Beyond the Burnout

I did the thing I thought I would never do. I did the very thing that made me outrageously upset about so many others (in my Phoenix school). I left a school. Mid year. Here's why...

It was becoming February and things were getting worse. By things, I mean regular lock downs, for extended periods of time. Lock downs in which you could sometimes hear gun shots firing in the park. Once, one of my hardcore students was frisked by the police while the school  was on lock down. They were looking for weapons. This student readily handed over his knife, but they wanted to know where the guns where. The student didn't know. The student, pissed, ended up in my room during one of my off periods, screaming and cursing about those "fucking pigs," and how they just looked for people of color to target. After that, he went on a rail about how the teacher he'd had earlier that day was the one who ratted him out. He was going to give that bitch something to think about, all right. Snitches get snitches, you know.

I let him rave. I let him throw. I let him get the energy out and then tried to talk to him calmly. He was okay. Nothing bad happened to the teacher. But it could have.

This sort of thing was a regular occurrence. So were the constant walk-outs of students, but what was worse were the stay-ins-- the kids who would come (often high) and refuse to leave. Disrupting the class was fun, more fun than any lab you could ever plan. They would tackle each other, get in fights, literally choke each other, cursing, gang signs, just.... you name it. So, you think, okay. Engagement. I am just going to do the COOLEST things, and they'll want to learn. I believe that all kids can learn. If I just do this. If I just, if I just, if I just...

But buying great materials and building cars and doing other "engaging" things doesn't work, because instead of building cars, so many students take the materials and break them, throw them at each other, destroy each others' creations, and so on.

By this time, I was having nightmares every night. I kept seeing one of my favorite students, a hardcore gang kid, (and respectful, smart, charming, wonderful person) get shot and killed, bleed out on the street. I told him about this. I told him to be safe. I knew what he was up to, and he knew I knew.... but he would kind of pat me on the shoulder and say, "It's cool. I'm straight, miss." Meaning, it's all good. Everything's under control.

But, the panic attacks grew. I was having them several times a day. Therapy and medications weren't helping. Sometimes only 8 kids would show up to class, and maybe 2 would want to learn. Instead, they'd shout at each other, (playing or not), opt out.

Nothing I did mattered. Calling parents and asking for help or ideas. Incentives. Labs. Hands-on stuff. Dry ice demos. Building cars. Making clay models. Building relationships. Nothing I did worked. Because these kids, these poor kids were living in a war zone, day in and day out.

Go look at the brain research. There can be no learning when the body is stressed.

There can also be no teaching when the body is stressed. I was losing my ability to sleep. To eat. My immune system was shutting down. My therapist said, "Get out." My doctor said, "Get out."

I stuck with it. I pushed myself harder, and all around me, teachers were falling like flies. If they weren't quitting they were being fired. And then, it happened. Mid year-- the principal was fired. He left us with a two-sentence email on a late evening, and then, was gone like vapor.

That was it.  Energy and chaos were coursing through the air. The violence and the stress and the pent-up energy of the kids; the stress and exhaustion and circus-like antics of the teachers. Our one poor security guard in an enormous school. And now this? No.

I put in my two weeks the day I met the new principal. I knew that something was brewing, and I couldn't be there when whatever-was-going-to-happen...happened.

Yet, none of this is really doing it any justice. I can't put into words the way it felt to slip my lanyard over my neck every day. It felt like a noose. Everyday, waiting, wondering-- what is going to happen? Something bad is going to happen today. Next period. Next minute. Constant fear. And no one helping. No one listening. No learning. The kids who would ignore you, straight up ignore, you and go on treating your class like it was a rec center. Total disruption. Total lack of control.

So, with a heavy heart, I left. I cried when I told my kids in 3/4 classes, because for as much as I couldn't do it anymore, there were also a lot of kids I loved and the last thing I wanted to be was one more person who let them down. But I signed up to be a teacher. I signed up to teach. To inspire. And no one can learn when they are worrying about survival. These kids needed social workers. These kids needed intensive, intensive care. I couldn't do it. I felt like I was dying every day I stepped into that door.

 Today, I talked to my friend who still works there. It turned out that none of the upperclassmen could pass their AP classes, and were in no shape ready for them. Not one kid. So, when I left, they shut all those classes down, readjusted schedules, and gave my friend, who I shall call Ms. V, all of the freshmen. But of course, she didn't get all the freshmen.... she also got all of the sophomores and juniors and seniors who had failed before. Her class sizes were the largest in the school and she was given no help. She asked over and over. Nothing.  An administrator came to "observe" her, and left 1/2 way through the class period because some of the boys were bullying HER so much, she couldn't take it. And yet, Ms. V got no help, no validation.

The new staff that took over tried to implement some changes and rules, but they also started blaming all of the teachers for the misery and pandemonium. Best staff I have ever worked with, yet everything was their fault. More teachers were targeted. The air continued to thicken and become pea soup. Where there had been some tenuous teams, partnerships and collaborations, fragile but strengthening..... there were now none. The spiderwebs had been sliced.

Today, I talked to Ms. V.  Today, a lock down happened again. Cops came streaming into her room and arrested one of my former students, and one of my favorites. They then cleared some of the kids into the next room, and started pulling Ms. V's room apart. Ransacking the place. Looking for a loaded gun.

"I don't know! I don't know anything about this!" Ms. V told them. But then, as they were winding down, she saw something suspicious. A backpack, hidden in an odd location. And as she pointed it out to one of the officers, a student spotted her from the window. The cops opened the bag.

Loaded gun.

They then arrested a second student. Another favorite. Another respectful, genuine, brilliant, wonderful gang member. In front of the kids. Meanwhile, the student who saw Ms. V point out the backpack is telling everyone-- she did it. She ratted him out. She's the snitch. She is the one who put our brother in cuffs. Its her fault..... Word is spreading. The teacher is a snitch.

But, the search isn't over, so they take Ms. V, and stick her in lock down with the very students who are blood red with fury. They tell her she's going to get a candlelight. They tell her what they do to snitches. They threaten her life. The girls surround her and are crying, trying to stop the mob of boys from attacking. They unlock their cell phones and call their moms; they want to be picked up. They are scared. Shit just got too real.

"You shouldn't have said anything, Miss," a couple kids tell her. "You made a mistake. You shouldn't have pointed out the gun...." They don't make eye contact with her, just look at the floor and murmur. 

Finally, an administrator comes, and says to Ms. V, "We need your written statement." The boys howl with fury. Ms. V, shaking, leaves, and tells the officers the truth-- she doesn't know anything. She just saw the backpack, and something about the way it was hidden seemed wrong. She tells them about the threatening. She tells them that this is a serious threat in her life. She knows it is. Because it is.

The admin team tells her, well, we'll suspend them. They'll cool down. And if it happens again, then we'll do something about it.

If it happens again.

There has already been a loaded gun in her classroom. Gang members, like brothers, taken from these boys. She is the scapegoat and they want blood. They shrug it off. But they shouldn't, because these boys-- they are for real.

Ms. V knows. She quits. "Am I being a drama queen?" she asks me, her voice quivering. "Am I being selfish?"

No. No you are not.

This could have been me. This could have been worse. But that is not the point.

The point is this-- some things are just too broken to be fixed. No, not every child. But when the majority of the population is living with violence, fear, hunger, abuse, drug abuse, and more.... When there are no rules and no hope and anarchy is literally the norm.... When there are no role models for success.... When you see the world as being against you at every turn, and everyone who tries to help you as a threat to your way of life, your homies, your kin, you gang.... When you see them as your enemies...

That is not a school. 
That is not an environment of learning.
That is not an environment of safety for students OR staff.
That is a jungle with nothing but predators and prey. Eat or be eaten.

Until we find a way to provide hope, social and mental help, role models, and an actual way out... there won't be any help for these poor kids, and for this school. The model for education has to drastically change. Our society has to drastically change. Because the wedge between the haves and the have nots is growing, and you can only see it if you are treading water, sinking and dying yourself.

Ms. V got job offers from several schools, but she has turned them down. "I've lost my faith in public education," she says. "I've lost my faith in humanity." She says. She is beyond the burnout. Yet, at the beginning of this year, she was bright and innovative, kind and nurturing. She is a good teacher, broken.

This is what this school does. It perpetuates the gap, widens it. It breaks hearts, dreams, careers, educations, shatters them all.

"Ms. V, will you do me a favor?" I asked.
"Yes. What do you need?"
"Come visit my new school. I am a long term sub for a group of 6th graders. Come visit us next week. Come in. Do science. See what it can be. Maybe it won't make you go back to teaching just yet, but maybe it will restore your faith in humanity."

My new school is a haven. I don't yet know if I will be able to stay there, or if it will become the "home" I have been searching for for so long.

I just know this-- if it wasn't for THIS place, I would be in Ms. V's shoes. Inches away from giving up on teaching, I found myself for the first time in a long time.... loving it.