I quit my job today.
But that's skipping ahead a bit.
I've been pretty sure that I'm not meant to be a teacher since my first year. But the first year is always hard, so I came back a second. The second year was better and I thought "why not, let's try year 3." I was getting comfortable, I had delightful coworker friends, things were okay.
Then my husband and I decided to move to New Orleans. I was burnt out on teaching and hoping to start fresh. But the jobs didn't come. I spent a summer interning in school libraries while desperately applying for any and everything. Barnes and Noble? didn't call back. Various secretarial positions? never heard a word. **** **** High School? immediate job offer.
Okay, fine, universe. I've always wanted to be in an inner city school setting; maybe this is what I was missing.
NOPE.
It was immediately evident that I wasn't in the right place. As much as I thought I had checked my privilege, I had no clue. That's yet another shitty aspect of white privilege. Total ignorance.
I was a joke from the beginning. Students would make insulting comments on my appearance out of nowhere, randomly come up and scream in my face, booty grind on me while I was at the front of the classroom trying to teach, the list goes on.
So I got help. Looooots of help. I had master teachers, mentor teachers, disciplinarians, vice principals all in my room. They observed me, gave me strategies, talked to the students. This was a curse disguised because the students saw that I had no power. When others were in the classroom they would behave, but as soon as those they respected left and it was just me, chaos reigned. These students were determined to run me out and teachers told me over and over that I couldn't let them win. That they were used to people leaving them and were trying to see if I would, too. That once they saw I wasn't leaving they'd back off.
However, the daily hell of it all began to affect me emotionally. I have long had diagnosed depression and anxiety. Through medication and coping mechanisms it is generally under control. I began to not be able to control it, however, through the school week.
Panic attacks every morning led to me taking Ativan before class. Depression + Ativan led to me coming home at 5pm and immediately taking my antidepressant and falling asleep. Often I would wake up when my husband got home from work, say hello, and fall back asleep until my 5:30 am alarm went off. Pop a couple Ativan and repeat the day.
On top of this cycle, some OCD tendencies that had been long hidden began to emerge. I was washing my hands constantly, sometimes leaving the middle of class to scrub until they were raw. At night I would hear yelling in my head and see images of maggots taking over my brain. I would sit in the kitchen, obsessed with finding and killing cockroaches and then scrubbing the counters with bleach.
I started to become angry, one of the few emotions I rarely feel. But I was in a near constant rage and would snap at students, barely keeping myself from spewing vitriol that would have been beyond damaging. Driving home, I would calculate how hard it would be to flip my car over the Mississippi Bridge.
Today, my first and second periods start the same old shit: A student calls me over, leering, "Ms. C*****, you're very pretty, but I'm not doing this assignment." I respond as calmly as possible, but the jeering starts anyway. "Ohhhhh she now getting attitude with us!" "Girl you need to have some respect!" "You're always fussing with us; that's why we don't like you." "You're going to find yourself in trouble." "You're scared of *student name,* aren't you?" "Yeah, she scared."
At lunch, the vice principal, my one champion, comes to ask how I'm doing. For some reason, I'm honest.
"Really bad. I don't know how much longer I can do this."
I just meant in general, but I quickly begin to weep, and the daily mental breakdown is now happening at lunch in front of my supervisor. I start to have a panic attack, talking about how I'm losing control, losing my mind, and how I'm not sure I'm capable of holding down a job at all. The lunch bell rings and I'm such a mess she gives me her office keys and tells me to go hide out. She will take over my class until we can find a solution.
That solution ended up being a sub, with me in the principal's office handing in my letter of resignation, my keys, and my laptop. I'll probably never see any of them again.
And so now I'm just another statistic. What's the percentage of teachers who leave the profession before year 5? Add my name.
Worse still, how many people have walked out on these kids who desperately need love even though they fight so hard against it? Add my name to that list, too.
