Okay, so I titled this originally “Problem 1 ELA” but then when I was in yoga all the thoughts that came up were about the full-inclusion academy so then I was like, well obviously I want to write about that but then I was like – they won’t understand why the problem was so bad if they don’t understand how the ELA department fucked me to begin with.
And so I am not sure what will come out when I start writing and I know I should just organize this after I write everything and maybe the way I want to write it will give me the structure since trying to fit it into the structure is making me overthink things and is just a form of procrastination.
I am going to tell you about what happened to me that caused me to burn out as a teacher and go on sick leave for two months.
It started well, I could give too many details, ugh I have just got to let things come out as they come out and catch them on this blog post.
I was about to graduate from my teaching credential at CSUCI that I had completed 100% remote due to the pandemic. I applied for jobs and received two!
One was at a charter high school for arts teaching English and journalism and the other was a traditional high school working as the ELA teacher for a full inclusion academy for students with a disability who are also gifted what is called 2E (one of a handful of public programs in the country) and as an ELD teacher responsible for the international newcomers.
I go back to this moment often, and I wish I had chosen to teach at the charter school.
My logic at the time was:
- I would be too jealous of the arts students to support
- I believed that charter schools were evil and wanted to work for the larger public school district
- because of my experiences working as a direct support professional and reading specialist, as well as my time in Greece working at spaces for boys who were identified as refugees 16 to 22 and my CELTA certification, AND my personal experience growing up in the neighborhood and my friends’ parents graduating from Dickinson High School as well as my brother being 2E and thus would have gone to this school – I thought that the universe had destined the role for me
It felt so crazy! I had all these random jobs and experiences that really didn’t make any sense, and yet somehow they had all come together into the perfect role. I felt spiritual. I was thrilled.
It felt like everything had all fallen into place despite a few chutes, but some times you have to take a few steps back to move forward, and sometimes you find a ladder! This job was a ladder! The professional experiences and job I wanted in ten years right now at all at once! Amazing!
I trusted that this was a normal enough workload, I trusted that I would be supported and given the resources I needed to learn and do my job well. I trusted working at one of the best schools in the neighborhood and one of the largest school districts in the nation that I would be welcomed into this amazing teaching community, and that the last year teaching from by bedroom feeling isolated and alone would be over.
HA!
Instead, halfway through the summer – I met with my co-teacher who said, “So what do you want to teach?”
“Uhm, well, I’m new so I thought maybe the other ELA teachers would share things.”
“That’s not how it works here, you can basically do whatever you want!”
“Oh- that’s great! I guess. Well, I’ll try to plan some things and we can discuss. My paperwork is still going through so I don’t have the job officially yet and I can’t access the ELA drive or the textbooks until then.”
It was three days before the first day of school and my paperwork had still not gone through.
It was the first day of school and the paperwork had not gone through. I was not allowed around the children until then and I did not have access to any of the online resources or Schoology until it went through.
It was two weeks and one day after the first day of school, and my paperwork had finally gone through. It was a bit more than two years since I had taken action to become an English teacher, and I was finally here.
“Well, kids! I’m Ms. Pixie.” Suddenly, I was surrounded by over 100 students that I was responsible for teaching 9th grade, 12th grade, ELD 1 and ELD 2. Four hours of lesson plans (aka new content) and a co-teacher to communicate with every day after having no time to access the curriculum. and having never had a co-teacher and never been in a classroom or school the entire time during my 1.5 year long credential program.
I was set up to fail from day one, but I didn’t. Well that’s not true. I failed so often, and told myself that I wasn’t in control of the circumstances, and that everything was hard at the beginning, and it would get better. I told myself that in order to learn, one has to fail. You have to make mistakes, receive feedback, reflect, and try again, and keep trying until you learn.
I was learning how to be a teacher, and this was going to be my career for the next 30 years of my life- so I just needed to be patient and keep trying to learn.
Luckily I had only one co-teacher (later, they’d give me two) to teach both my 9th grade classes and my 12th grade classes. Ms. Pleasant was very kind and accepting, and understanding about the limits of the situation and what were realistic expectations. Without her, I don’t think I would have survived that first year, or the next. However, when I felt betrayed by her in my third year teaching, that’s when I would start to fall apart. But it’s still year one, and she’s my rock, my mentor, my teacher-wife.
For my ELD 1 and 2 classes, I taught a double block for ELD on my own. I found the ELD class really hard as they gave me two different levels of textbooks two weeks into the semester and then expected me to start teaching the different curriculums in a two hour block period every day, while also teaching 9th Honors and 12th Honors and collaborating with my co-teacher.
I felt overwhelmed. I messaged the New Teacher Support office and asked if they had group therapy for new teachers. She said they didn’t offer that.
I attended the faculty meetings and department meetings but they were all on Zoom and everyone seemed in a bad mood and just wanted to leave as soon as possible.
I joined the new teacher induction program and got assigned a mentor. He put me in a zoom with another random teacher, and when I expressed how the four preps was so hard, he would tell me that he had it way worse and then try to do the planning for me. Why didn’t he realize that as a new teacher, it is in the contract that first year teachers should have two preps to prevent burn out? He could have said something for me and this root problem could have been solved immediately. Instead he didn’t, and I had to work with him as my mentor for two more years.
I wanted to change mentors but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I just stuck with him. He was a nice guy, it wasn’t his fault that he was a man and didn’t have the emotional support skills to help, that he was an immigrant from Tunisia who came with nothing and had a way worse teaching situation than me, and I was a privileged white woman who grew up in Calabasas. How could I do that to him? So I stayed with him, pretended everything was fine, and cleared my induction program.
I did put in the anonymous feedback form that he could work on his emotional support and venting skills at the end of our first year working together, but nothing changed.
I attended voluntary 6 hour trainings on Saturdays for new teachers, EGI training, textbook apps, everything but none of them helped mostly on Zoom (still COVID times!). They just overwhelmed me and made me feel more isolated.
When I went to admin, they basically hinted that no one was going to come to my class and to do what I needed to do to survive.
In my ELD class, we watched four seasons of Cobra Kai and I focused on preparing my lesson plans for my other two classes where I had parents with lawyers emailing me and my co-teacher observing me and reporting to administrators about the quality of my teaching.
Fuck! All I had wanted to do was be a teacher and share with students my love and joy for reading and writing and be able to pass those skills on, and now I was in this horrible situation.
When I started at the school, I was still living with my parents. I thought once I started, I would meet a bunch of new teachers and easily find friends and housing resources. Instead, the New Teacher Meetings were on Zoom after school and we would be talked AT for an hour with more information and then my head would hurt. We were even paid to go to it, and I stopped going. Everyone stopped going.
I didn’t really like high school, which is why I wanted to go improve the high school experience and now I was reliving my high school experience – but worse!
I wasn’t the best student anymore, everyday I came in not prepared enough because I didn’t have the time, support, or resources and made a lot of mistakes. I ate lunch alone in my classroom. And then I went home to my parents house where both of my siblings had moved out and my childhood dog had passed away and all my friends from high school who also hated high school AND LA had all moved away and were living happy lives in New York, Hawaii, and the South of France. It was a fucking nightmare.
I then forced myself to look on the bright side, I had made new friends volunteering on the weekend and was dating someone consistently for a bit (a PhD student at Cal Tech who was working on monitoring pollution in Los Angeles!). Things were looking up.
And I got to spend a lot of time with my grandma! We would have lunch once a week at the Jewish Deli, and I would hang out with my Aunt, and my cousins. That was special. Lots of quality time with family.
It was early November 2021. I was sitting in my desk at lunch and I began to cry, and I had this thought, “Wow, I can’t wait to graduate.”
“Wait – Sammy, you’re never graduating, you are choosing to be here, this is the rest of your life.”
I was ready to quit then and there. Fuck it, I’m moving back to London. I’m done. All I wanted to do was teach kids to love reading and writing like I do, but this is fucking torture. I’m going back to my marketing job and academic publishing where everyone has Masters and reads The Guardian.
I calmed myself down and said, “Well, when you lived in London and were happy, you lived in a very artsy and cool neighborhood with people your age. Let’s start with that. You have money now and insurance. Move out of your parents’ house and see if that improves things. You’ve worked so hard to get here – it’s been two years and a $15,000 teaching credential. Don’t throw it all away when you are so close to your vision.”
In my bathroom, I had my vision taped up.
When I wanted to be a Marketing Assistant in Publishing in New York or London, I wrote it on a note and taped it in the bathroom. I read it daily, and after a year and a half of focus – I got a job as a marketing assistant in London. I started calling this the “bathroom mirror method,” and so when I moved back from London in 2019, I wrote a new vision on the bathroom mirror:
The Life I Am Building:
I live in a lovely community with roommates. I am an ELA/ELD teacher at a middle school or high school. After work, I grade/tutor in a bookstore/coffeeshop/bar. I love collaborating with my colleagues and am super involved. I run a few clubs (lit mag!) and walk or bike to work. I am involved in local politics and volunteer with environmental, refugee, basic needs, and mental health. I cook and go to the Farmer’s Market. I see family regular and have a parter/dating who I spend quality time with. I dance weekly and yoga! I am in a band and a book club. I help run an open mic. I go to theater with family and readings. I feel part of a community and belong and actively work to make others feel the same. I have spontaneity and play and joy and wonder and gratefulness. Small, simple, safe, colorful. I also have a trails & ales group and a writers group. I see my friends and family in relationship building routines and show them how thankful I am that they are in my life. I live a life of love and joy and gratefulness.
I had worked so hard to get here. I was finally an ELA/ELD teacher at a high school. I was on my path.
One of the Human Resources people told me, “As a new teacher, it’s enough just to get through the day. It’s gonna take a while for you to have control at work so you need to focus on what is in your control in your personal life. Do your hours and then come back recharged and ready to go for the next day, that’s all you can do. Survival mode.”
And so that’s what I did. I let teaching happen to me and I tried not to hold on to any emotions or feelings, and I tried not to reflect. I went to school, I did what I could, and then at 5pm, I left work and focused on recharging for the next day.
I told myself that it was more important for the students that I was relaxed and in a good mood and the lessons weren’t perfect then if I was very stressed and trying to have perfect lessons and then because I was a new teacher, things still wouldn’t go perfectly because I was learning.
I told myself that just showing up, being there, and doing my best during the hours I was there was enough, and that I would focus on nurturing my life outside of work.
I started a count down. I just needed to get to the summer and then I could do anything. I moved to Treehouse, a co-living community for artists in Hollywood. It was just what I needed and gave me the support and community.
I went to the Farmers’ Market on Sundays to get my groceries and still volunteered with my environmental activism friends and worked in the private library or the upstairs when I needed to work on teaching stuff in the evenings or on the weekends. I organized a writers group, and went to film club and theater and art galleries and we would go out to clubs and go rock climbing and to yoga classes that I could walk to, and so I survived my first year teaching.
Most people who lived at Treehouse worked remotely or was a student or an actor or figuring it out and had a very different schedule than me. None of them could understand my job or validate my problems at work and help me solve the problem, but they were compassionate, fun, and interesting people and I loved being around them. They lit me up when I came home tired from work, since they had been working remotely all day and craved people. It was lovely.
I don’t really remember much about my first year. I remember that I was attempted blackmailed by one of my students because he thought that my grading was confusing and that he would fail – they made me use EGI but I didn’t understand it- and so he was going to reveal my blog (aka literarypixie! ) to the Principal and get me fired so that he would pass the class because he needed to pass to become a Marine. He is now a Marine.
One of my colleagues told me because she was one of the few teachers that was able to connect with him. He was already passing the class, but I made it more clear and updated their grades. That student scared me and I refused to be alone with him. He would roll his eyes when I spoke.
I focused on the good things, that I had a positive relationship with my co-teacher and that she was very accepting, that I loved my students and enjoyed reading their writing and giving them feedback, and how one student asked me to write his letter of reference for college!
The students made me laugh. And how two sisters from Iran arrived mid year and they were so kind and thoughtful and smart, and at the end of the year they gave me a bottle of perfume as a gift that I still use today. I cared about them a lot and wanted to be a way better teacher than I was, but I knew that one day I would be, I just needed to survive my first year.
I had them write paragraphs about someone they considered successful and then use Canva to make motivational posters that I got printed into postcards and gave to them as a gift. One student did his mom!
Another student dressed up as me for Dress Like a Teacher Day, and told me that she thought I had great style.
Oh these beautiful kids and these meaningful moments as an educator.
I told myself it was my first year, and that the beginning is always hard and that it would be better in my second year. Everyone told me it would be better in my second year.
It wasn’t.
Problem: Teaching 9th Honors ELA, 12th Honors ELA as part of the full-inclusion academy with co-teachers mandated to implement EGI/Mastery AND ELD 1 and 2 in a double block, thus responsible for creating 4 hours of lesson plans every day with almost no support from ELA or ELD department or administrators,
As a first year teacher with an at will contract working to clear my credential and get permanent status, I did not have any power to improve my situation. Thus, I chose to focus on what was in my control, prioritize my self-care and do what I needed to do to get to the end of the day. And I did.
This situation, however, could have been greatly improved or prevented by:
- My induction mentor had advocated for me and spoken to the admin or my UTLA rep about the four preps that I had to do.
- My co-teacher had a clear guide on what are divided responsibilities were and who in the department I could talk to about challenges and supports to make sure our relationship was healthy for both of us.
- The ELA department could have had grade-level teams that met regularly that used a similar curriculum, texts, and grading rubrics that I could have used immediately in my classes and had people using the same materials that I could have asked questions and supported me.
- The Head of ELA/ELD and the administrator for ELA and ELD could have realized that having a brand new teacher with no support system at the school be the only teacher responsible for the International Newcomers in the entire 3,000 person school would be excruciatingly isolating and would harm both the teacher and the students as well as having a co-teacher because co-teachers are meant to only give feedback and make modifications but they need lesson plans and instructions which can take two to three years to develop and I was forced to do that from day one.
- Provide Group Therapy to teachers in Los Angeles that meets in person and weekly to help teachers build their support network, especially if they aren’t able to build it at their own school sites.
- Provide a list of housing resources and places to rent a room specifically for teachers in LA to help them meet community and a support network that understands their lifestyle.
- If all meetings are on Zoom, need to create intentional spaces for relationship building and mentorship.
- A new teacher group should meet the needs of its new teachers, and if people stop going it is because their needs are not being met, and you need to ask them why they are not coming any more and what they need to fix that instead of just saying they are busy or lazy or are just doing fine and don’t need the extra support or extra money, especially we are literally paid to attend the meeting.
- The school district should provide better training for mentors in the induction program to teach them emotional support and venting skills, as well as to have them better advocate for the new teacher in the administration departments since as a new teacher with at will employment, you are essentially powerless as well as unaware of how the system works and can easily be taken advantage of, as well as create a cohort program across the district by discipline
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