Things I Probably Shouldn’t Have Said, Part 2

I lost my job at the Catholic school because of a series of accusations.  Most of them were absolute lies, and I had evidence to prove that.  Among them were that I “didn’t teach.”  I spent every day prepping lessons and lecturing.  I had whiteboards and markers for every student so that I could quiz their knowledge and identify common errors to address.  It also gave me the opportunity to go to students individually to help them find their own mistakes.  Mostly, the girls just loved it.  So it gave the class a high energy.

When my attorney asked me why I thought they had terminated me, I told them that I thought it was because I protested a policy they had of moving students into my class right before final exams.  I taught algebra and algebra 2, both as two-year courses, so students who struggle with the subject can take it slower and have a better chance of success.  The school’s policy was that students had to transfer classes within the first couple of weeks of school.  They violated their own policy by moving students from the one-year classes into my class just days before final exams.  This was done so that the student could get a passing grade on the final and get a better grade on her transcript than she would have had she stayed in the regular class.  I was told to my face, that this was so they’d have a better chance of getting into the college of their choice.  I told the principal telling me this that that was fraud.  I probably shouldn’t have said that.

Another accusation they used to justify terminating my employment was that I shared inappropriate personal information with students.  I had a student who came to class in tears because a friend of hers had committed suicide and she was struggling to deal with it.  I told her that I was so sorry for her loss and that my ex-husband had committed suicide.  I told her that I knew she was probably feeling guilty that she wasn’t a better friend that could have stopped it.  I explained to her that depression is a mental illness.  Her friend’s mind was broken and he was in pain.  We are not trained to know how to recognize the signs or treat the illness.  She can’t blame herself.

I also told her that it’s natural to feel anger at him.  He made the choice and his choice hurts us.  But I told her to imagine that he was engulfed in flames.  That’s how much pain he was in.  He hurt so badly and was so desperate to stop the pain that he did the only thing he could think of to end it.

I got an email from the student’s mother the next day.  She told me that her daughter came home and talked to her about what we’d discussed in class.  She thanked me repeatedly, telling me that it was the first time her daughter had been able to talk about it with her.

Apparently, there were “other students” who were “upset” by what I’d said.  I suspect I know who; a young woman who was a constant challenge due to her incessant need to chatter with her friends.  Her mother had called multiple times to accuse me of singling her out.  She claimed to be coming to my after school tutoring but that I’d never helped her.  I showed her my tutoring sign-in sheets and asked her to show me where her daughter had signed in.  She mumbled something under her breath but that was dropped.  But I’m not bitter. 🙄

I loved teaching.  I loved algebra with a passion and still do.  I loved working with young people and that several of my former students follow me on Facebook and want to share their lives and successes with me makes me feel like I did something meaningful.  Sadly, teaching also fried me.  As a person who needs occasional thanks and pats on the back, teaching is the last field I should have chosen.  It amazes me the lengths that some parents will go to to keep their child from experiencing the consequences of their actions; the attitude of some students that I basically worked for them, and that our VP was a customer service department where they could go to file their complaints.  If I never had to deal with administrators and the bureaucracy of education, or the irrational parents, I might still be teaching.

But I probably shouldn’t have said that.