?  You don’t know where to start?  Well, it’s your fault you’re so damned ignorant.  What do you mean you don’t have an ethnicity?  What do you mean you’ve grown up in this country without any deep-seated traditions?  What do you mean you don’t have any culture that isn’t spoon-fed to you by media and advertising agencies?  That’s not my problem.  I’ve got my own problems and I refuse to acknowledge that they may stem from some area other than my race, even though my last name is Jones and if I didn’t tell you that I am Latina, you wouldn’t know because my skin is as white as yours and my hair is bleached blond, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m not going to tell you!  Besides, you’re white.  You cannot possibly have any perspective.

Sometimes I think it is those who are trying to make things better who actually make things worse.  By becoming aware of diversity issues, we sometimes become hypersensitive.  Suddenly every single little slip of the tongue becomes a glaring insult.  One feels insulted, hurt, oppressed.  The other feels misunderstood, defensive and defeated.  The one step that brought the two together becomes two steps pushing them apart.

In any case, one thing I learned in SEED:  Everyone else is a culture.  I am a color.

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On the first day back to school after Spring Break (which used to be called Easter Vacation, but is no longer politically correct, even though it falls conveniently on the week immediately before or after the Christian holiday), I was preparing for the day.  A parent knocked on my door.  She had come to discuss her daughter’s grade and wanted to know why I had given her such a low score in courtesy on an application she had submitted for cheerleading.  After looking at the application, I realized that I had transposed the numbers, having intended to give her the highest score possible.  I explained this to the mother, apologized, and told her that on my first opportunity, I would explain my mistake to the cheerleading coach.  The mother looked me dead in the eyes and replied, “Yeah… ya know…‘cause sometimes when the student is pretty, teachers are jealous.”

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In first period that same day, some students asked if they were tearing down the portable classrooms on the north side of the school to make more room for parking.  I told them no, that they were adding more classrooms.

Where do they expect us to park?

Well, frankly, if there aren’t enough classrooms for you guys to be educated in, I think parking is a small priority.  Take the bus.

Oh my god!  That’s jacked up.  I can’t believe she said that.  Then teachers should have to take the bus, too!  I’m so going to go off on her!  She must be on the rag or something.

I have become so sensitive to the idiocy of the stupid demands and abusive comments of pampered teenagers and their delusions that they are equal if not superior to their teachers that I began trembling with frustration.  I didn’t even bother with a lesson after that.  I wrote an assignment on the board and went to my desk to finish grading some papers.

The next day, first period arrived to find the following on the board:

Every student read it.  I know they did; I saw their lips moving.  Not one of them said a word to me.

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In my first year of teaching, I landed a job at my alma mater.  It was what I had dreamed of.  I would have the opportunity to teach alongside those teachers who had so influenced me.  I would have the opportunity to reach out to my own impoverished and drug-infested community.  I could make a difference here.

I was assigned five different classes in five different classrooms.  I was given one period of basic math with students who spoke little or no English at all.  I was given one period of life science, with students whose English was slightly better.  I was given two periods of basic biology, one with limited English speakers and one with sophomores who were retaking it from the year before.  Finally, I was given one period of senior project with the seniors from the continuation school way out on the backside of the campus.

Continuation school is the last stop before juvenile hall.

Have I mentioned that I am a math teacher?

First period was downstairs in building C.  Second period was upstairs in building C.  Third period was downstairs in building C, again.  Fourth period was in building E.  And fifth period was out on the backside, as I said before.

I was told that this was my “trial by fire” and that if I could make it through that, I could survive anything.

I had a cart.  I carried my lab supplies in the bottom tray, textbooks on the middle tray, an overhead projector on the top tray, along with a file box in which I kept office supplies and student records.  I pushed that cart from one end of campus to the other.

Senior project was a district requirement for any senior who intended to graduate.  Each student was required to produce a 10-page paper, some sort of related project, and present it to members of the Yuba-Sutter chamber of commerce and other members of the community on a set date at the end of the school year.

My seniors were kids who had children of their own or court dates to keep or drug addictions to worry about.  Senior project was at the bottom of their list of priorities until a few days before each deadline.

At the beginning of the year, I had twenty-seven students.  By April, I was down to five, for all those who dropped out or went on to adult ed.

One of my five students was Melanie.  Melanie’s mother had died of breast cancer when Melanie was only nine years old.  Melanie was doing her project on breast cancer.  She would write a paper on the subject, and create an informational brochure.

Melanie’s boyfriend was a greater priority to Melanie than was her project.  Her boyfriend lived in Reno, so Melanie would skip school on Fridays to drive to Reno and spend the weekend with him.  She would skip school on Mondays to drive back from Reno.  Because LHS had a block schedule on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, this meant that I saw Melanie only two days per week.

When the due date for the paper loomed near, Melanie turned in the rough draft.  It was atrocious.  It rambled, with little information and few statistics.  The grammar and spelling were horrible.

I corrected the paper and gave it back to Melanie.

When I collected the final papers, I was surprised to see that most of the corrections to Melanie’s paper had not been made.  I failed it.

Lisa Johnson, the vice principal for the alternative education side of LHS quickly came to Melanie’s defense.  Ms. R——, I sat up with her until eleven o’clock.   I know she made those corrections.  We must have turned in the wrong draft.

Now, as you read Ms. Johnson’s statement, you might be thinking “What a remarkable woman, that she would work so late with a student to make sure that she gets her paper done” etc.  And it would seem so.  But Ms. Johnson was notorious for coddling students.  If they got into trouble, she went on a rampage to get them out of it.  If they stole something, she would replace it.  If they failed something, she would bend the rules to pass them through it.

But this was my first year as a full-time teacher, and I didn’t want to seem inflexible, so I allowed her to turn in the corrected draft.  It passed marginally.

When the due date for the project came to a close, Melanie turned in a sheet of printer paper folded in three.  In each column, she had penciled in descriptions of what would be there, had she finished the project.  This was Melanie’s “final product?”

“Melanie, this is trash.”

I know, Ms. R——, but this has been a rough year for me.  I didn’t know the deadlines, even though they’re posted on every wall in the school and you announce them every day.  I’m having family problems.  My cat died.  My shoes pinch my feet.  Won’t you give me a second chance?

I considered Melanie’s request very carefully.  Senior project was intended to prove to the employers of the Yuba Sutter area that Lindhurst graduates are capable of writing a coherent paper, meeting important deadlines, producing quality work, and working with and speaking in front of other people.  Melanie had failed everything thus far.

If I don’t give her a second chance, she doesn’t graduate with her friends.  She’ll have to go to summer school.

If I do give her a second chance, I would not be holding her to the standards set by the district and the community.  In addition, I would be sending her the message that life requires little to no effort.  With a good sob story, you can circumvent anything.

I agonized over this decision for an entire weekend.  I knew that the right thing to do was to fail her and send her to summer school.  But I hated having to be the one to make that decision.

On Monday afternoon, I confronted Melanie.  I’m sorry, Melanie.  You’re going to have to take summer school.

On Tuesday afternoon, I was called to the office of the principal of Lindhurst high school.  I’m really surprised, Jenna.  Melanie seemed to be working so hard.

Appearances can be deceiving.  Melanie hardly comes to school.  When deadlines approach, she turns in garbage.  The only reason she passed the paper is because Lisa Johnson helped her write it.

I know, Jenna, but Melanie’s mother died nine years ago.  Can’t we cut her a little slack?

I gave Melanie one week to redo her project.  On the due date, I received a single sheet of printer paper folded in three columns.  In each column was typed the information that had been penciled on the original.  The columns did not line up.  The graphics and titles were off center.  There were spelling errors.  And finally, and most importantly, there was no important information provided on the project.  It was computer generated garbage.

Melanie, you know this is not worth a passing grade.

Melanie did not answer me.  She simply left the room and did not return. . . ever.

On graduation day, the alternative ed seniors had their own graduation.  I was asked to be there and to sit on the stage with Betty McCall, and Keith Atwater, the other teachers at the AE.

So I sat, listening as different announcements and speeches were made, until Ms. Johnson announced that the class president was now going to speak.  Then I watched, in agonizing frustration, as Melanie marched up to the podium in her cap and gown and began to speak.  She spoke of how hard she’d worked that year.  How she had had to make many sacrifices and how she thought she’d never make it that far.  She spoke of how some teachers gave up on her, but Ms. Johnson wouldn’t let her fail.

Ms. Johnson had taken Melanie out of alternative ed and enrolled her in adult ed; then as the adult ed advisor, had given Melanie a passing grade on her senior project.

Melanie spilled fat, unnecessary and insincere tears, and the audience wiped their too easily coerced tears from their own eyes.

And then, as the representative of her senior class, and with a Cheshire grin smeared across her face, Melanie ceremoniously presented me with a “Thank You” plaque.

And I accepted it, fighting back my own tears of anger and aggravation and the desperate urge to deposit that plague right into the nearest trash can.

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The next school year, we had all new administration, all the way up to the district superintendent.  He decided that he would not tenure anyone that year.  So even though I was an alumnus, even though I had survived the trial by fire, my employment with Marysville Joint Unified School District was terminated along with that of thirteen other teachers in the district who were up for tenure.  No reason was given.

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In January of the following school year, I was hired by a high school in Sacramento, thirty-five miles to the south of where I lived, to take over for a teacher who had been out since the school year began.

For the first half of the school year, the kids had had one sub after another until they finally settled on Mr. C.   Mr. C was 25 years old and a former student of said high school.

I observed Mr. C on his final day of teaching the class.  He called the kids his “homies.”  He had a CD player in the class and allowed them to bring their own music to play as loudly as the other teachers would tolerate.  He had posters of Jimmy Hendrix, various rap artists, various bikini-clad models.  He had a cartoon posted on the wall of Bill Clinton at his desk with Monica Lewinski’s legs protruding from underneath.  There was no order to the desks in the room.  He cursed and swore with them, and on his last day he had a going away party in the cafeteria for himself and his “homies” to hang out for one last time.

When students arrived for my first day of class, they brought their attitudes with them.  I distributed my syllabus, which outlined my policies and expectations.  After giving it a thorough once-over, one young lady in the front of the room raised her hand.

“Yes?”

Uh…. Now that you’ve told us your rules, we’ve got a few rules for you.

“That’s interesting.  I’m the teacher, an adult.  You’re the student and 14 years old.  I’m not interested in your rules.”

The storm began.  Everything I had in that classroom was eventually destroyed or stolen.  Each time my back was turned, someone coughed up “bitch!”  If I punished a student I was informed in no uncertain terms that it was simply because he was <insert ethnicity of choice>.  (I got this one from the Caucasian kids, as well).  Once, one student picked up another student and threw him at me.  I had a bruise for 3 weeks.  When I sent them to the vice principal, he said, “They look fine now,” and sent them right back to me.

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That summer, I taught a summer school program called Project Excel.  It was intended to give a boost to students struggling with algebra.  The flier soliciting us said “hours: 8 am to 1 pm, at the summer school hourly wage.  All supplies and prep time provided.”  I thought it would be an easy way to make money over the summer and still have most of the day to myself.

The Friday before the program began, I was informed that they had decided to change the hours.  Instead of 8 to 1, I would be working from 10:00 to 3:30.  They would not, however, be paying me for the extra half hour that I was expected to be there, because you agreed to the initial contract.  Resource materials were provided on the last day of class.

When a grievance was brought to the union demanding that we be paid for the half hour of each of those 30 days that we were forced to work, which totaled approximately $450, we were informed that summer school is not covered by contract and that the union could do little to help us.  When an attorney finally agreed to take the case, it was over a year before we were given the verdict.  No.

The following two school years got gradually better.  I have good classroom management techniques and I am a good math teacher.  I thought if every year could be like these, I’d be o.k.

This year, our school has converted to Small Learning Communities.  This means that our freshmen have been divided into groups based on career interests.  I am in the Arts/Media house.  We meet once per week on our prep time, to discuss student progress, budget issues, and to listen to our 23-year-old English teacher rattle on about her private life, the private lives of some of the social science teachers, which students are dating whom, and how much contempt she has for the science teacher in our house.  We never finish early.

I serve on the planning committee for the full conversion, which is planned for next year.

Our school is also undergoing WASC accreditation.  WASC is a state-appointed agency, which evaluates schools to determine whether they deserve to be accredited for another 6 years.

In an effort to make a good impression on the WASC committee, we have been instructed to take time out of our classes to get students to memorize the catchphrases, which are hung in every classroom and corridor.

I thought I was supposed to be teaching them math.  I can’t even get them to memorize their multiplication tables and you want me to get them to memorize their “ESLRs?”

I serve on the assessment and accountability committee for WASC readiness.  I have no idea what our purpose is, but I’ll blow my smoke screen when WASC comes, and no one will ever know the difference.  It doesn’t matter anyway.  As soon as WASC leaves, we’ll all forget this ever happened.

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There are a lot of buts in public education.  No matter how well I do, there is always someone there to encourage me with such things as you’re really doing a great job, but wouldn’t it be better if you wrote your objectives in cursive, instead of printing them?  That was a great lesson, but you forgot to do a closure.  It’s great that you stay until four o’clock, three days a week at no extra pay to offer tutoring for your students, but wouldn’t it be better if you could stay four, or better yet, if you could come in early, as well?  What?  You’re already here at 7 A.M. to prep for the day?  Well, open your doors to the students, so that they can take advantage of your presence.  What?  You need that time for prep?  Well, that’s what that 50-minute free period we give you is for.  What?  What do you mean it’s not enough time with parent conferences, and phone calls, and meetings, and appointments, and IEPs, and photocopying?  Of course, it’s enough time.  It’s in the contract.

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Every year, we’re required to do standardized testing, which is testing based on the state-established standards for curriculum.  This year, there are three: the STAR, the CAT 6, and the California Standards Test.  Three may indeed seem like a small number, but when you consider that each test is divided into several sections and that each section takes the better part of an hour to complete, these three tests end up taking nearly two weeks worth of instructional time.

In addition, we the teachers, have to sit through an hour of training for each test, even though we’ve all given these tests before and even though we are given a script to read to the students, which gives step-by-step instructions on how to administer the test.  We do not get paid for the extra hour of training time, yet we are required by law to take it.  The training consists of a video in which they tell us that students are not required to take the test, but that it is illegal for us to tell them this.

When we give the tests, the students groan.  They know they will not be held accountable for the scores, so they don’t care how they do.  They will make pretty patterns as they bubble the scantrons.  They will bubble only the Cs.  They will fall asleep and drool on the test booklet.  And none of it really matters to anyone except the politicians who use standardized testing as yet another buzzword to incite righteous indignation among a majority of voters who really have no clue how pointless these tests really are.

But every year, we analyze the scores and find that students are scoring lower and lower and what can we do to fix this problem?

“Stop giving them tests that bore them catatonic.”

We have to give them the tests, and isn’t this wonderful that we have this data that we can sort by ethnicity, economic status, parents’ education, age, all those things that we’re not supposed to take into consideration in the classroom except when we can use it to our benefit? 

What’s this?  These students are failing math?  That can’t be!  The district has decided that high schools will not offer any math class lower than algebra, so of course, our students must be ready for it.  Obviously, the problem is that they are not being challenged.  Ms. R——, what are you doing to challenge your students?

“I’m drilling them on the multiplication tables.  70% of the kids are failing them.  I’ve gone back to remedial math skills.”

Ms. R——, this is algebra.  Shouldn’t you be factoring trinomials, or simplifying rational expressions?

“Well, I should be, but they need to know how to multiply and divide to be able to do those things, and they don’t know how to multiply and divide.  They need something lower than algebra – some sort of remedial skills class.”

Oh, that is not possible.  The district knows best, and the district, which is run by people who have not worked in a classroom in years, says that we teach nothing lower than algebra I, but just because it’s called algebra I doesn’t mean you can’t teach remedial math skills in the class.

“Interesting.  Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

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During our most recent standardized testing session, I was assigned to a room in the main building and to a group of freshmen whose last names began with “S.”  A very young, very attractive female teacher was in the classroom next door.  On the third day of testing, I gave students a break between testing periods.  I stood at the door, watching as students walked to the restroom or water fountain, two or three at a time.  The young teacher in the next room was standing in her door, facing her class.

As one of my temporary students walked by, he turned, saw her standing there, walked up behind her and made a full-body thrusting motion with his hips, as if he were taking her from behind.  He then turned back to see if his friends had seen and laughed as he began to walk away.  I called him back to stand next to me and sent him off to the office with a campus security monitor and a referral.

I was later informed that this student has been in quite a lot of trouble and that this is his “last straw.”  He will be going up for an expulsion hearing.

Still later, I was informed that this student denies the whole thing.  He claims that I blew it all out of proportion.  That the gesture he made was one of disappointment that his friends had been held back.

I was called to the office of the vice principal of discipline.  He thanked me for my diligence to student and staff safety.  Then he asked me if I would be willing to swear to what I saw in an expulsion hearing.  I saw this kid standing outside the door.  He couldn’t be more than fourteen years old.  He’s got a whole world ahead of him and how will expulsion affect him?  I ran the scene over and over again in my head and tried to weigh my memory to his version of the story.  They didn’t match.  I saw what I saw.

Yes.  I’ll swear it.

Several weeks later, I asked when I would be expected to testify.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you.  We decided to just let it go.

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I recently finished reading ‘Tis, the sequel to Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt.  While reading his experiences as a teacher, I began to get more and more tense.  He started teaching 50 years ago and had the same complaints then that I have now.  That is unbelievably discouraging.

It occurred to me, while reading that book, that teachers are usually portrayed in one of two ways:  1) bitter and burnt out, clocking the days until retirement, not caring, not teaching, oblivious to reality; or 2) burning with a fiery passion to touch the world, completely dedicated to nothing other than teaching, worshipped by students, persecuted by friends and family who cannot understand such blind devotion to the cause, every word is inspirational and they are always making magic happen.

The reality is this: every day is a flaming hoop to jump through.  There is so much paperwork and bureaucracy that for every 55 minutes of class time, you get maybe 40 minutes to teach in.  Factor in the behavior problems, the tardies, the students’ personal crises and teenage melodrama, the forgotten books, pencils, papers, stolen backpacks, and various creative excuses and instructional time gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

Some days are successful.  Some days are complete failures.  Some days, it’s a wonder we’re not all bat-wielding alcoholics.

Some kids get it.  Some kids don’t.  If you’re good, more will than won’t.

And if you’re lucky, a handful of students out of the nearly two hundred that you are responsible for that year will really get it.  What’s more, there will be something about you that fills a need in them and they will come to you smiling every day; and when they’re not smiling, you will know that something is really wrong and when you ask them, they will burst into tears and tell you that their parents are divorcing, or her mother beat her with a ruler and held her down to cut her hair off, or his girlfriend is pregnant and he doesn’t know what to do, or her mother is blaming her for the jail-time that her step-father is doing for having sexually assaulted her and she’s thinking of running away, or his best friend committed suicide, and he’s angry and is he supposed to feel this way?  Then we talk through the lunch period I give up that day for the sake of this young person in pain.  Then they hug me and tell me they are glad that I am their teacher.

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Last Monday night, I began the last class that I need to clear my credential for the next five to eight years.  After a 90-minute dissertation on his failed acting career, the teacher asked us to introduce ourselves and tell the class a little bit about our teaching history and why we were taking the class.

“Hi.  My name is Jenna R——, and this is my seventh school year as a teacher.  In these past seven years, I have gone from dreams of saving the world one child at a time, to sitting slumped behind my desk, trying to make it through the last 7 weeks of school so that I can give this up forever.

“I have been verbally abused, lied to, lied about, physically assaulted, threatened, guilt-tripped, scapegoated, insulted, cursed at, ripped off and flipped off more times than I imagined possible.  I have gained 50 pounds since I began and have recently developed a compulsive habit of plucking out hairs, one by one.

“Parents don’t care.  Students think they should have the same rights and privileges as teachers.  Administrators blame us for everything that goes wrong but are quick to take credit for everything that goes right.  The media waves the flag of public education as the greatest of society’s many ills, often making teachers look like imbeciles in television and movies.

“I have carried guilt every year for every student who was not challenged and every challenge who would not be a student.  I’m about as burnt out as a person can get, and this is most likely my last year as a teacher in the California public educational system.”

I see.  Well, Jenna, some people just aren’t cut out for teaching.  Good luck to you.

“Yeah.  Thanks a lot.”