I'm Done Being a "Good" Teacher

I had a defining moment one Friday in my classroom earlier in this school year. Well, no. Actually, it started in my car driving onto the school parking lot. My school is under construction. Pretty exciting stuff. However, a construction truck in the parking lot completely blocked me in and I was stuck sitting in the same spot for about 10 minutes. I was annoyed. Time is the most valuable resource that teachers have and it is often the resource that is the most disregarded. Waisting 10 full minutes sitting in my car doing nothing was not the way I wanted to start my day. Anyway, no worries. I parked my car and started heading into the building.

I unlock my classroom door and the cool air hits me right on the nose. I express a little gratitude under my breath because the cooling and heating situation in my classroom is always a guessing game. Isn't every classroom? All in one movement I put away my purse, place my lunch bag on the shelf, and logged on to my computer. That's when I hear the "drip, drip, drip" coming from across the room. The less logical part of my brain is telling me that if I just don't look it's not really happening. But oh, it's happening? It's happening in a giant puddle in the back of my room. Not again. And definitely not now. Not in the middle of trying to teach during a pandemic. "This IS the pandemic," I think to myself. I sit back down at my desk and then all of a sudden a shower of water starts raining down from the broken ceiling fan.

I sat there watching the water finally finish rushing from the ceiling. Then I simply turned back to the computer and started on my morning tasks for the day. I typically start with email. However, on this particular morning, I was met with an unusual amount of emails about outdated information posted on my teacher page. I quickly opened my teacher page to update the misinformation only to realize that the platform has undergone a massive update and I no longer know how to navigate the site. I'm typically pretty savvy with technology, but after having spent the summer and first month of school being inundated with training for the new platform the district introduced for online learning, I had met my threshold of trying to figure it out. I was done. I walked up to my principal's office and started the conversation with, "Please forgive my tears if I cry, but it's not even 8:00 and I've already reached my limit for today." I proceeded to unload on him the events of my morning to which he in his true problem-solving fashion proceeded to fix each issue as it was being communicated to him.

Something in me broke that morning. It was as if I had been walking around in the dark for the last 10 years and someone flipped on the light switch in my head. Something in me just said, "No more. Not like this. This is no longer acceptable." There is a certain measure of darkness systems needs teachers to function in to keep the waters calm. (Non-educators love calm waters.) To be clear, this isn't to say that I look to create waves. However, it is to say that if you want me to teach my students how to surf, I'm going to have to create waves.

After some time to reflect, I realized how much I have been conditioned for the last 10 years of my career to think that if I am quiet, put my head down, and work hard, that will make me a "good" teacher. I've been conditioned to think that "good" teachers educate in the dark. I've been conditioned to think that if I sacrifice my time because the job is just hard that way, I'll be a "good" teacher. If I don't say the things that need to be said because they're too hard to hear, I'll be a "good" teacher. If I continuously put others in the system before my own fundamental needs, I'll be a "good" teacher. Well, on this particular Friday morning and in an instant, I decided I don't want to be a "good" teacher anymore. I want to be the kind of teacher that knows her worth and isn't afraid to say so. I want to be the kind of teacher that knows precisely what she really needs to be successful with her students and can't be bullied into being quiet about it. I want to be the kind of teacher that recognizes unrealistic expectations and gives herself permission not to meet them when nobody else will. And if in the eyes of my district and the community that does not make me a "good" teacher... well, I am happy to be so.