Teaching—Why I Left.

“I know what you’re doing, and I don’t like it,” the student’s mother said to me across the folding lunch table in the school’s cafeteria. It was Parent-Teacher conferences, the Thursday before Spring Break, March of 2020. The coronavirus was spreading rapidly, everything was unknown and uncertain, yet there we were, carrying on with conferences as if the world wasn’t on the verge of changing forever. 

“I’m sorry. What do you mean?” I said, confused. The student in question, Francis, was one of my better and brighter students in a honors-level sophomore Humanities course: a blend of American literature and history, from Reconstruction to the present. They were attentive in class, timely and thoughtful with submitted work, and we seemed to have a good relationship, so the mother’s accusation threw me off. 

“Francis tells me what you all talk about in class, and it goes against everything we stand for in our household,” she said, her voice beginning to rise. 

“What do you mean? Can you give me a specific example?” I said, swallowing nervously. My mouth had gone dry. 

“First of all, you shouldn’t be talking about abortion in class. What does abortion have to do with anything?” 

“We talked about abortion because it comes up in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. We talked about it in the context of the play, as it relates to poverty and economic inequality in Black communities, as they relate to systemic racism.” 

“Systemic racism doesn’t exist. That’s a lie. Also, I don’t think English and history ought to be taught together. What you all are doing with this “Humanities” class is wrong and shouldn’t be offered.” 

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but teaching them both together vastly improves one’s understanding of both subjects. You can’t really separate one from the other. Both shape each other. Besides, Francis chose to take the class.” 

“Whatever. And what were you doing talking about Trump’s impeachment? What did that have to do with anything?” she yelled and pounded on the table.  

“We talked about it because it was an actual historical event in the making. It had never happened in the history of this country before, that a sitting president faced impeachment,” I said and looked around. I could feel the eyes and ears of the other parents and teachers around us focused on our conversation. I searched for an administrator.  “I felt like I would be doing the students a disservice if we didn’t talk about it.” 

“But he wasn’t impeached! Why were you talking about Trump being impeached when he wasn’t even impeached. It’s all a hoax…a witch hunt!” 

“Yes, he was indeed impeached. The House of Representatives voted to impeach him,” I said and tried to remain calm, but could feel my face redden, my voice rise. 

“See! Right there, the way you are talking to me, shows your bias! The students shouldn’t know your political leanings!” 

“How does pointing out the fact that Trump was impeached show my political leanings?” 

“Because it isn’t a fact! He wasn’t impeached! It’s all lies by the liberal elitists, like you, trying to indoctrinate our children!”

“If we can’t even agree on what facts are, I don’t really see a point to continuing this discussion. Francis is doing well. They have an A in the class. Thank you for your time.” 

“That’s great. Francis is doing well despite you. Francis actually hates your class, and all your liberal bullshit,” she snarled. Her eyes enlarged, then narrowed. “Just remember, in my house we’re on the Trump 2020 Revenge Train, bitch! And we’re coming for you!” she said, rose from the bench, and stormed off. 

Before I left Chaparral High School in Parker, Colorado, a large school in the Douglas County School District, we in the English Department were tasked with opening a conversation with how to make our curriculum more equitable and inclusive. This was an initiative and directive that came not just from the principal, but from the district-level. Such a directive was great news for us in the Chaparral English Department, as it was something nearly all of us had been advocating for several years, were already doing. Intentionally, many of us already taught a diverse curriculum, bringing in more voices of women and People of Color, to what had been a historically white, male book room and reading list for students, catering to a mostly white, heteronormative student population. In my cohort, we began what would become a great conversation, focusing an entire unit on Indigenous Native American poetry, primarily by women. 

However, throughout the conversation there was a sense of dread, an undercurrent of apprehension. Not because anyone was against a more inclusive and diverse literary experience for the mostly-white, but increasingly diverse, student population at the school. Far from it, as many of the teachers in the English Department: kind, thoughtful, and dedicated professionals, had increasingly been accused of being “social justice warriors,” trying to “indoctrinate” the youth at the school with “liberal wokeness,” against the wishes and better judgement of the parent community. We were just doing what we were supposed to be doing—teaching students to care about other people’s stories, using literature to boost the critical thinking skill of empathy, trying to help young people grow up and be functioning members of pluralistic civil society. No one at this time was specifically accusing any of us of teaching Critical Race Theory, or CRT. No one in our department, or anyone else in the district, actually taught it. Those words, and the great boogeyman they invoked, hadn’t yet exploded onto the tongues of every conservative Republican across the country. So, as we discussed great Indigenous poets and writers, and the themes arising from their work, this sense of doom permeated the conversation. 

“We have to think about how we are going to frame this unit in a way that is going to be non-threatening to that segment of parents that don’t want their students to know anything about the country’s racist past,” the co-chair said. “And be prepared to offer an alternative unit of study for those who wish to opt-out.” 

“This is such bullshit,” a colleague of mine said. “I am not going to develop two sets of curriculum for everything I do, just to appease the racist Trump-lovers.” 

“Enrollment is already down. We’re losing kids to the charter schools popping up all around us. If we don’t find a way to thread this needle, we may be looking at cutting staff.” We bit the bullet and completed the work, creating a Google Doc of poems, poets, websites, and activities for future use. But the damage, the latest blow to an already injured moral, was done. By this time, I had already decided I would leave the school, had already resigned my position. I could see what would happen in the coming school year. Fights over masks and CRT. I had already been threatened by that parent on the “Trump Train.” After I left, the newly-elected conservative majority met in secret to fire the superintendent for his insistence on the diversity and inclusion policy and masks, a 26-year servant to the district. It made national headlines, like when several Chaparral students took pictures in front of a Confederate flag, with AR-15’s, before going to prom. Two of the students were mine, and they were both young Women of Color. And they wondered why we needed more diversity in the curriculum.

Through all this, in addition to school shootings, the pandemic, perpetual funding crises and poor pay, my love and desire to keep teaching—my life’s work, my true calling—had drained. I am not alone, and I fear for what this all means for the future of public education, and for the present and future of our nation.