I debated rather or not to publish this, but I think I've finally reached the acceptance stage. My experience still cuts like a knife into my soul, but I believe that it is a tale worth telling. So this is a little story about how taking a risk for the sake of professional experience can ruin a career. Well, maybe not ruin, but it certainly feels like it right now. Please keep in mind this is in no way a slight against our educational system, just a personal experience. It is a story of high expectations and sudden realities. It is about the unique challenges, demands, and complications of the first-year educator. It may serve as a cautionary tale, or as fuel for discussion.
This story begins in November 2009 when I lost my job. It was a comfortable, middle-class job. Unable to find employment for several months, I went back to school. After two years of persistence and heartache, I earned a master’s degree in special education with high honors. I was ready to take on the world and be the best damned special educator out there. I was soon to embark on a hard-learned lesson in how higher education alone is inadequate to the task of preparing new teachers for the rigors and realities of a career in education.
I didn’t expect to get hired right away, and I didn’t. All summer I waited. When August arrived, I was convinced I would settle on just substitute teaching. Any experience is experience. So it was no small surprise when I was offered a job two days before classes began. I had no time to plan or prepare mentally for my new occupation. It was so sudden I didn’t receive my caseload until the first day of class. I didn’t even attend the school district’s mandatory week-long new teacher orientation. I was brought in on day one and expected to either sink or swim. It was the perfect storm for disaster and I didn’t realize the true extent until three weeks into the job.
It was a true risk. I knew that from the start, and so did those that hired me. I was told to expect hard work and high expectations. Certainly, I had my doubts, but I saw an opportunity to gain experience and prove my worth. How else could I? I was also unemployed and needed the job. I may not have been a perfect fit, but it was a prestigious assignment at an acclaimed school. The facilities were adequate, and the teachers and staff were gracious. I felt comfortable there. But what mattered most was getting quality experience I needed to further my career.
I was full of hope and drive. I thought I had made the right choice. I had no pretense how painful, how demoralizing, and how emotionally draining it would be. I had no idea just how much this was so at the time of my hire, but I found out quickly. I was warned about the high expectations of the teachers of my caseload students at my grade levels. They were considered the most intense, demanding, and melodramatic in the school. From the start, there was no room for error from a bunch of kids well-known for their deficiencies. There was no excuse for lack of experience. There was no time for on-the-job training. I was expected to be a walking, talking resource machine in all situations at all times. It was daunting.
As it turned out, the school wanted either a miracle or a scapegoat, not a novice educator. I was never told so, but the clues were everywhere. I quickly discovered I had the most challenging caseload. I was initially frightened and doubtful about my ability to meet the needs of my students, but I embraced the challenge. I did the research. I sought advice. I racked up professional development points. I worked long hours, typically the first in and the last to leave. I did my best to leave “work at the office” but it was next to impossible as the stress and demands upon me mounted. I started having intense school-themed nightmares and a deathly fear of Monday mornings. I passed these feelings off as typical of a first-year educator.
Yes, there’s actual research on the life-cycle of the first-year teacher. This was something my professors never taught. Considering the attrition rate in education, I can understand why. After my first week filled with trauma and disorientation, I looked it up. There are five stages: Anticipation, Survival, Disillusionment, Rejuvenation, and Reflection. Stage one is anticipation. This period occurs during the months of planning and excitement leading up to the first day of school. Right from the start I skipped over this stage, landed at the survival stage, and quickly devolved into the disillusionment stage. This is the longest and most painful stage typically lasting months. This is also the most vulnerable time for new educators when stress is high and the will to carry on diminishes with each passing day. I agree entirely with this assessment. Teaching is hell.
Then came “The Revelations”. I call them that because they were my first, serious realization that this job would not end well. One of my colleagues admitted to me that whoever was hired for my position, experienced or not, was "going to get crushed". I was informed by another colleague with many years of teaching experience, and who happened to carry most of my caseload the previous year, that almost all of the kids failed to pass their SOLs. She wished me luck that I would do better. These were the kids who now had the most demanding general educators in the school. General educators who took pride in their 100% SOL pass rate. General educators who now expected the impossible from me, a first-year educator who was so willing to get crushed. I implored them to remember what it was like their first year, but it didn’t seem to matter. By word and deed, they were more concerned with results than my maturation as an educator.
By the fourth week I was no longer under any illusions that I was in a patient and supportive instructional environment. I was struggling to keep up. I admitted I was overwhelmed. One teacher told me, with no hint of care or compassion, I had three weeks of experience so I should know everything by now. I was talked down to and never really treated as an equal. So few of them understood – let alone respected – my workload, serving students in multiple subjects on two grade levels spread throughout the school. Added to that, the teachers never talked to me directly about their concerns. I learned about them second-hand from my fellow colleagues. The school was rife with secrecy.
Not that all the teachers I worked with were this way. There were many who were genuinely supportive and dropped by my office with books, advice, and instructional tools. Many were encouraging and quick with a much needed kind word or a friendly ear. I was made to feel as welcome as possible and encouraged to take a role in school-wide activities (which I never had the time to do). And the kids were adorable. Every educator admits they do their job for the kids. I did, too. I think of Newtown, and I would not hesitate to give my life to protect the children in my care. But, soon enough, my primary motivation became my paycheck. That’s what got me through the week, and that’s what hurts the most now. My job was no longer about the children. Even then I knew I would have to make a very difficult choice, and that decision would ultimately come down to the benefit and well-being of the children.
By week six, the teachers in the upper grades had lost patience in me. Schedules were reorganized and caseloads reassigned. I was assigned the lower, non-SOL grades, supposedly as an attempt to relieve some of the stress and responsibilities. The vast majority of my caseload was taken away, children with whom I was beginning to build a healthy rapport, and given a new caseload covering three grade levels instead of two. My workload doubled. Now I had the caseloads from two new grade levels to learn. Now I had double the lesson plans to prepare. Now I was expected to provide meaningful instruction to children with learning and behavioral deficiencies during brief fifteen to twenty minute sessions in classrooms spread out from one end of the school to other. After collecting the kids and settling them down, I was lucky to provide any instruction at all. Only a week into this new schedule I was physically and mentally exhausted.
Then came the single most emotionally devastating twenty minutes of my life. I was the subject of a surprise evaluation from the principal and assistant principal. For starters, I was late to class. It was an alternative schedule day and all grade levels set their own alternative schedules, so none of my alternative grade level schedules were compatible. Second, I had planned to test one of the students in my caseload, which the general educator took care of earlier in the day without bothering to notify me. Left without a plan, I now had to “wing it” (the cardinal sin of an educator). The student refused to participate in any instruction. Under the massive weight of observation, I went blank. All my training escaped me. For twenty minutes I struggled through a makeshift lesson to an inattentive student while nobody offered any assistance. It was a sad, slow-motion train wreck. It was like, let’s watch the newbie drown. I was later told it was the worst teacher evaluation of their careers. I had no doubts.
I was crushed. My mind had shut down and I was physically numb. I spent the remainder of that thankfully-shortened Friday in a semi-conscious stupor. For the past few weeks I had stumbled along, desperately trying to keep up, while tapping a well of experience that was consistently dry. I felt unappreciated, inadequate, and now forsaken. That weekend, I mulled over the most agonizing decision of my life. My desire to teach was gone. I knew it was over, but I couldn’t accept it. Only seven weeks before, I was filled with boundless energy and optimism. Now I was stunned; a hollowed-out shell of a human being, an absolute nervous-wreck, terrified to step foot in that school ever again. But I had to. Yet, I had reached my conclusion. If there was any consistent theme in my education classes it was this: when you lose the desire to teach, it’s time to get out. It saddened and disgusted me that it took only seven weeks to get there.
That Monday morning, I told the principal and assistant principal about my feelings. They admitted their concerns about my performance as well. I was instructed to take a sick day. I took another sick day on Tuesday. It was my last sick day available to me. On Wednesday morning of my eighth week as a first-year teacher, I told them I was through. I thought of the children. I told them, under the present circumstances, I was doing them more harm than good. They disagreed, but my heart was no longer in the job. They accepted my resignation and we talked shop for about half an hour. Before I left the principal told me I was full of potential, maybe not as a classroom educator but in some other capacity. Her parting words to me were that she expected me to get my doctorate some day.
I immediately packed up the remainder of my things (I had already started taking possessions home the previous week) and said good-bye to my coworkers. They agreed with my decision and expressed their regrets at how poorly I was treated. Prior to my departure my mentor gave me a note from the student I attempted to instruct during my surprise evaluation. It was a get well card. I cried, and it was not the first time. However this time they were my first tears of healing. It seemed as if the previous seven weeks was a ceaseless flood of tears and grief. Now it was over. I don’t know if I’ll ever teach again. It’s painful enough to recall these events, but it was certainly a learning experience. More than I ever expected it to be.
Everything happens for a purpose and everything is a learning experience. I knew that when I took the job, but I had no clue it would end this way. I think I learned what not to do more than anything else. I don’t know for sure where to go from here, but I do know that it will involve serving children with special needs. My hope is that my brief career as a special educator will be accepted by potential employers for what it was: a desire for experience. I took a risk and failed. But, as I used to console my students, failure is learning, as long as you are willing to learn from your mistakes.
I learned it takes a special human being to be a special educator. They work hard for long hours serving our most vulnerable and needy children. They have to be experts not only in their field and special education law, but in all the content areas in which they serve. They get little respect and receive the bulk of the blame when the students in their caseloads don’t make the grade, despite being the last hope these children typically have at success. So much is expected from special educators, yet they receive so little in return. It surprises me none that the average career of a special educator spans three years. Fifteen percent alone quit during or following their first year.
I never expected to be a statistic, but I am. The research is there and the data doesn’t lie. “No employment is more wearing to the constitution than the business of teaching,” so wrote D. P. Page, an education pioneer before his time, as far back as the mid-nineteenth century. I believe him. All teachers are role models for their students. Special educators are even more so since they serve children in desperate need of healthy role models. A teacher suffering from stress and burnout provides no benefit for the students. It’s a trap from which escape to another academic field, or an entirely new profession, seems the only recourse. For students requiring a stable and strong adult presence in their lives, this is a disservice to not only to these students but to the teaching profession as a whole. But what can we do? I haven’t got the answer.
Now there’s talk of longer school years and arming teachers. What nonsense is this? I'll refrain from argument on these issues, but I can’t help contemplating them considering my experience. Educators are burdened enough as it is. We should show thanks, not condemnation, for the work that all of our educators do. Teachers, you certainly have my thanks and admiration. You’ve got more in the tank than I do. For those employed in another profession, be thankful that you are!
For me, it’s on to the next thing. Whatever and wherever that may be. Fortunately, I have my education and my previous trade experience in design, training, and customer service. I’ve got the experience and desire to apply my creative, research, and instructional skills toward any worthy cause or charitable endeavor. My goal all along has been to help people, especially children, as best I can. My hope is to continue doing so, if given the chance.