Teacher Finds Fulfillment in Touching Youths’ Lives : Instructor tolerates shabby school conditions and the lack of respect from administrators for the chance to make a difference for her students.
George, an Air Force lieutenant colonel and dear friend of the family called the other day. “Adrienne,” he began, “I’m thinking of getting out of the Air Force. I could retire right now and get $26,000 a year for the rest of my life.” When I asked what he’d do if he did retire he said: “Don’t scoff. Everyone I’ve talked to thinks I’m nuts.”
“No problem,” I wanted to put him at ease, “we’ve known you long enough to know you’re not nuts. What’s up?”
“Well, Adrienne,” he was having a hard time getting to the point, “this country’s been good to me and I want to give something back. I’m thinking of teaching.”
“Why, George,” I responded enthusiastically, “That’s great. We need math and science teachers desperately. Teachers who’ve been out in the trenches, who’ve been in business, who’ve traveled and lived abroad are an asset. They bring their experiences into the classroom with them. I’m delighted.” And of course I was ecstatic because, at 44 years of age, I had left a lucrative corporate position, without the safety net of a hefty retirement, to teach high school English. I too wanted to give something back to my community.
I arranged for George to visit Monroe High School, where I teach. One of our assistant principals, who coincidentally knew George from the military reserves, gave him a VIP tour including a brief stop at my classroom. Later that evening, George called.
“Adrienne, I always knew you and Gene (my husband) were special people, but I didn’t realize how special. How do you work at that school? It’s awful.”
Quick to the defense, I demanded an answer. “What do you mean? It’s a nice school,” I asked.
George explained: “It’s so depressing. The place is filthy and run down, and the floors are unwashed and worn out. Why even your desk looks like pre-World War II vintage. At my base,” he went on, “we throw out furniture that’s in a lot better shape than your students’ desks.”
I quickly tried to calculate how we could get the military’s used furniture.
“Even in the A.P.’s office the file cabinets are broken, the doors hang open like a drunk with his tongue out,” my friend continued. “There’s gum stuck to the cement that’s fossilized. If my soldiers allowed a bathroom to get as dirty as the one in your hallway, with bugs the size of quarters roaming freely, I’d have him court-martialed.”
I let George go on and on, thinking of all the things he hadn’t seen--95 degree classrooms, no telephones or security systems, computers in only a handful of classrooms. Not much has changed since I went to high school in the 50s except that the buildings--and a lot of the teachers--are worn out.
“Adrienne,” he said emphatically, “I couldn’t do it. Thirty years in the military and I’m used to clean, I’m used to orderly. I couldn’t work in such a depressing environment. How do you do it? Why do you do it?”
As to the how, it’s not easy. I try to put on blinders when I enter the school grounds. I’ve long since stored my corporate suits and traded stylish heels for Stride Rites. I time my bodily functions to the bell schedule, which rules my teaching life. Five years of going to the cafeteria, waiting in line, eating, and getting to my next class, all in less than 35 minutes, assures I’m the first one finished eating when I dine with friends and family. I’ve postponed countless dental appointments because it’s too difficult to prepare a lesson plan for a substitute teacher who probably won’t follow the plan anyway. There aren’t enough classrooms in my school, so I move from room to room, carrying my books and supplies with me. The tendon I tore in my right arm in January, by the way, still hasn’t healed. Add the 10% pay cut to the salaries of Los Angeles Unified teachers.
But, it’s a rare day when I don’t want to go to work. I lost interest in working in the medical and financial communities; teaching, by contrast, nurtures me. Each time a student has an epiphany, shares part of her life, shows me I touched her in some way, it’s like getting a bonus in my paycheck. To positively touch the life of a child, to give her a key she can use for the rest of her life, to heal a wound, to serve as a model, for all of these reasons, and more, I overlook the tumble-down buildings, the makeshift supplies, even the all-too-frequent lack of respect from administrators. I live with being judged and rewarded, or not rewarded, based on my politics not my students’ intellectual growth. The conditions under which I, and most of LAUSD’s teachers work can be demoralizing and are frequently demanding. But there’s nothing else we’d rather do.
Before he hung up, George said: “You know, we must spend a lot more money cleaning and furnishing the military bases than we do on educating our children.” That’s a tragedy.
Try an experiment in your office. Don’t clean for a month. Don’t sweep the floors, don’t make repairs, don’t water the lawns. Rip out the intercom so you can’t talk to someone in another office, even in an emergency, limit lunch to 35 minutes, time trips to the bathroom not to exceed six minutes from the time you leave your desk until you return. How long would you want to continue to go to work?
The poor physical conditions of our schools are but another factor in our high dropout rate. Teachers drop out, too. California spends $4,280 per student annually, 47th in the nation. By contrast, New York spends over $8,000.
The message we send to our children and educators is that we just don’t care. Trust me, your children and their teachers get the message.
By coming to school every day, I’m letting our kids know that I care. And therein lies the reward for me. I know my students get my message also.
I’ll continue to work on George. Once you get into your classroom where it’s just you and your students, it’s more rewarding than any corporate presentation could ever be. When I sold investments I always knew I was only as good, or as bad, as the latest deal. You get your 15 minutes of fame and then fall from view. A teacher can be a star every day, in every class. Students come back years later to tell me how I touched their life, how they’ve thought about something I said, or remembered a kindness or a comment on an English paper. They tell me that it made a difference in their lives.
The United States will need hundreds of thousands of teachers in the next decade. Thinking, like George, of a career change? Consider teaching.
