Vini, Vidi, Vici?

In May, I was assaulted.

In November of 2014, I began a long-term substitute teaching position at a high school. Score! This was basically my dream job while I finished my Master’s courses. I taught biology under the mentorship of a veteran teacher who has become one of my greatest friends. I was stressed out of my mind, since I had the class with the worst troublemakers in the grade, but I still jumped out of bed every morning with an excitement that I had never felt for any job before. Those kids are going to learn today! Whether they like it or not.

As the school year came to an end, I began to relax as I had done a visibly good job of teaching my students. Their failure rate had dropped from 85% to 40% and the number of A and B grades had tripled. Students were showing better behavior and more enthusiasm for the subject than they had since the beginning of the year.

I had my final written and was ready to pass out the review sheet. All grades were entered and I had movies lined up for the days after the final.

Two weeks before, while we dissected frogs, a student from another class came into my room and while trying to steal my phone, assaulted me.

The administration’s response was less than ideal. My students all claimed that I pushed the student back. I also used profanity after being pushed, Don’t fucking touch me! and this somehow made me at fault for the incident.

I did not return for the end of the year, though I missed my students terribly. I spent the time at home ruminating on several things.

• The school I worked at is run like a prison. The students, especially, exhibit a prison mentality, Snitches get stitches. In one instance, I had to involve administration when a student who let me know exactly which other student was smoking an e-cigarette in class was bullied to the point of threats of physical violence.
• The administration at my school was not prepared to deal with their student population in any way. They had no disciplinary procedures in place for students with chronic misbehavior, tardiness or absences. These students spent all semester in In-School Suspension and still got credit for all of their classes. And finally…
• The teachers are completely responsible for the students’ grades, attendance and behavior… Somehow. The administration expected teachers to send all work to ISS so those students being punished didn’t fall behind. The administration also changed a grade of a student athlete after I staunchly refused in an email to the mother, who never bothered to contact the previous teacher or myself before the day after the last day of school.

After weighing all these things in my mind, along with the victim-blaming lines the principal himself said to me the day of the incident, You should have called for security when that student came into your room (I had to stop relying on the security team after the first two weeks of working there, since they had stopped responding.) If your classroom management was up to par, this wouldn’t have happened (That student wasn’t even supposed to be on campus at that time – he was on suspension and got past security.), I felt really worthless, but I also had felt hopeless for the future as well.

I still need to complete my student teaching to finish my Master’s, and up the that point, I had been planning to do that in my mentor’s classroom. After everything that happened, could I go back? Could I walk those halls and not feel like a victim? Not feel worthless?

But they say you should get back on the horse, and I am. I was placed with my mentor for student teaching, and I am both anxious and excited for the year to start. And I have a bunch of ideas floating around in my head about how to make the school function less like a prison, and more like a place for learning. Because of that, I even have some new goals in my future – after a few years of teaching, I think I might go into administration. I believe I could really do some good at a school like that, and help students and teachers alike. 

In any case, I learned a ton from this experience, not the least of which that life isn’t fair. But it’s better than the alternative.

Thanks for reading.