That Didn't Last Long
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Retired
English Teacher is fully retired again.
On January 24, 2017, I began my new job teaching English language learners for a local
school district. The day dawned earlier than most of my
days have dawned for a long time. After going to bed early, I was still a
bit stunned when the alarm on my phone signaled to me that it was not only time
to get up, but time to shower, dress, eat breakfast, gather my things and head
out the door. The amazing thing is: I was able to find my way to my
school via Google maps and arrive on time.
Since I would be working at three elementary
schools, and one middle school, I walked in the school where I was first
assigned to be and was taken to the room (small, cramped, but at least a room
that was completely designated for use by the ELL teacher and her aide) and met
the delightful young woman whom would be my aide at this school. We didn’t have much time together because I
was scheduled to visit a principal at another school where I would be working,
but we did establish a quick working relationship which I thought would be very
productive and full-filling.
We discussed the needs of the school, the students
in the program, the schedule, and the materials available. I felt quite uplifted about the initial
contact I had made in a school where I would work for half days two days a week.
That afternoon, I drove over to the middle school
where I would have a planning period and be assigned to teach a class every
afternoon. Already a bit familiar with
the school, I was greatly looking forward to teaching there.
The principal introduced me to the assistant principal
whom would be my evaluator and contact person for any needs or concerns that I
might have. I was then given a tour of
the building and shown three possible sites that I could choose as my “home”
while I was in the building during my planning period:
· a narrow
storage room between two technology classrooms that was full of a lot of stuff
and hadn’t been used as an office in years. “But it can be cleaned out if you
want to use this space originally designated as the itinerant teacher office”
· an office
off the library shared by another itinerant teacher which I could not use on
Wednesdays,
· a
workspace used by all the aides to the sixth grade teachers that was located in
the sixth grade workroom. The former
teacher had used the latter space as her “office.”
I was also briefly shown the room where I would
teach during seventh period. The room
was dark, and I couldn’t really see it because a group of teachers were in
there watching Trump’s Inauguration during their planning period, lunch, or
whatever.
I met the aide that would assist me for the
briefest of moments because she had to leave to test students.
At 4:00 p.m., I left the building at the end of my
day. It was cold. The wind had been blowing all day, and I
asked myself what I had gotten myself into.
*****
On January 25, 2017, I repeated the part about
getting up early and getting out the door.
This time, I went to a different elementary school. It was the one where I would also spend half
a day three days a week.
The ELL teacher’s aid is a delightful person whom
has the luxury of actually having a classroom designated entirely for use for
serving the ELL population of the school.
The room was very pleasantly decorated and set up to serve the
students.
I spent much of the morning in mainstream classrooms
with two students just learning English.
I was very excited about the possibility of working with these students
and their teachers. I was able to spend
some time with a teacher helping her with strategies for best teaching the
student she had that was just learning English. “I’m back in the saddle, and it
feels so good and so right,” I said to myself as I left the classroom to meet
with the district level leadership for the ELL Department.
That encounter left me again wondering what I had
gotten myself into.
And so the week went. I got up early. I went to the assigned school for the
day. I tried to remember where my
classroom was, and tried to rehearse in my mind the schedules that did not
really align with the task that been assigned to me. I gave it all my very best
brain power, organizational skills, and knowledge of how best to teach the
students and was trying to come up with a reasonable plan that would serve the
population I was there to teach.
On Saturday, January 28, 2017, I awoke with a
terrible ear ache. I am not one to get
viruses such as colds or flu. It is rare
for me to be sick. I may have my
multiple health problems, but I am rarely sick with a virus. Since the ear ache was quite painful, and
since I needed to be back at work on Monday, I went to the doctor.
Indeed, my ears were bulging. I was given a prescription for an antibiotic,
and for a decongestant and sent on my way.
I spent the weekend resting, taking my medicine, and drinking
fluids.
*****
On Monday, January 30, I was back at the job. This time, I spent the morning in the third
school to which I had been assigned. I
was to spend half a day one day a week at this school.
The school is a wonderful elementary school. I was thrilled to be there. The ELL aide was quite competent and
delightful. The classroom space
dedicated to the program was not large, but it was more than adequate, and it
was welcoming and stocked with great teaching materials. We had a productive time together.
When it was time for me to go the middle school, I
was worn down and overwhelmed with the task that had been assigned to me with
this job. Mostly, though, I was just
sick. I felt terrible.
******
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017, I called off
sick. I felt worse than I had when I
went to the doctor on Saturday. The meds
did not seem to be working. I went to
the doctor again. This time, she gave me
a penicillin shot and a prescription for prednisone. We discussed my problems with steroids, but I
agreed to try taking the
prednisone anyway.
******
On Wednesday, February 1, 2017, I called off sick
again. I then took the prednisone in an
attempt to try and get well. By three o’clock
that afternoon, my husband had me back in the doctor’s office because I had a
negative reaction to prednisone, could not breathe, and had chest pain. I told her I was allergic to it. Now she believes me. No more prednisone for me!
Discouraged, and being fully aware of the fact that
I was as sick, or sicker than I had been on Saturday, I fretted all day about
what to do about the job. In my heart of
hearts, I knew that it just was not the right job for me at this time in my
life. It was not a good fit. It involved way too many moving parts, too
much travel, too many schedules, and little real opportunity to make a
difference in the lives of the students most needing instruction.
******
On Wednesday, February 1, 2017, after much
discussion with my wise husband, and after shedding many tears, I called the
human resources department and asked how I would go about resigning from my
position. I then called the principal of
the school which was my home school to tell him that I was still sick, and felt
it was only right that I resign from my teaching position. I then sent a letter of resignation,
effective for that day’s date. Relief
flooded my heart and mind once I had actually made my decision and acted upon
it.
Life Lessons
My latest chapter, and my last chapter, in my experience as a classroom
teacher was very, very short. I spent
five complete days in the classroom. Then,
I spent two days on sick leave. On the
seventh day of this short teaching gig, I resigned.
While I was trying to decide what to do about the job, I realized that
the known aspects of the position were aspects that would stretch me to the
limits physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The stress evidently had been too much for the two teachers before
me.
The unknown aspects of the job were the students. I had not had a chance to interact with them
much. I was just learning the ropes and
trying to develop a reasonable schedule that would serve those needing my
services best. In the meantime, I picked
up all those germs floating around the schools where I was working because my
immune system no longer has the ability to fight off all those new germs like
it once did when I was in the classroom every day.
Looking back on this latest venture of mine, I am reminded of a line
from Mission Impossible.
Your mission should you agree to
accept it…
Oh how I wish I would have thought of this line during the interview for
the job. The first question asked of me
was, “Why do you want to be hired for this job that requires you to go to four
school.” I laughed and said, “Well, I
didn’t know that the job required me to go to four schools.” Right then and there, I should have interviewed
the committee myself. I should have said,
“May I please visit these schools, speak with the teacher aides, and look at
the requirements of the job and determine just how the school district expects
me to fulfill these duties and requirements before I accept the job?”
I learned this life lesson about jobs a long time ago.
A little over twenty-five years ago, before my husband and I were to be
married, I applied for a job as an accounting assistant for a school
district. I had a B.S. in Business
Administration, and I was working as an accounting assistant in a non-profit in
Denver. Since I had much experience in
school district bookkeeping, and since I was moving to the town where the job
was located in a very short time because of my impending marriage, I thought
the job would be perfect. The salary was
low, too low for me to accept, so I negotiated for a higher salary. My husband-to-be (now my husband) said I’d
never get it. He said they would never
pay me what I was asking. They did. They gave the salary.
The others in the department were
not happy when I started the job because word had gotten around about my salary. Never mind that I had a degree which they did
not, and I had a great deal of experience.
In just a few days, the joke was on me.
What I should have done was ask to see the books before I took the
job. None of the accounts had been
balanced in over three months. Some
accounts had not been balanced in nearly a year. The report to the state was due in just a few
short months and all the books had to be balanced before work on the report
could even begin. All of this while
learning how the system associated with district worked.
I caught up the balancing of the books and completed the report for the
audit. In the meantime, after spending
five or six hours a day on the ten-key calculator or doing data entry on a ten
key computer pad, my hands no longer could even tell if I dropped something
until I heard the item hit the floor. I
couldn’t remove a paper clip from paper.
I had a very serious case of carpal tunnel. That job ended my career as a
bookkeeper/accounting technician.
After surgery for carpel tunnel syndrome, during the recovery time, I
was not allowed to work. In fact, my
doctor told me he would never release me to do that type of work again.
That is when I went back to school and earned a BA in English and a
certificate to teach Secondary Language Arts.
***************
All of the lessons of life are applicable in other areas. When I was interviewed for this most recent
teaching job, I just didn’t remember to ask that important question:
“May I
see the books before I start the job?”
In this case, I really should have visited the schools and seen the
entire scope of the job. If I had, the
famous line from Mission Impossible would have given me a true picture of
mission which I found impossible for me to do.
The job was not a good fit for me.
I do hope that some way, somehow, the needs of the students with limited
proficiency in using English in the academic setting will get the services they
deserve and are guaranteed for them under the laws which we currently have in
place.
***************
Today, February 7, 2017, a full week after I resigned, my husband said
to me this morning. “If you were
working, you still would not be well enough to go back to work.” He is right.
The virus has now settled in my chest.
I am more sick than I was a week ago.
Hopefully, this stubborn virus doesn’t hang on much longer. At least I am home, fully retired, and able
to do what I need to do to get well.
