2020 has been a year full of ups, downs and loopty loops in between. Although, I cannot say personally that I have had it harder than others. I still enjoyed having a job with a livable salary, a healthy family and a roof over our heads that I knew would not be taken from us. The most important thing was that I had my faith and the ability to hear God’s still small voice, right when I needed to hear it. So, when things continued to go sideways from the year before in my professional world, I knew at some point, a change would have to take place. I have a MA in education, taught abroad, became a teacher to ensure that all students had an opportunity to learn, grow and have options for their future. I. Love. Teaching. So why did I quit the profession altogether? Did my reasons for becoming a teacher not matter anymore? On the contrary, they mattered even more over time, but I realized it couldn’t come at the expense of my well-being.
The pandemic forced schools to close and for teachers to transition into a role that although we were not prepared for, we adapted to quite well. We still created lesson plans and turned them into digital lessons, we still graded work, but thankfully they were also digital, cutting the work down a bit to be more manageable than all the paperwork we had to lug home before. Things were going good.
The new school year 2020-2021 soon came upon us with a lot of questions of how we were going to continue. Meanwhile, teachers across the country, myself included are scrambling to continue to create engaging content for students to learn digitally until we returned face to face in the classroom. Teachers are a rare breed. We tend to do our best work when we collaborate with other like minds. I too indulged in that practice. However, this time, I reached out on social media to pick the brains of my brilliant teacher friends on a lesson I was working on. I received some awesome ideas to add to with I had created, but then the hatchet dropped.
Three days into our new digital school year, I was called into the principal’s office with an alleged complaint (which I was not shown) from a parent claiming they did not feel I was competent enough to teach their child since I had to reach out on social media to receive help for a lesson. I was told that I had embarrassed the school, which was a violation of my contract. I was also told that they were receiving concerns from my colleagues about my mental health. This was a lie as I had not spoken to anyone about whether or not I was feeling unstable. We had been out of school for five months, we barely communicated with each other since it was technically summer.
Since the year prior, I had felt that the school was going into a direction that I just did not fit into. Students and parents were given priority over a teacher. Even if a student was being physically or verbally abusive, there were no consequences. I complained numerous times that I was unable to effectively teach because of the misbehavior of a few. During the summer months, a lower grade position opened. I applied for it and was turned down with the explanation that they would not be able to easily fill my 7th grade position. That is when I knew I had a proverbial bulls-eye on my back.
I and others during the last school year privately exchanged concerns that we would be targeted by administration to be let go so that they could bring in teachers who fit their mold. When I started being what I would call, bullied, in terms of more was being demanded from me than my counterparts, I knew I was the target of the next big chop. So when I was called into the office and told those allegations, I was given 30 days to “get myself together” or I would be fired. There were stipulations in place for a development plan. I signed the document and simply said thank you.
For the next two weeks, I was forced to return to my classroom to teach virtually so I could be watched. In that time, I was forced to pay the school for my son to sit in a classroom with a monitor to do his school work virtually. My lesson plans had to be written almost word for word in my engagement with the students and what I expected their responses to be, I was supposed to meet with my curriculum coach once per week to go over my lesson plans and meet with the Dean of Academics once per week to show my weekly schedule. Though I met with the curriculum coach and it felt like a whole interrogation and belittling session, the Dean of Academics never scheduled our meeting until I insisted in order to meet their requirements. She met with me for 20 minutes…once.
Meanwhile, administration never had the intention of keeping me on, even though I was one out of 2 teachers whose state test scores increased greatly from the year prior. They started holding interviews for my position immediately. Their demeanor, when around me changed. I was treated like the village idiot during staff meetings. I was referred to by the Dean of Academics as a “hot mess.” I still don’t know why for sure.
So the week of August 24th, 2020, I felt an unction to draft and submit my resignation letter. I was not welcomed nor appreciated by the administration at that school. If you were not a part of their clique, you were treated as an outcast. On August 28th, I woke up full of dread. I had drafted my resignation letter days earlier, but was too scared to submit it. I didn’t want to put the school in a position of having to quickly find someone to fill my position, and I did not want to put my family under financial strains. But that morning, I kept hearing a small voice saying, “submit the letter now. Submit the letter now.”
After hours of lamenting and stressing, I managed to finish teaching that Friday’s lesson, packed up all of my personal belongings, books, small items of decor, gave a colleague some personal furniture, turned in all of my technology, and went into the office to withdraw my son. On my way out the door, all of admin were in the lobby setting up for a virtual book pickup. I greeted them with a hello, and walked out. An hour or so later, I hit the submit button and emailed my resignation letter effective immediately. Instantaneously, I received a call from the principal. I ignored it. Then, she text me, so I blocked her. I opened the staff group chat. She immediately kicked me out, but a former colleague took a screen shot and showed a simple message saying, “Esther is no longer a teacher at…, the next message you receive from me will be to introduce her replacement.” All within an hour.
I am so happy that I FIRED my school before they could do me the injustice, as they did two other teachers in the span of two years prior. The moral of this story is, the next professional opportunity, pick your boss, not the job. Pick someone who shares your vision in the field that you are pursuing, someone who not only speak with integrity, but lives integrity. Surround yourself with a group of colleagues who will help pull you up, just as you would pull them up, not ones who will tear you down because you don’t fit their mold.
Here is to growth, confidence, and the pursuit of bigger and better things.
Clearly there is something to be had with studying abroad. In the summer of 2015, a year after leaving China and returning back to America, I received no less than 5 correspondences from former students eager to find out more information on how to qualify for studying abroad in America. So, I became an independent consultant on the matter. I started providing oral English tutoring online as well as guiding their research on schools and their policies for applying as an international student. There are many steps that students must take and many hurdles to get over before the process can be completed. One of which is passing the TOEFL or TESOL exam.
