It’s amazing how one person can ruin everything so perfectly.
Teaching is a way of falling in love, and I spent two-and-a-half incredible years falling in love at a small elementary school in a small town in central Vermont. Today was my last day after four years with this school, and those first two-and-a-half years I was so happy. But teaching is a way of falling in love, and for the last year-and-a-half I have had my love for those kids, those educators, and that school slowly and agonizingly ripped from my heart, one piece at a time, and now it hurts so much it’s hard to believe that love ever existed. Hard to believe I was ever happy there.
It’s amazing how one person can ruin everything so perfectly.
I was excited to teach those kids, once upon a time. Excited to work with those educators, to walk into that building every morning, but somewhere along the way I began dreading all of it. I got tired of being talked down to. Tired of being patronized and spoken to with vague or insulting words. Tired of calling my best friend from my office, crying, because I was having a panic attack after meeting with her. Again. It’s an awful feeling to be handed the heartfelt goodbyes of the students you’re leaving and to feel nothing. To look at the giant card they worked so hard on wishing you well and have your only thought be about how it’s just another piece of paper to recycle.
It’s amazing how one person can ruin everything so perfectly.
My grandmother was a teacher, like I am. She told me once that she always just ignored anything her administrators said that she didn’t think was best for the kids. I doubt she ever had an administrator speak to her without at least a modicum of respect. Without the common decency you’d expect from another human being, particularly one who works with children.
Fuck you, Denise.
Music Without Melody 