2023-2024
Okay, it’s time to go back again. Back to year 3. I slept so long last night, but I think I am healing, I think the cogs in my brain are clicking and synapses are rewiring.
Because I have been feeling upset and angry that I gave my late 20s to this school and this job and this community, and now look at me. 30 years old. Single. Angry. Bitter. With my ovaries ticking as friends of mine freeze their egg and others hold their wee ones in their arms and call me Auntie Sammy.
Being a teacher is like being a Mom, but more intense? And depressing as you pour your love into children that you know will leave you at the end of the year, and you will most likely never see again, and then you are so exhausted from work that you can’t even date or make new friends or see your friends or have a life, and soon you begin to feel resentful – but you can’t imagine doing anything else – there are no other jobs like this that pay as well with retirement that allow you to love what you love and the opportunity to do so much good.
And so despite that horrific year, I still had hope that maybe I could figure out the dating and afterwork life still while working through the challenges of a teacher. And while I knew that my workload was more than your average high school ELA teacher, I loved those kids and was called to the mission of full inclusion for English learners and students with disabilities. I was launching two careers at one time, and it would be better this year. I would finish my Masters this year, and so my fourth year would be even easier. I was almost there. It was one more year. I was so close.
I was becoming the person I always dreamed of and that vision I had in London was coming true. When I lived in London, I worked at SAGE Publications as a Marketing Assistant and one of my responsibilities was to manage the Education Research Twitter channel. I wanted to spend all my time on that channel, and would get told off for how much time I spent on it.
That’s how I realized that I didn’t want to be marketing education research, I wanted to be doing the research. Five years later and I was in the room! For my Masters, I had to do an action research project. I was doing education research.
For my research project, I deiced to look at the impact of the anti-racist writing workshop process as detailed by Felicia Rose Chavez, daily pages as described by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, and the writing process in improving students narrative writing skills and social and emotional skills – specifically social and self awareness.
I designed a semester-long curriculum which I got feedback on from my co-teachers and taught it in both my 9th grade and 12th grade classes. The 9th graders wrote short stories, and the 12th graders wrote personal essays for college.
For their final, we had a launch party and they all had to read what they wrote to the class. I partnered with the CSUN Book Art Lab and printed the books by hand for them and gave it to them as a gift.
The students felt joy and pride. I especially loved how with the personal essays, students perceptions of each other radically changed after they listened. How a student who appeared to be a simple football jock was also a caring son whose father was fighting cancer, these multiple dimensions of our identities shared in community. Beautiful.
This was the transformative power of writing that I had been wanting to show to my students, to create a community that loved and accepted and honored these intimate revelations.
My co-teachers were there with me, although they were more like teaching assistants than collaborators on this project. I got them both copies of the book I was drawing my pedagogy from, but neither of them read it. I did almost everything that first semester, except one unit that they asked to teach because I believed that it was their passion and expertise and that they genuinely wanted to lead and teach that unit.
I know that if they had the time and energy to read the book, they would have, however, they were not fellow English Language Arts teachers, they were special education teachers who were responsible for working with other co-teachers, as well as case managing a group of students AND both had additional responsibilities as head of the program and sports coach AND were also humans who have personal lives and need to rest.
This was the imperfect system that we had to exist in. Administrators and the school system did not understand how a successful co-teacher relationship requires more time and energy, as well as mutual understanding, respect, compatibility and shared goals between the two teachers – and that to have to do this with more than one teacher every day is a lot of extra work!
The administrators prioritized the needs of students over the needs of educators without listening to our feedback, and thus, until me – there had been a new 9th and 12th grade teacher for the co-teaching program every single year.
However, instead of acknowledging that the structure of the program was not functioning, they decided to blame me. At least, that’s how I felt. I’ll get there soon.
Just like my co-teachers, I had other things going on making it hard for me to give our two very different co-teaching relationships and the two curriculums we were responsible for teaching together all of my time and energy. On top of my role in the Academy, I was working hard finishing my Masters attending night classes from 4:30pm to 10pm every Tuesday and Thursday, reading papers and completing my homework, AND teaching Advanced ELD class, a brand new curriculum that I had never taught before in a different department with different standards. I really loved those students and things were going well, however, I was still creating my curriculum in the morning before school and during my conference every single day, but it was what it was. I was doing it and things were improving.
I was overjoyed that in my Advanced ELD class, I had students who took the iReady exam at the start of the year and were at 2nd and 3rd grade level, and then in Spring were at 9th grade level! Every week we would do focused reading lessons using Common Lit centered around a different theme with a Socratic smackdown at the end. They seemed to really enjoy it, and I enjoyed it, too. I felt so proud of them that they were able to read at grade-level and to see their confidence grow.
One of those students who was failing in all his other classes even asked me to be his advocate when he was having trouble with another student and was sent to the dean’s office where his mother only spoke Spanish and he had to translate for her. I was honored.
My Advanced ELD course, while going well, I had been trying to advocate for the students for the first two years and hoped that this year I would have more ability given my newly permanent status.
I had started to attend the English Language Advisory Council Committee meetings that were in person, the only teacher there, and getting to know the Coordinator and parents better.
As shared above, while working on my Advanced ELD course and advocating for my students, I was also working on my 12th honors with Mr. Great and two 9th classes with Ms. Pleasant, and one 9th grade class without her. Yes, finally, in my third year, I was assigned to teach an ELA -not ELD!- class with no co-teacher, which was the typical ELA teacher schedule that I had expected to teach when I decided to become a teacher, and I loved it. The students were lovely and so fun and I felt connected to them in a way I hadn’t before. They shared with me all about their dating lives and new slang and weekend plans, and I shared too. This gave me more hope.
This was my second year working with Mr. Great teaching 12th grade. That first year, we had our conflicts, but things were good enough. Our class was small, only 14 students that were all part of the Academy and that were predominantly case managed by Mr. Great, as well as having taught them all the year before.
This year, because of budget cuts, we had a roster of 35 students with more than half of them neurotypical students who had never been in an Academy class. This started some challenges with my co-teacher as we could not agree on how to handle the classroom management.
Classroom management hadn’t been a problem our first year teaching together, but this year, things changed. A lot of our students were loud and boisterous and sociable, while our Academy students were more reserved who needed a quieter environment to focus due to having sensitive sensory inputs as part of their identified disabilities.
This was a major conflict, and we had very different styles and preferences as to how we wanted to communicate feedback as well as what type of classroom environment and culture we wanted in the class. He preferred an old school, clasp your hands, and “I’m very disappointed in you, this kind of behavior is not acceptable. You are adults,”, talk to you after class and intimidate you while I preferred to do reminders of expectations before different types of work and projects, and then strongly enforce expectations during that time using Dojo Points and positive behavior reinforcement in a more playful and silly kind of way.
He thought my Dojo Points were dumb and childish and I thought his style was oppressive and antithetical to the writing pedagogy I was using in the class. Given that he didn’t have time to read the pedagogy books I had given him as well as not being the certified English teacher, it made sense to me why he would not understand my approach and I didn’t have time to communicate and teach him since I was also trying to teach two other classes with another co-teacher, and two other classes on my own, and finish my Masters, and be human.
At times, I wondered if I could just tell him to not be in the classroom until he had read the book, since his presence and lack of understanding around what I was trying to do was harmful for me and thus the students. But I didn’t know what power and authority I had, or if I could get in trouble or if he would report me, so I didn’t suggest that.
It’s clear with reflection that we were having power clashes due to our gender and personality differences.
From reading Leadership by Peter Northouse (pg. 10), I learned that there are six bases of power:
- Referent Power: Based on followers’ identification and liking for the leader. A teacher who is adored by students has referent power.
- Expert Power: Based on followers’ perceptions of the leader’s competence. A tour guide who is knowledgeable about a foreign country has expert power.
- Legitimate Power: Associated with having status or formal job authority. A judge who administers sentences in the courtroom exhibits legitimate power.
- Reward Power: Derived from having the capacity to provide rewards to others. A supervisor who gives rewards to employees who work hard is using reward power.
- Coercive Power: Derived from having the capacity to penalize or punish others. A coach who sits players on the bench for being late to practice is using coercive power.
- Information Power: Derived from possessing knowledge that others want or need. A boss who has information regarding new criteria to decide employee promotion eligibility has information power.
Because of our genders (he was a man and I was a woman), we have different access to power. More than that, men in our society are more easily able to use coercive power without their referent power (likeability) being threatened. When men do this, we think they are being strong, confident, and authoritative, which we find an attractive quality in men. It’s very masculine, and often makes them more likeable because we feel more comfortable around them because their behavior is predictable and aligns with accepted gender norms and that they are able to stand up for themselves and others, which makes us respect them more.
When women tap into their coercive power, this has been shown to take away from our referent power (likeability) and we do this at the very high risk of being labeled a bitch, crazy, or overly emotional (aka irrational). This is because using coercive power is very masculine, and women are supposed to be feminine, meaning that we are gentle, nurturing, and empathetic. When we step outside of our traditional role in society, this can make us become very unlikeable especially to men who feel emasculated when when a woman uses masculine communication tactics on them, and thus can become very defensive and angry.
Thus, in order to exert power in the classroom, I had to develop and lean into my reverent, expert, information, and reward power. While, as he was not the English Teacher and thus had limited access to expert and information power, alternated between reverent and coercive power, using that both on the students, as well as eventually on me – when we got into disagreements around grading (information power) and the curriculum (expert power).
Upon reflection, I realize that I find the use of coercive power on me very triggering, often causing me to become anxious, depressed, and try to quit jobs, end relationships, and/or move houses or countries (this forces both and is pretty fucking genius tbh since everyone just thinks you wanted to move for joy – but really you wanted to move because you were angry and wanted to punish them, but felt they would abandon or harm you if you did so, and so you abandoned them first), and also I begin to dislike myself and feel immense shame and guilt when I am forced to use coercive power because people have taken advantage of my gentleness and my needs and boundaries are not being respected.
On top of our gender differences, Mr. Great had more power than me outside of the classroom. He was a well-respected coach who had brought his team to the championships, the first time in over a decade for the school, and given that this was a sports’ school that had just invested over a million dollars in improving the fields and equipment, he was way more valuable than me for the school.
However, we would not come into direct conflict until our second semester teaching. For the first semester, we had some minor disagreements and I simply allowed him to do what he wanted and accommodated him and his needs. As I said, I basically led and taught the entire first semester, except for one unit on writing op-eds, which he was excited about as he had studied journalism (although it was clear he used AI to plan the unit). He created lessons as he went, which I did not see beforehand, and never communicated to me the plan – I just let him do what he wanted, and served as a teaching assistant rather than a co-teacher. It was only one curriculum that was one class period, while I had three periods of 9th grade (two with a co-teacher and one alone!) and one Advanced ELD curriculum to plan, and my Masters!!
On top of the fact that in September, my boyfriend had broken up with me and that I had moved to a studio, but did not feel safe there, and then my property manager died unexpectedly in November which really triggered me and I cried for a few days before getting in a small car accident while crying to see my Aunt and get some emotional support, which then prompted me to move back to Treehouse where I had been happiest, and so I moved over Christmas Break, and then my dearest Grandpa Derek fell and was in hospital and died on his birthday (December 13th), and so I didn’t try to exert any control. I let him do what he wanted, and I accommodated. I survived, I focused on surviving. I made it to winter break.
In second semester things started to get hard. I set my intentions and priorities for the semester, sharing them in my Winter 2023-2024 newsletter, as I prepared for the road ahead.
With my Grandpa passing away as well as Bill my property manager, I had decided to stop letting teaching stop me from living my life and doing what I wanted to do with my time and energy, as well as choosing to speak up for myself and my students instead of silently accommodate and ignore my own thoughts and feelings as usual. Life was too short and precious.
Thus, for Spring Semester I committed to:
- Complete my Masters dissertation and graduating to the best of my ability
- Continue to date my new boyfriend and going on a trip together eventually
- Live at Treehouse for six months
- Participate in the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Big Reads Program where all students would receive a free copy of Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations, a funded field trip to the Getty, and a guest visit!
- Attend the American Writers Conference in Kansas City, Missouri with three other English teachers and living in a house with seven poets (Feb 7-11, 2024) – Read my full reflection!
- Present at the California Teachers of English conference on my Masters research (February 29- March 3, 2024)
While this list sounds like a lot [Sammy – it is a lot! That’s some self-sabotage right there girlie! You can’t do everything you want – you need to accept that!! And yet, with the fear of death sitting like a cat on my chest, I felt compelled. I had to do it all this year, because I might die unexpectedly like Bill in my apartment in my pajamas alone with my cats. I wasn’t ready! There was so much I still needed to do before I could die peacefully like Grandpa Derek. I had to take action now!], given what I had experienced, I felt proud and excited to be accomplishing so many of my dreams in such a short period of time.
And thus Spring semester of my third year teaching commenced.
Things started pretty bad in my 12th grade class with Mr. Great, in that I made a big mistake in early January (the week after my birthday party – that Mr. Great had attended), sharing a students’ story with the class that was definitely not high school appropriate, however, incredibly well written and entertaining.
For a diagnostic writing assignment, I had chosen three short stories written by 9th graders from the first semester for the 12th graders to read and write a literary analysis essay as a response.
Two of the stories were nice stories about overcoming friendship challenges and bullying, but one was called “Steve’s Revenge Tour” (Read it here! It will come up again in year 4 – some foreshadowing for ya!). I had read his third draft and given him feedback on it, but hadn’t bothered to read the final draft because I assumed he hadn’t added much. Oh boy was I wrong!!!
It had some red flags and definitely walked the line, but from working with the student throughout the year, I knew that he had a nice enough homelife but was an attention-seeker who liked to provoke people. I actually found it pretty funny, and this story was no exception. It was deeply provocative, and yet communicated this deep truth about being a teenage boy that I found profound and compelling. I believed him to be a future Nabokov having written a story reminiscent of Lolita. Although, suggesting students read Lolita was also seen to be also not high-school appropriate.
What was high school appropriate? Especially given that the short story in question had been written by a high schooler, and thus, was what high schoolers were thinking about and engaging with.
In addition, from my background working in poetry and writing spaces, where it is believed that in order to be creative one must liberate one’s thoughts from “should”, “musts”, and societal expectations of what is appropriate and not appropriate, and express freely, which I had been training them to do, I was a lot more lenient on what was appropriate and not appropriate compared to other educators.
A great quote from Alejandro Jodorowsky (a very famous filmmaker) on this principle in a book I read recently:
“To be able to wake up the creativity, you must have a sexual imagination free of all morality, free of all religious imagery. You must free yourself. An artist needs to be able to imagine the greatest aberrations. We need to develop all the possibilities in our minds.”
Alejandro Jodorowsky, Psycho-magic
This was not the first time working outside of the creative industry that I had unintentionally pushed this boundary and been punished (read How to Value Your Own Thoughts for the context).
Although in this case, I was completely oblivious about the new ending that had been tacked on to a story that had walked the line, and now (with that new ending!) had crossed it a few times!! Like child abuse, incest, and grooming kind of lines.
Again – I ask you – what is a teacher to do if the student you are responsible for educating has had these thoughts. Is it appropriate to discuss these issues in class given that these are things that your high school students are thinking about, and thus is relevant to discuss in a high school classroom?
If anything, it is more traumatizing to not acknowledge them and thus for the student go on thinking that these kinds of thoughts are okay, at the same time – there are people who have experienced grooming and incest. I personally have met one woman who had healed enough to share what happened to her as a child by her father as well as a student at that school whose mother was also his sister, and to say that this does not happen is simply not reality. This student will always have to live with the fact that his mother is his sister. Not speaking about it or acknowledging it will not magically make it as though it never happened nor does not have an effect on that child, his mother, or the family and community that they are part of. How can we use these real experiences to learn and educate ourselves, rather than deny they happen and shame those who behave in this way – which will only keep the victims from speaking out about what happened to them thus enabling the behavior in the first place!
Was this child experiencing these things at home? Was he seeing this in the media and video games? Given that the administrators literally made multiple presentations to students about grooming at the school as well as the most recent White Lotus season, one can imagine where he got the idea from.
Upon reflection, I wish I had read the fully finished story before sharing it with the class instead of assuming that he hadn’t added anything to it, and not shared the story- and instead spoken individually to the student beforehand.
I also wish that my co-teacher had the time to read through the lesson plans for the day thoroughly so he could have caught this mistake and brought it to my attention, and I could have explained about what happened, and then we could have brainstormed together about how to communicate with the student, the family, and the administrator about this red flag behavior to clarify if the student was being harmed and how best to support him.
Again, if I only had one co-teacher instead of two different ones to collaborate with every day, and if I had had two years only teaching 9th and 12th grade ELA to perfect my curriculum (which is the traditional teacher pathway and is literally in the UTLA teacher contract) before adding co-teachers to communicate and collaborate with AND teaching ELD 1, ELD 2, and Advanced ELD this would never have happened. Or if it did happen, it would have happened during my student teaching, first year, or second year as a teacher and not in my third year after achieving permanent status and clearing my induction program.
But it did happen. The story was shared without my knowing about the new ending, students started laughing a lot, my co-teacher began to read the story in the middle of class, and then when the class ended, he immediately left the class without speaking to me.
A few minutes later, the Assistant Principal ran in and said told me to remove the story for the rest of the day, and left immediately.
During Period 5 when I worked with my other co-teacher, she told me what Mr. Great had told her and how overwhelmed Mr. Great was. I don’t think she gave any specific feedback or actions, simply that he was overwhelmed. We both knew that he and his girlfriend of five years had just broken up, and he had been forced to move back to his parents house (an 1 hour and 15 minute commute each way) on top of still clearing his induction program and having to coach and go to games since it was his sport’s season.
At the same time, learning that he had shared about my mistake with my co-teacher (and I assumed the other teachers that he shared an office with), I felt ashamed and that he was gossiping about me. I did not feel safe to keep learning how to teach in front of him since it was inevitable that I would make another mistake, and he would most likely react the same way. I did not trust him to be honest with me or talk to me if he had an issue with me. I felt that he did this because he did not respect me. However, I accepted that even though I felt this way, I would have to continue to teach with him until the end of the year.
I did what I needed to do, and tried to resolve the conflict with him and communicate about my needs. The next day, I asked if I could talk with him.
I said, “I heard from the Ms. Pleasant that you told her about the mistake I made in our 12th grade class together. I would prefer if you talk to me directly about my mistakes instead of having to learn about what you think from my co-teacher. Also, did you tell the AP? How did she know?”
Mr. Great responded, “I didn’t tell the AP, I spoke to Ms. Pleasant and Mr. Professor, and Ms. Mom, and they must have told her. Next time I’ll go to you first.”
“Thank you, Mr. Great. I really appreciate that.” I said.
I thought that the conflict was resolved. Although after writing my reflections on the situation, I know that I did not communicate all that I wrote above to him (there wasn’t time to process and reflect, nor the support to have this kind of risky conversation with someone who had already broken my trust but maybe this was because I had self-sabotaged by trying to do too many things [cognitive distortion #47 – the belief you can multi-task] as well as didn’t think I had the skills to have this hard conversation [cognitive distortion #14- underestimating coping abilities] or possibly because I communicated to Mr. Great that this was not that big of a deal but really it had completely broken my trust and caused me so much anxiety and fear having to work every day with him the person who I felt socially rejected by [cognitive distortion #1 – minimizing as well as #15 – biased attention towards signs of social rejection]), but I wish I had been able to communicate this with him then. Or maybe, we had not developed that trusting of a relationship, and he did not trust me to respond well to negative feedback. Although personally I think he wasn’t honest with me because he was afraid of having open conflict with me, and said was needed to say to get out of the situation while still identifying himself as a nice guy, because he was a nice guy. But nice guys aren’t good guys, that’s for fucking sure. But we can’t control other people, only ourselves – so no point blaming him. I can wish that if I had this awareness now and the confidence to engage, that the conflict would have actually been resolved – and what happened next wouldn’t have happened.
But alas it did. Ugh. It’s like I said. We have to accept the things that happened even though we really truly wish they never did.
Our next conflict started at the end of January. In Mr. Great and I’s 12th grade class (only 12th since this book covered some mature topics such as bisexuality, racism, and class), started to read the book chosen and provided for by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Big Reads Program: Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations.
The director of the program even came to drop off the books and gave a career talk about her journey working for the government in the Cultural Affairs and Arts departments, which students found inspiring!
Everyday as students read in class, it was silent. Oh my dreams were coming true! They were so engaged. One student said, “Wow, I have never read a book like this. This is so similar to my life.” He had a similar ethnic background to the author, who talked a lot in the book about being an author of color in America. To have helped this student see themself reflected in a book, to see that he too could write a book, that his story and topics that he was knowledgeable about was worthy of being published and read in school. This is why we have to teach diverse authors and contemporary texts!! Ahh. It was beautiful.
I wanted to lean in to the racism topic and have some hard conversations with the students. I had been to an amazing workshop as part of my CSUN Writing Project fellowship that summer about how to write about race, and I wanted to use the training material curriculum, but Mr. Great did not think students would take the topic seriously and that it was too risky.
I told him, “Look, we have to start the next part in 3 days. I already made this and have the materials. I have to plan my 9th and Advanced ELD units, and I am in my Masters writing my dissertation as well as I’m attending two conferences in February. This is a stressful time for me, so either you can review the unit and make it something you feel comfortable teaching or you can create a whole new unit and lead it.”
“Fine, I’ll make the unit then.” He stormed off.
Thus, he went and used Chatgpt, and I let him lead and be the main teacher, and do what he wanted. He too made it day by day – without getting any feedback from me, and I never asked. I thought we both had an understanding that we only had this one class and it was the only 12th grade curriculum I taught, and that with the 35 kids instead of just our academy students, this was just a fucked situation and that things were impossible to be perfect or even good enough and that we just needed to work together to survive the year.
I let him lead and became the teaching assistant role that he had been in first semester and most of the first year. I didn’t criticize or give him feedback, although there was a lot I could have said. It was clear that he was not the ELA curriculum pedagogy expert, but it didn’t matter if it was perfect, it mattered that his needs were being met, and since he did not want to teach what I had wanted to teach and prepared and trained in as part of my Writing Project fellowship, I just let him take my role as ELA teacher and Special Education teacher for that one class for that one month while I had other priorities.
I can see now why Mr. Great was overwhelmed. He was having to compensate a lot for my other commitments and responsibilities, at the same time because of his control issues and needing the curriculum to be the way he wanted it to be and not trusting my curriculum for this unit – he chose to do work that he didn’t need to do.
Why didn’t he trust my curriculum? Well, as I said – I had never taught it before. I had been trained, but not taught it. And like I said, I had only ever had co-teachers in the classroom and did one semester of student teaching 100% on zoom, so I never had time and support to build and learn and create a quality curriculum for 9th, 12th, ELD 1, ELD 2, and Advanced ELD without having to work with a co-teacher (or two different ones with different goals and needs!) who both needed my curriculum way in advance to do their job well.
It was a situation where I had been set up to fail, and yet instead of improving the situation, they decided to make me feel failure. They decided to blame me. I was the problem. Not the situation.
Mr. Great decided that I was the problem, and that he needed me to change for him to stop feeling overwhelmed (despite coaching, a five-year long break up, a 2.5 hour commute daily, working on his induction program, co-teaching two other classes, and having to case manage and do IEPS).
A lot of people do this, myself included. We externalize our stress and blame society or other people, often the people or groups who have less power than you. You’re wrong! It’s your fault!
Other people, also me, internalize our stress. We think we are stressed and having conflict that we are the problem, and we need to change or ignore our needs. I’m sorry! I’ll be better. You’re right! I’m the problem.
While I have externalized my stress a few times, my natural tendency is to internalize the stress. Over the last three years as a teacher at Emily Dickinson High, I had been internalizing a lot of toxic messages about myself. I was still haunted by the AP who last year said to me, “Maybe you’re not cut out to be a teacher,” and the Union rep, who said the same.
Over and over again, I asked for help. I identified the problem – it’s the workload. If I was responsible for less curriculums, I believed that I could improve the challenges with my co-teachers, my classroom management, and grading confusions as well as assigned an ELA teacher mentor who taught the same classes as me that I could collaborate with weekly. Then I believed, I could do this job for my whole career and become an amazing teacher and be human.
Every year I made my request, which I considered to be reasonable: “I would like the two preps that is the department average, which is literally in the contract as being equitably divided amongst teachers, and which I was not granted during my first two years despite it being in the contract for all new teachers.”
And for the last two years, they had not been able to do so, and I was suffering. The administrators refused to acknowledge that this was unfair or to create more realistic expectations for me given the workload given to me. They kept telling me, this is normal. This is what teaching is like. Your workload is normal. A credential program doesn’t do that much anyway.
As they sent emails out from the district, we have extra funding to support teachers affected by COVID, but never asked me what I needed and gave it to me. They paid for extra administrators instead of an additional teacher, or the real problem – the fact that our ELA and ELD departments were dysfunctional. That was the real problem.
I was being suffocated by the broken system, and instead of acknowledging that the system was broken, they kept telling me that perhaps I just wasn’t strong enough or smart enough or cared enough. I was the scapegoat.
I was starting to feel trapped in a nightmare that would never end.
For the last three years, I had overcome huge obstacles to stay a teacher and used my personal money, time, and resources to solve my problems:
- I paid for a teaching credential and continued to attend even when it was online and felt like a waste of time
- I moved out of my parents rent free house ten minutes away from work to Treehouse so my needs of friendship and community could be met increasing my commute to 1hr and 15 minutes round trip and paying $1,800 a month
- I paid for a two-year Masters program and attended night classes
- I used my summer to attend the CSUN Writing pedagogy fellowship
- I used my personal leave to attend the California Teachers of English Conference and paid for it myself
- I attended the UCLA Writing Project on a Saturday and paid for it myself
- I attended a number of Saturday professional developments on Zoom
- I met after work for individualized coaching with the New Teacher administrator for our region
- I did two hours of lesson planning before school every day during my non-contracted hours
- I had paid for books for the class as well as professional development books by well-regarded ELA teachers for me to read and learn from
I fought hard to fill in my own learning gaps, and yet, it still wasn’t enough because as I said, I wasn’t the problem. It was my unreasonable workload.
And I was continually being blamed, shamed, criticized, and gossiped about.
There were some moments of hope and joy. I have to remember them, but it can be hard sometimes. Attending the American Writers Conference (AWP) was definitely one!
AWP was magical. I shared a room with a teacher-friend from my Masters. She had purple hair and two kids and had been teaching for ten years, before she worked in Film and she was still writing poetry and had taken loads of writing classes.
We shared a house with 7 other poets and writers. There were two other ELA teachers on the trip, one was even paid by his school to attend (flights and hotel)! It was joyful to be in such community and spirits.
I was getting back out into the world and finding my place. We went to jazz clubs and inspiring lectures. The one that moved me most was a department of ELA teachers from a private school that organized an annual Writer’s Festival for the students starting from no budget and overtime being given a line in the ELA department. These ideas and dreams of mine were possible.
I wondered at that conference if I would feel called to go back to my first dream of publishing a poetry collection or a romance novel, but no. What called to me was the dream of infrastructure and community for literature, artists, writers, cultural texts and the nurturing of an engaged and intellectual community within a city.
I imagined a magazine called Functional City, and sought to go back to LA and learn and research what a functional city was in the 21st century, how to create that and the role of education, and specifically the role of the high school ELA teacher within that specifically in my own city Los Angeles.
I didn’t want to write in the world of fantasy and imaginations, I wanted action, I wanted change. I wanted a better quality of life, and I knew it could be done. I had seen it in Europe, I had seen it in my travels, I had seen it in Kansas City, Missouri at that talk.
And then I went back to LA to teach and prepare for my next conference.
When I got back, I learned that I would be missing a day of the dates our ELD Coordinator had decided to test the students. There is a two week window when the testing can happen, and without consulting our schedules, the coordinator had decided the dates.
I had not told the coordinator about the conference in advance because when I had shared how excited I was about presenting at the California Teachers of English conference in email with the principal, they had not responded (personalizing?). On top of that the ELA/ELD department was a culture of bullying, and I did not feel safe to share with them my good news for fear they would weaponize it against me.
In our department meetings, no one felt safe to talk. We had learned to be silent and neutral in order to survive. A few people were bold enough to speak, and who chose to speak even though they often received eye rolls and judgement from the “cool teacher table”. Being rude and judgey isn’t illegal, but it should be! Or could that be labeled workplace bullying – which is illegal? Ugh it was just like high school, but worse. There was no graduation and college to go to after this, just the rest of your life or quitting.
I am grateful that I had found my clique to protect me; it was two of the teachers bold enough to speak up, and another teacher by day, creative by night who was the same age as me! We had been working at Emily Dickinson together since day 1, but finally in my third year there, we had found out how much we had in common and started to become friends. It was magical!
Having ELA teacher-friends at my school site was amazing, transformative, and validating. Finally – I could talk to people with similar interests, who also taught 9th and 12th grade English and who I could share resources and curriculum, and who were in my faculty meetings and could laugh about how toxic the department was. It was so healing.
I started to imagine running for Head of Department with my teacher-friend Myra. A new generation. And yet, at present, the department was terrible.
One time the head of department crossed the line so badly that even the neutral teacher spoke up. The School Librarian who had been at the school for over 20 years, her whole career, who had been the head of department when I started there and whose husband was another teacher at the school, was sharing about the portfolio students had to create in our weekly homeroom period.
The head of department sneered, “Ugh. Those portfolios are so dumb. They are not even well-designed. My students hate them.”
“Well, the school district said it’s mandatory, and so myself and another AP spent a lot of time designing them.”
“Ugh, what a waste,” and rolled her eyes.
We looked over at the school librarian, this kind Barbie-girl English teacher in her 50s, and her eyes had welled up.
We had to speak up. I said, “Oh, well, you did really well with the situation. They look great.”
“Another teacher, who usually remained neutral and silent, said “Yes, we appreciate it.” She gave us a light smile and sat down.
I was furious about what had happened, and the next day I emailed her, apologizing for the head of department’s behavior and grateful for her time and energy.
In the next feedback form at a faculty meeting, I wrote about how toxic the department was and that the bullying was too much, and watching a senior teacher be so disrespected in front of the whole department and humiliated and nearly crying was not right, and that I wanted the admin to do something about it.
Nothing was done, and there was no response to my feedback. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anonymous. Clear they weren’t reading our forms anyway.
Anyhow, this was all to explain why I didn’t feel safe to share about the two ELA professional development conferences I was going to with my department, and why I hadn’t informed my ELD coordinator either.
Given that there was a two- week window, I hoped that it wouldn’t fall on one of the two days of school I would be missing to attend and present at the CATE conference.
But it did.
The coordinator picked the dates without consulting our schedules and informed us when we would be testing. I wish I had emailed her about the conference with a link a a screenshot to what I would be presenting, but I assumed that when I shared about the conference that she would be supportive and encouraging, and so I decided to share the information in person at our after school ELD meeting (since we didn’t have time to meet during the work day given our ELA teacher responsibilities and department meetings).
When I shared about the conference, the coordinator rolled her eyes, and essentially insinuated that I was being selfish missing one day of testing to attend the California Teachers of English Conference where I was presenting about my Masters research. The other teachers ignored the situation, and so I began to disassociate in the meeting.
Now it was one thing for this to happen to me. I was an adult. I knew that while this was hard, that if it was too hard, I could go back to marketing and book publishing where I worked before and this knowledge of teaching and the school system would be very valuable.
But observing this happen to my students brought out the mama bear in me. And this feeling of shame, of not being enough, of being the problem when it was actually the system was being forced upon my ELD students and that was not okay.
I felt immense rage and injustice at how these students were being segregated within the school system and then given inadequate resources and support despite the school being given extra funding to provide for these students, since they were the most vulnerable.
I tried to advocate for my students and figure out how to improve our ELD program, but I was constantly ignored and told that to stay and focus on my curriculum and classroom.
The ELAC Parent Committee that I had been attending were beginning to feel like a waste of time and I felt betrayed by the coordinator. Often when the parents complained about something at the school, they would say, “Well, I have no ability to do that, that is up to the teachers.”
I would literally be right there – the fucking teacher! – and I would say, “Well, we want to but structurally we can’t collaborate because the lines the students are separated into too many different classes.”
They would give me a look and I would stop talking. However, I knew this to be the root problem of why the teachers could not collaborate effectively. In my ELD class – my students had 7 different Math teachers and 5 different ELA teachers. How was I supposed to create a curriculum that would support them to be successful in their core A-G classes, when the ELD class was an elective course (when they already had enough electives to graduate) and thus was really a supplementary course to help support them in their core requirements, but like it’s impossible to collaborate with 12 other ELA/Math teachers who are all doing different things at different times with different grading rubrics and classroom management and late work policies!
All while also having to work in the Academy with 9th and 12th curriculum and two different co-teachers!!
Eventually these meetings made me feel so horrible, I stopped going. Started saying I was sick, or busy.
And yet, my ELD students still suffered, still thought they were the problem when really it was the program, it was the system.
Most of the students had Ds and Fs in their Math and English classes. The data was crazy! They told me they hated being in the ELD program, that they thought it wasn’t helping them at all, and they were being bullied for being in the program still.
I informed them that their parents had the right to choose whether they were in the program or not, and that if they wanted, their parents could sign a form and transfer them out.
I told them, “This program is meant to support you to help you be more successful at school, and that the school is literally given money and resources to support you. If you don’t feel like this program is working, you need to talk to the admin or have your parents, because they aren’t listening to me.”
I asked the Coordinator if they could send a feedback form out to students to share their opinion to improve the program. They never did.
I told the administrators over and over again, “I have very serious concerns about our ELD program and I don’t think it is serving our students.”
They ignored me. They told me to stay in my classroom and focus on my curriculum. That it wasn’t my job.
I told them again and again. But they wouldn’t listen.
Despite the lack of support at Emily Dickinson High from my principal and coordinator and because of the generous support from my professor at CSUN, the people in my Masters, my family, my friends, my lovely crew of ELA teachers, and the power of my determination, I attended and presented at the California Teachers of English Conference.
Finally, finally, I was in the room with English teachers who wanted to learn from each other! This had been my vision when I worked at SAGE and was paid to man the booth at conferences. Instead of collecting teachers’ emails to market them, I would be the teacher.
And now I was. I belonged here. Surrounded by colleagues! How I wish I could have attended during my student teacher year, or first, or second year, but the past is the past. Three years later, and I was in the room. More than that, I was presenting!
The workshops I went to were brilliant, and I even made a friend. We coincidentally attended almost every single workshop together. Both of us were really passionate about anti-racist pedagogy and integrating ethnic studies into the ELA curriculum.
My workshop went really well, and I got some good feedback. A professor from the UC Santa Barbara Writing Project was in the room, as well as my professor, and my new friend. A teacher came up after and said she had gone to a workshop with Felicia Rose Chavez, and that she was trying to implement what I was also trying to do. She was excited about what I shared. Oh, I felt so proud. I belonged. I was good enough. I could contribute to this community.
The month of conferences ended. It was March, and I went back to my usual grind with hope and relief. No more traveling or conferences, just to focus on my three curriculums and two co-teachers every day having no clue what the other 16 ELA and ELD teachers were doing making up my own EGI rubrics, whatever that meant, and teaching the books that I knew, and trying to implement the pedagogy I had been reading about in my Masters. Waking up at 6am to get to work at 7am, mostly to avoid having to see other teachers in the attendance office or being asked to cover during my conference period (which I desperately needed!) – and then working deeply for 2 and half hours, since that year I had period 1 conference, which was a relief.
And then after work, going to night classes, doing my homework, preparing for my conference, adjusting to life at Treehouse and making friends, attempting to stay in touch with old friends, dating my boyfriend, and trying to spend time with my three of my grandparents who were still alive!
I thought things were improving. Just to get to June! Then I’d be done with my dissertation, have graduated from my Masters, and finished my third year of teaching. I was so close!
This stressful time would be over. I had started going to yoga a lot since it really helped me managed my stress, and had started to think that for the last two years, I’d been holding the same yoga pose. Throughout it, I had told myself, “feel the pain and let it go, don’t move, hold the pose. This is temporary.” Soon it would be over. So soon.
One day before Spring Break (a Thursday); one day before grades were due; and the morning of back-to school night, I got a text message from my assistant principal.
“The Principal is coming in five minutes to your class to do a coaching session with you and your co-teachers.”
“Okay, do my co-teachers know?”
“Yes, they know.”
I sat at my desk taking deep breaths and reminding myself, I don’t know what it’s about and I will find out soon and just breath and stay calm, this could be about anything – as panic gripped my stomach.
The Principal arrived in the very sports jersey that my co-teacher coached for and sat down.
“I know this is our first coaching session, I’m very passionate about coaching and work as a mentor for the Principal’s Institute so I love this. Let’s start, how do you think things are going?”
Until this moment, I’d had maybe one or two conversations with the Principal over the last three years, as well as multiple emails that he had never responded to, and I was nervous. I wasn’t sure how honest to be or why this coaching session was happening, and why my co-teachers knew about it but I didn’t, and why it was the principal instead of the assistant principal in charge of the Academy.
I spoke first. “Well, I think things are going pretty well. We’re doing a research unit, and it’s going pretty good.”
“Okay, what do you think, Mr. Great?”
My co-teacher crossed his arms and said, “Actually, I don’t think things are going very well.”
Oh, I was shocked. I knew we had our challenges, but I didn’t realize they were this bad. I had received no emails or directives that things were not working, what wasn’t working, and what actions they wanted me to take to improve things. My heads of department and even the assistant principal had never pulled me aside to address these concerns.
I started to connect the dots. Ah! This wasn’t a surprise coaching session, both my co-teachers had been talking behind my back with the assistant principal. This was planned.
He listed a series of things off but my mind was wiped and I just tried to focus on not crying. I had invited him to my birthday party, he had come to my birthday party. And now this?
I said what I needed to say, “I’m so sorry that you’ve been feeling this way, I didn’t realize it was this bad. I am really grateful that you brought it up as I want this to be a mutually beneficial relationship, and if it’s not I want to change and improve things. I appreciate your feedback and honesty. I have been working hard to plan my lessons but because of COVID and the four preps in ELA and ELD, this has been really challenging.”
“COVID’s over and you’ve had three years to figure this out.”
I started to get defensive, but could tell that it was only making the situation worse. I decided to give up. Just try to listen and let this happen to you.
“Thanks, now we’re gonna bring in your other co-teacher.”
Mr. Great left and they brought Ms. Pleasant in to dump some feedback on me. She had a piece of paper in her hand and it was shaking, “I’m sorry to do this. They told me yesterday we were doing it and to prepare what I wanted to say. I know we never really told you these things, and for that I’m sorry, but I’m just going to read…”
And so she read, and I tried to take in as much as I could, but I was overwhelmed with anxiety, shame, and betrayal as my two co-teachers who I worked every day with who had seen me teach and I would still have to teach with and grade with and trust dumped on me three years of feedback in front of my principal with five minutes notice on the day of back to school night. Who had gone to my birthday party, who had invited me to their wedding, did this to me.
After Ms. Pleasant finished, the bell rang that period 1 was over. The Principal said, “Well, teaching requires thick skin! If I didn’t have thick skin, I wouldn’t be able to be principal. Thank you for this, and I’ll see you at back-to-school night.”
Then they both left and as they did they let students in, and then Mr. Great came back into the room. There was no time to breath or do anything. I just had to fake it. I put a smile on my face and pretended like nothing happened, although the students made looks as the principal left the room.
Somehow I got through the class, and then it was nutrition. As soon as everyone left the room, with Mr. Great sneaking out at the end, not looking me in the eye or saying anything, I burst into tears. And then, the tears couldn’t stop. I cried and I cried and I cried.
I tried to teach, and then just burst into tears in front of my period 3 students. They tried to comfort me, and asked what was wrong. “I’ve just had a bad day,” is all – although my TA was a senior from my period 2 class and was putting some things together.
I got through the class, and then my period 4 class came, and as I got up, I burst into tears again. They comforted me and I got through the day.
By lunch time, and knowing that Ms. Pleasant was going to come for period 5 and 6, I couldn’t do it. I texted everyone I would be leaving for the day and that I felt sick and would not be able to make it for back-to-school night.
Then I drove to my parents’ house and cried some more. I texted my therapist and my Dad and Mom and that I needed them. I immediately got on a zoom with my therapist which was helpful, and then I took a bath.
Later my Dad and I went for a walk and I explained things. My mother was very validating, she was angry for me and wanted me to fight back. Both of my parents did.
I knew that to get through this I needed to separate my personal feelings from my professional feelings. I felt betrayed. I had considered them friends, and believed them to think of me the same. To find out that they had been complaining about me to the assistant principal and principal and that they had never directly came to me with their concerns or communicated directly what exactly they thought the problem was and what they wanted me to change disappointed me. I did not trust them anymore. If they had just written it out or been more direct, I would have changed. I cared about them and wanted them to be happy, I cared about doing a good job. But the way this had been communicated to me had been dehumanizing and traumatic.
I wrote on my secret blog:
” FUCKKKKKKKKK!!!! I AM SO ANGRY. I HAD A Nightmare of a day at schoolllll and I HATEETEEE HATEETETEEEEE!!! I feel at war. I feel attacked. I feel injustice. I feel dehumanized. I feel traumatized. I feel frustrated. I feel pissed. I feel disrespected. I feel betrayed. I feel taken advantage of. I feel misunderstood. I feel attacked.
I don’t want to replay what happened today. It’s too painful. I don’t want to remember it. I just want to run away and leave. I want to get out of this situation and feel safe again. I don’t want to work with my co-teachers or administrators. I feel harmed by their behavior and I don’t trust them and I want to protect myself from them. I don’t know what there is to heal – I don’t know where our relationship future is going. I am going to leave as soon as I can from that school, that Hell hole.”
And yet, I would have to work with them every day until the end of the year.
I wrote down a best case, worst case, and likely case – and then I took action.
I know it was a complicated situation to tell me and it could have been risky, but this was a nightmare. It was dehumanizing. And then they expected me to stand up at back to school night in front of all the parents and talk about what an amazing year this has been and how great things were going.
I sent three emails, one to each co-teacher cc’ing admin and one to the admin.
“Thank you for your feedback and honesty. I would like to make improvements. To confirm this is what you communicated, I think that you said ____.” and I listed them out. “Is this what you said? These are solutions I can make___. What do you think? Looking forward to working through this with you.”
I decided to separate the co-teachers because I hated the feeling of being ganged up on by them. I didn’t feel safe. I felt threatened and cornered.
To the admin, I said, “Since you have thick skin and value feedback, here’s some feedback on our coaching session. Next time don’t surprise me with five minuets while my co-teachers know about it, don’t do it on back-to-school night, and don’t wait three years to do a coaching session. That experience was traumatic and dehumanizing.”
I felt all my feelings, I cried and cried, I let it pour out until I was dried up. Then I set my boundaries and went to work.
I remained very professional and asked that we keep everything to email during this time. I stopped going to work happy hours or visiting their office where the fridge and microwave were kept. I spent more time with the other English teachers.
I focused on doing my job and my Masters. I had to get through this year. At that time, there was trouble in my apartment building with cops being called and restraining orders because of fights with roommates. It was stressful, and so I focused on survival.
I had to graduate, I had to finish the school year, and I needed to move apartments to somewhere I felt safe. I wanted to go on a trip with someone I had fun with and cared about, and asked my boyfriend if we could plan a trip together, our first trip, for after I finished my dissertation, and he said yes.
Thankfully I only had one more day of school before Spring break after that horrific coaching session, which gave me some time process and sulk and grieve and plot. I even got to go on a fun trip with my friends to a film festival (which we’re writing a script about!).
The day before spring break ended as I returned to work, I wrote in my secret summer countdown blog:
Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed and so angry and frustrated and ignored and attacked that I want to put up hands and say, you win! You win! I am not strong enough to be a teacher. I don’t care enough about the kids to sacrifice my own health and well-being, I’m not a good enough person to be a teacher. I’m too neurotic, too anxious, too sensitive. You win! I want to quit and stop fighting and go back to being a PR girl or work in a library and finally rest. Let the independent, tough-skinned martyrs take all the power, determine the future of our country and society and city, and go back to my small bubble, my privileged life.
I know it’s temporary. It’s just this moment in time. It’s just this transition period that never ends as I move and complete my Masters and date to find a long-term partner that can grow with me and support me in this overwhelming, complicated, and meaningful work, and for me to learn how to support them in their work, too. That’s why I feel so excited about my boyfriend. I really think he can and that he wants to do this work together as a team, and that I really find his work super interesting and can learn a lot together and take care of each other together and be more impactful together. As I write this, I wonder if I’ll share the post with him. I feel like I need to communicate this to him before he leaves for his trip.
I need to communicate that I am in the red zone / survival mode – and that I won’t be out of it until all my Masters assignments are submitted and done with.
It was just about getting to the end. I started up my countdown blog and focused on getting to June, and sent my Spring 2024 Newsletter to my friends and family.
I was ready to lock-in.
When I returned from Spring Break, I learned that there were new ELD policies and how the entire programs would be forced to change. I was filled with hope. The new policies made a lot of sense. Instead of students being separated by language level, they would be separated by grade. This would allow students to be in a cohort, as well as make it so much easier for ELD teachers to collaborate with the other teachers who had ELD students in their classes. I was thrilled.
I spoke to the AP in charge of counseling and well as the ELD coordinator about this and shared about how amazing I thought this could me.
I requested that in my Year 4, I teach 9th and 12th ELA, and then 9th and 12th ELD so that I could collaborate across grade level like I was already doing, and since I already knew all of their other teachers since I had been teaching 9th and 12th for three years.
In April when I got my evaluations, I had been written up for complaining about the ELD program to the kids and not saying what the administrators wanted me to say as well as written up about my professional relationships with my co-workers and told that while I met standards, they wanted to evaluate be again the next year.
When the schedule for Year 4 was released in May, I learned that I would be teaching ELD 10 – a grade-level I had never taught, forcing me to collaborate with our ELA 10 and Math 10 teachers, on top of already trying to collaborate and work with 9 and 12 ELA teachers.
It was again another brand new curriculum, however, they didn’t have the curriculum yet. They would give it out at the optional PD days the week before school started, and even then we weren’t authorized until the week school started. I was already fucked. Again.
I wrote to the AP for counseling that I did not consent to the schedule. (although I know now that I needed to go to my union rep and file a grievance within 3 days of getting the schedule, or they legally could ignore my lack of consent – which they then did).
On top of still working through my ELD challenges, I worked to implement the actions and changes I had agreed to in order to improve my relationship with my co-teachers. We set up weekly meetings with both teachers that had an agenda where I would document everything we discussed and what actions we needed to take.
Thus, I began having meetings at 7am on Wednesdays and Thursdays, sending the agenda for the next week on the Friday or Monday. I set up the structure and enforced it. I made the effort to check-in with them periodically if things were improving, and if there was anything else I could do to improve things, to which they responded, no things were better.
I asked if I could not teach with Mr. Great next year since it was pretty clear we were not compatible and had different pedagogies when it came to teaching English. The admin did not understand, but changed the schedule any way. Next year I would be co-teaching 12th grade with Ms. Mom. I saw that the EGI position was available and applied, because then I would get a period to support other teachers, which would make it so I could only teach two curriculums. That would be amazing! I had some hope.
In April, I felt anxious about my dissertation, and decided to cancel all my plans for the whole month and focus. I worked all weekend and every night until I was done. I finished it early! Just in time for my boyfriend and I to go on our weekend getaway. We had so much fun!
When we got back, I had my last exam for my Masters; it was essays at home. I wrote them and as I wrote them everything I’d been learning about as a teacher connected together and I felt such flow and confidence, I was ready. I wrote this essay about what I had learned from the masters and what I wanted to do in my future. I was so excited, I was on my path.
On May 18th, I graduated, and oh I was so happy! My people were there with me. I felt so proud.
I could get through hard things and not run away.
I was grateful for my whole support system! Without their support, I knew I never would have survived these last few years as a teacher.
I was really excited to have a partner as well in all this. I felt so much hope and potential for our relationship. On our first date, he said, “I want to end veteran homelessness in Los Angeles,” and I said, “I want to improve literacy rates and make reading cool in Los Angeles.” I felt I had met my match. I felt like with him as my partner, we would do achieve our goals together and have fun doing it. I felt I had manifested him. Especially after so much heartbreak and disappointment.
With the end of the year coming, and my lease ending at Treehouse, I had to make two big life decisions:
- Did I want to continue teaching at Emily Dickinson High?
- Who did I want to live with and where?
I applied around and got two interviews, but didn’t receive an offer. If you transfer schools, you can’t change again for 3 years. And more than anything, I wanted friends, I wanted a home I felt safe in and could see myself in for a while, I wanted work-life balance.
Changing schools seemed like a lot of work and I wouldn’t be able to prioritize my personal life, which after four years of putting teaching first, I felt I couldn’t do anymore. I felt I couldn’t handle the uncertainty of of trying to find a new job. I was so tired. I thought staying at Emily Dickinson High where I had finally made a group of ELA friends as well as some positive relationships teaching the same curriculums essentially was a better choice, and that I should focus on moving, resting, and celebrating the fact that I had survived Year 3 of teaching. I just wanted balance and to prioritize fun after working evenings and weekends for so long.
I had planned to teach at the school for four years and graduate. When I originally took the position at Emily Dickinson High, I told myself, I could do that! I would finally go to normal high school. This would be the perfect ending. Sammy only survived two years in typical high school before avoiding her problems and running away to an alternative middle college program for weird kids, but after college and three years of working in publishing, she returns to the typical high school and after four years, she is finally able to thrive!
Now, through working with a life coach, I was starting to think differently. Instead of thinking that I ran away from my problems abandoning my friends by changing schools, I was actually getting myself into a better situation where I could be happier and have my needs met, and that I did better in smaller environments. I didn’t leave my friends because I am still friends with all of them in 2025, and was still friends with them then even after I transferred, going to Prom with them and Halloween and hanging out after school.
I didn’t run away, I chose to go to a school that was a better fit for me. I was starting to think that I had internalized that the reason I could not survive in traditional mainstream high school was because I was not strong enough to do so and that I needed to prove I was “good enough” now at the age of 30 by teaching successfully for four years at Emily Dickinson High.
After my experience this year and this epiphany, I had realized that I didn’t need to prove myself to anyone. I wasn’t weak, I was strong, and I knew who I was and what I needed, and I didn’t have to do my four years to deserve anyone’s respect. I just needed my own respect.
Thus, I chose to prioritize my personal life and stay at Emily Dickinson High for one more year, and then transfer. I decided to rest over the summer.
Except that even though Year 3 and my Masters were over, and I could rest, I still felt anxious. My anxiety would not go away. I started having this weird headache that wouldn’t stop. I felt so exhausted. Like a deep exhaustion. I started having nightmares.
In one of my dreams, I was teaching in a classroom and everyone was watching me and the technology wasn’t working. Then I saw my Dad and murmured to him, “They are trying to get me to quit,” and then I went back in, and I burst into tears in front of the class and administrators screaming, “I can’t learn like this!!!”.
I got stuck in a loop of medical anxiety where I constantly thought that I had COVID, and would hyper monitor all of my symptoms, but then be too afraid to test because I couldn’t get COVID and miss two of my friends weddings!! and if I did have COVID they would get mad. I would imagine giving the brides COVID. I would imagine giving my grandma who was living alone at 87 COVID. The thought of having to tell them! Imagine. But I’d already seen them, could I tell them I had COVID? Did I even have it? I didn’t want to know. What if the test was wrong?
This anxious thought spiral would happen whenever I was alone, I would just feel anxious and think I had COVID which is why I had this headache, but then when I was around people I would be so focused on performing I was happy, that I would forget, until I was alone again – but too afraid to tell anyone I had COVID because I didn’t want them to get mad at me.
It was so exhausting. I didn’t even tell my boyfriend it was happening until it was over, and the final wedding was over, and no one got COVID. Finally, I could rest. I didn’t leave my room for three days.
I was happy to be in Los Feliz in my new house with my cousin and my friend/acquaintance as a my roommates. We lived walking distance from all the things I loved in a gorgeous new build with a private roof that had a view of both Griffith Park and Barnsdall.
Year 3 was over, and next year would be better. I had hope.
Solutions
- If a teacher is in a masters program, try to give them one or two preps or no new preps, especially if it is in education and they are doing research that will benefit your students and your schools reputation
- encourage and support her to present a teacher PD to her ELA or ELD department
- Respond to your teachers emails, especially if they are asking to meet and talk about the school’s vision and goals and how they want to be more of a leader in the school
- If a new teacher shows up to the leadership meetings and then stops coming, admin should directly message them to find out why they stopped coming and encourage them to come back
- Co-teaching takes more time and is harder than teaching alone. Managing multiple co-teaching relationships is very challenging, don’t give new teachers coteachers unless there is a solid curriculum in place from the department
- The ELD Coordinator should also be an ELD teacher or should at least have taught the exact levels and curriculums so they can actually support and coach, not just enforce testing procedures
- The ELD program needs to be evaluated as it is not the same as ELA, and requires teachers across departments to collaborate, similar to a magnet – in order to truly support students in being successful in a traditional American high school.
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