The night of my
anniversary of not teaching, I had a vivid dream in which I went back into the
classroom to teach. I can picture the desks all lined up, the smell of new
school supplies in the air. I seemed excited to have a new start, a "Happy
New Year". Slammmm!! All of a sudden, two very familiar women come
barging into my room. My dream just turned into a horrible nightmare! The two
bullies I had years ago came walking in. It was my old principal and her
side-kick, the master teacher. Thankfully, I woke up to the sound of a howling
dog that wanted to go outside. I had that feeling in my chest, that anxiety
sensation, of "Oh no! It is happening again!" The nightmare was
over but will the horror always haunt me forever? It sure seems like it will...
I decided to write this
blog for coping therapy- to help me with my emotions and to shed light in the
horrors I faced by being a public school teacher. I know many other past
colleagues that I worked with also faced these same horrors. They had the same bullies
and very similar situations happen to them. I just wanted to take it a little
further, to share my feelings and emotions of what can happen to teachers. Is
there an epidemic on the rise of teachers in so much stress they commit
suicide? What is really going on with the youth of our society?
I would love to be a fly
on the wall on every single teacher lounge in the United States to see what the
buzz is on every campus. What is the latest push for teachers to do in the
classroom? What were the new district policies set forth for the upcoming
school year? What new implementation is the district mandating that every
teacher to do? How are teachers coping with the rise of unruly students that
cause such chaos in the classroom? How many are truly happy in what they do?
Why is it that so many colleagues and professionals in my past field do not
want to share their story? It really bothered me when I stumbled upon a news
channel video from Baton Rouge. Why are these two teachers disguising their
voices and hiding their faces? It almost felt like one of those 20-20 specials
of a person who is under a court order protection of a murder they witnessed.
Ironically it wasn't a murder, but their own story of the abuse they faced in
the classroom.
It made me ponder a bit
in why? Why hide? I believe it is the indoctrination of fear of administration
will come and harm teachers like myself by taking away their beloved job or be
reprimanded for some idiotic reason. Do teachers really want an ineffective in
their personal file? A strike against them? I will never forget October of
2013. I felt defeated and beaten to a pulp, left to die. The anxiety took a
toll on me on what my current administrator wanted to do to me and to tarnish
my teaching record. I never signed my observation because I did not agree one
bit that I was an ineffective teacher. She even videotaped my observation and
told me “I won't put you through that again, so we will not watch it"...I
would love to get a copy of it and post it for the whole world to see what I
encountered in the classroom. It is the disturbing truth that our society is
crumbling right before our eyes yet no one is held accountable other than I was
to blame for the misbehaving that occurred in my classroom. It is pretty
pathetic and shame on anyone who thought I was ineffective. All one had
to do is look at my success rate I had in the classroom with standardized tests
and district assessments to know that I am a far cry of being inadequate
teacher. I can honestly laugh at it now because I did have some of the highest
test scores for a Title One Teacher.
I count my luck stars
that I did seek help. I am very thankful for the advice from my
psychiatrist and therapist to not to sign that God awful observation that my
principal wanted me to sign, even when I was on medical leave. I finally
had a team, a team that believed in me, that listened to me, and that fought
for me to get better. They are my protectors. I started believing in
myself that after all those years of put-downs and abuse I encountered were not
acceptable in the workforce. The way I was treated by administration and the
students should have never happened, but it did. I was blamed that I didn't
have classroom control of these unruly students. I thought about it a bit in
what the demographics and background of my unruly students. It was quite
interesting. It consisted of a large amount of my misbehaving students whom had
broken families, some of the parents were in jail serving time, some were
foster children or children that were being raised by their grandparents, and
some were even on open enrollment because they were kicked out of their former
school. Of course there were some that had a perfect life at home but still
were troublemakers. Why was I being punished for lack of discipline and funding
to help these troubled students flourish into respectful human beings by giving
them tools to cope with their life? I would say the biggest band-aide my former
district had was to blame the teacher, not blame the system of lack of support
and aide for these students.
After driving home from
one of my sessions with my therapist one day, I decided to Google teachers and
PTSD when I got home. I didn't find many articles as I would like but the ones
that I did find touched my heart in so many levels. There were two teachers,
like myself, that were fed up of being inadequate. One even took it upon
herself to write a six page letter to her district in why she took her own
life. She left it in her car while she ran across a busy highway in Chicago and
was killed. There was another gentleman from California that was fed up with
inadequate scores on his evaluation. He was well loved and admired teacher that
was adored by his students and colleagues. He couldn't take it anymore and was
found dead near a ravine. I remember myself that one night I screamed for an
hour, thinking of ways I could harm myself because I just couldn't take the
abuse anymore. It was the indoctrination of brain-washing of the feeling of
"I am a failure" that my administrators bestowed upon me. I wasn't a failure;
I was a victim of the horrors in the classroom.
There are many factual
studies out there about teacher retention. In my former school district, a
school board candidate who was running for a spot this past October said that
about 600 teachers left my district in the past two years! Six hundred teachers
let alone in my school district, but do you think the district really cared
that they almost had a death in their hands?? No- it is business like usual yet
so many teachers like myself up and left a job that they once loved. Many
new studies indicate that in the first five years of teaching, half the
teachers leave the profession. According to the Health Magazine, the top ten
professions for depression is being a teacher. What is going on? Why is there
such an increase of suicides, PTSD, and anxiety in the teaching profession? Of
course teachers get their summers off but really? I always said it was more of
a mental break to regroup and start fresh with a new set of students the next
fall. The endless hours at night and the weekend I would work to perfect
my teaching to be the best teacher for my students. When I really thought about
it one day calculating the hours, I really didn't have summers off or weekends.
I was a sucker to work while not getting paid for all those endless hours of
hard work. Any other profession out there gets paid for overtime, but not
teachers! Any field can be considered a toxic, hostile working environment but
the majority of the population would be stunned in what I witnessed in my short
14 year career as an elementary school teacher.
Teaching was once a
profession that was highly regarded, and maybe in some schools across the
country it still is. After all, teachers are the ones that fuel the fire for
our young minds of the future. It was a shame of how much disrespect I saw or
the stories I heard from friends who were teachers. It didn't matter the
socioeconomic status of the area. I have heard horror stories of parents attacking
teachers in why their little princess or prince did not receive the grades they
deserved or the "My child would never do that, it is you!” I can laugh at
all of it because yes, parents can be bullies too. There was only one time in
my career that a parent thought I was prejudice of her child because I
documented the child's behavior. I was trying to be proactive and thinking of
different tactics that I would try to get this child to behave and learn in
class. I also had to document it for my district's policy for students who
needed more than just Tier 1 and Tier 2 intervention. I was running
myself thin and to be slapped in the face by the parent for trying to help this
unruly student to cooperate. The last day the open enrollment student attended
my class was the day this child spit, threw objects at me, and called me names
that the administration finally took action to remove this child out of my
classroom. Ironically, an hour later, the ambulance was called to take me by a
stretcher for unknown pains I was having, I didn't know what was happening to
me. The EMTs were very concerned with my low blood pressure and pulse but
couldn't pin point what was going on with me- was it the stress I just endured
in the classroom? You better believe it was a part of it! I look back to myself
of all the warning signs that God gave me to get out of teaching, but I kept
going for another year of torture.
What is happening with
our society? Why so many children are at such a young age have no respect for
authority? What ever happened to values and morals? Why aren't schools taking a
stance on unruly behavior? Is it the lack of funding or is there a bully factor
from the district to decrease referrals so they can look good to the public?
Districts across the country should take a stance on establishing firm
procedures and re-examine their district policies for students who are unruly
and provide services for such individuals to flourish into respectful human
beings. I look back on my time at my former school district and their push to have
“Safe Schools" committees. These committees tracked behaviors and examined
how to decrease referrals because after all, isn't that what the public wants?
What if a school had high referral rates? Wouldn't this be a red flag for
the district to get rid of the principal? You better believe that there is this
sense of "Let's not write referrals because I can lose my job, but let's
blame the teacher for lack of discipline in the classroom." I always
joke that I will be on a deserted island in ten years when the children I have
encountered in recent years become adults but I am really concerned what the
future will hold, especially for my own children. If anyone is concerned in the
rise of violence and gun shootings at schools, just wait another few years- I
bet it will be more common than we think. I almost guarantee that more and more
teachers like myself will leave a once loved profession because of the increase
of stress and lack of support from administration. I have contemplated a
lot in my darkest hours when I came home feeling defeated, bruised, and scared
of what might lie ahead…
Articles that every
teacher and parent should read or watch on this epidemic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/education/10teacher.html?_r=0
*** I like to dedicate
my story to all of the teachers around the United States that lost their
ability to fight their battle such as Mary Thorson (Illinois teacher), and
Rigoberto Ruelas ( Los Angeles, California) whom took their own life from the
Horrors of the Classroom. ***
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