#4 Reason for Leaving

     I have wanted to be a teacher my whole life. Ever since second grade, when Ms. Wolcott let me take home a stack of geometry worksheets for the summer. I just liked the stack of paper, I didn't much care what was on them. I spent all summer playing school with my friends, and pretending to grade the squares and triangles and circles.

    When I became a teacher at 22, I was thrilled. I was ready. I worked in a Title 1 school for a year, before moving to a rural school up north. Same population, different issues. Which means, it is politically incorrect to say, the kids were all the same color up north, but were struggling because their families worked the harvest, not because they were in single parent households battling gangs. I'd never say that out loud to anyone.

    So when I was hired last year in the biggest school district in the city, I was again excited. I researched the building, and discovered that their teacher retention rate was shocking. They had been through five math teachers in one year, only. But I steadied myself.  I'd worked at a title one just three years ago, I could do it again. Those kids needed teachers who would stay. I am/was young, I can/could adapt. Many teachers that are currently leaving, creating a teaching and substitute crisis, are taking early retirement. 

    Then Covid hit, and any one who could afford to leave teaching, did.

    My first day at the city school, I arrived at 6:30 am. As I was turning into the parking lot, there was a kid, maybe fourteen, wearing a "V for Vendetta" mask, and waving a gun. Several cars simply turned ahead of me, not seeming to notice. They were  clearly teachers. They just pulled into the lot and parked their cars. The kid on the corner screamed and pointed his gun at me as I turned.

    I did not turn into the parking lot.

    I flipped a U turn and went back home. I called the police to report the kid, then called the school and told them I'd found another job. Which I had not, but I spent the day applying, and crying. I cried all day. I thought I was a failure as a teacher. Clearly, nobody else at this building was concerned about the behavior on the median.

    I found another job almost immediately in a white suburb out south. I am very happy there. The kids bring Kleenex and hand sanitizer by the truckloads when they are asked. The parents give me Starbucks cards and thank me when they see me.  My worst behaviors are related to entitlement, which I am equipped to deal with. 

    I was not equipped to deal with a kid waving a gun outside of the parking lot at 6:30 am.

    Politically correct or not, it's the truth.