“I’m quitting teaching.” I read the text message with a frown. I knew this might happen. Lionel had told me since the first week of school that he didn’t feel like teaching was a good fit for him. My phone buzzed again, “It’s just too much.”
I knew how he felt. After a month of teaching students with emotional behavioral disorders in one of the worst sections of Atlanta, I was beginning to feel the same way. Just this week, one of my students, David, threw desks and chairs around the room and assaulted my paraprofessional.
The next day I walked in the classroom, only half prepared and fully overwhelmed by the possibilities of what I would face that day. As I unpacked my three teacher bags, the lead instructor walked in, “We’re sending David to another school. He’s just too much trouble. His mom is okay with it.”
“What school?”
“I don’t know. It’s probably not going to be an alternative school because that requires a lot of paperwork but we’ll just have him transferred. That way… they can deal with him.”
As she walked out, I felt a sense of relief and guilt. Even though I didn’t want to deal with such a violent student, I knew that this was his fourth school in two years. Not to mention, he had problems that would overwhelm any nine year old; including the fact that his mom and his three brothers were currently living in a shelter. I knew it would be way easier to let them transfer David. It would be easier to get rid of him but that twinge of guilt gnawed at me all day.
Later that afternoon as I cleaned up the classroom, I looked at David’s last math assignment…100%. There was definitely lots of potential in him but could I turn this situation around? I wondered how many people had quit on David before.
Now, I sit in front of an email to the lead instructor explaining the strategies that I plan to try in order to turn the situation around with David. I asked them to give me more time with him before they considered the transfer. As I hit the send bottom, I sighed, knowing that this decision will come with a cost. Then again, I had to believe that the cost of keeping him was less than the cost of transferring him to his fifth school. I’ve quit plenty of things in my life. Most of them were significantly less stressful than this. I quit because those things required more effort than I was either able to or willing to give. Although I question my ability, I know that I have to be willing because my students are worth it.
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All of the mentioned names have been changed to protect their privacy and anonymity.
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