I guess first and foremost I should emphasize my resignation really had nothing to do with my students except in tangential and collateral damage sorts of ways. If I continue to do theatre stuff down the road, and I plan to, then I want to continue to work primarily with young people. And maybe even some of those great kids I left behind. The main conflicts were more due to my own inner thoughts, feelings, and philosophies played out against a very broken bureaucracy of public education; my students were one of the very, very few bright spots in the situation.
Major reason Numero Uno: Not a good fit. Dave Ramsey (financial guru) has this bus analogy for the employer/employee relationship that works well here. The idea is that the employer and the employee want to make sure not only that the employee is on the right bus (i.e., company, division in a company, etc.), but that he is in the right seat (i.e., the right job for his skills, temperament, etc.). Well, when I interviewed for the position, I believed I was being offered a particular seat: drama teacher with a couple of English classes until I could grew the program. When school started I was in essence "told" through actions and directives that seat didn't really exist, and I was to take this seat over here: English teacher with a side of drama. There is much, much more that goes into this — such as unfulfilled expectations on both sides of the equation, some compromising of my own convictions, and on and on — but the end result is that the "fit" wasn't there. So much so that the process for my termination due to ineffectiveness was begun. Now, the powers that be would probably publicly deny that assertion,
Another reason I have alluded earlier: the very broken bureaucracy of public education. Public education is no longer about educating students. It is about money, federal money. As much as I support President Bush in most things, No Child Left Behind has shattered public education. Public school systems now worship at the altar of the all-mighty AYP (Acceptable Yearly Progress). Schools and school systems must meet certain AYP goals every year in order to get that federal handout. The results of this for the teacher are profound and reach to the very core of teaching. One practical result is the explosion of bureaucratic paperwork that is heaped on teachers in efforts to "document" ... well ... everything. Bottom line: teachers are told exactly what to teach, how they are to teach it, when and what to document (everything, all the time) it, and the repercussions of not doing it. Unreasonable amounts of time are utterly wasted with this. Teaching is nothing like the profession it was when I left in '97.
When I left teaching in '97, I had a deep-seated conviction that public education was not the place for me. It wasn't the same profession I'd entered years before. So, you can see how far removed it is now from what I entered 20-or-so years ago. In '06, because nothing else seemed available to me, I compromised that conviction and took a job back in a public school. I now view that as a mistake. (If any former students are reading this, please do not hear what I'm not saying. My getting to know and work with you was not a mistake, that was a positive reward, a gift I didn't deserve, for compromising in the first place. You kept me going for as long as I did.)
Other things that factored into my decision ... Lack of sleep and high level of stress because of all the aforementioned. The way this particular position (teacher, whether drama or English or anything else) takes over one's whole life; it is all-consuming. It is amazing how all waking (and some sleeping) moments are given over to some aspect of teaching (instruction, planning, documenting, grading, creating lesson plans and curriculum, discipline, developing assessments, thinking about all this stuff, and much much more). Building up drama programs is probably more a young person's game than for someone who's approaching the big five-oh.
Time was also a big issue, or the lack thereof. There are more important things in my life other than the work I do. Things that are more important to me include, in no particular order: my wife, my children (and two sons-in-law), my grandsons, my church, my own spiritual and physical health. As I said above, this job (teaching) is all-consuming. Yet I tried to make it not be and make sure I made time for these things I am convinced are more important. That necessitated some of the teaching things not to get done in time or, possibly, not done at all. Bureaucracies don't like that.
Well, this post is probably long enough. I hope I have given some sense of what was behind my decision to walk away from teaching. There are other things that contributed to my decision, and even those things mentioned here are only really the surface of those issues. I had higher hopes almost 16 months ago, and I'm sad that it didn't work out. I just couldn't tough it out anymore; my strength was gone.
I certainly have some challenges ahead of me, but I'm fully convinced I'm back on the right track. It's not really a good time to be making a change like this, what with the economy the way it is and all, but as I trust in the Lord, He will make straight paths for my feet (Prov. 3:5&6). That, along with the many family and friends who have shown their support, gives me much comfort.
