abandoning the cause

i lost my job a few months ago. it was my first "big girl job," and i lasted all of six months before budget issues sent me packing (hypothetically speaking. in reality, i found out sitting in my bedroom on a google meet call.) last one in, first one out, they said.

supposedly, it's a good thing that i was laid off instead of fired, but the indignity burns the same. it wasn't my dream job, but more often than not, the days were good. i liked the people, i liked being able to pay my bills and have extra for discretionary spending (aka clothes i didn't need or a sweet treat), and i liked the security of knowing that even if i wasn't crazy about any of our clients, at least i wasn't still writing cover letters for applications i would never get a response to. 

now i'm back to writing cover letters for applications i might never get a response to. 

if, after finishing undergrad a year ago, i had just done what i was supposed to do—what i took out [REDACTED] dollars in student loans to do—i would've recently started my second year teaching high school english. the magic of the back to school season would only mildly color each day before they inevitably devolved into a restless crawl toward the nearest break. i would probably have a good grasp of everyone's names and personalities, strengths and weaknesses, wants and needs, and i would hopefully be establishing rapport with my colleagues, building a sense of belonging and a network of support. 

i also think i'd be struggling with the early start time and crashing as soon as i got home, which was my experience at both of my student teaching placements during my final year of college. when my observational period ended and i was expected to deliver lessons with less and less input from my mentor teachers, i felt out of my depth for probably 85% of my time in front of the students. once i was on my own, the "real adult" in the room, i can't say i'd be any more confident.

one of the most universal pieces of advice i heard from everyone from my professors to teacher content creators is that no one has a good first year. despite the best efforts of prep programs, there's just no way to predict or prepare for everything that might come up. as a first year teacher, you have a much smaller resource bank to draw from than a veteran who has a better understanding of what works and what doesn't, but hopefully, i'd be able to pull on at least a few lessons and strategies from the previous year to help prevent burning out.

but the idea of burning out felt so shameful that i feared it long before i was even certified. yes, teachers are usually asked to do way more than they're compensated for, and creating and implementing lesson plans and assess students (the ostensible point of the job) often has to take a backseat to dealing with everything from behavior issues to state test preparations. burnout is normal, even expected. i wouldn't have an ounce of judgment for any teacher who decides to prioritize themselves by leaving the profession.

the judgment i know i'd have for myself, on the other hand, would be so great it wouldn't register on the scales, especially if i had majority Black and brown students. i can count the number of teachers of color i had before high school on one hand, and even past then, it was more likely that i'd be in the class of a white woman more than any other demographic. 

i usually didn't mind this. rather, i minded, but it had little to do with the teacher herself. with few exceptions, the white women who taught me from kindergarten to my final semester of undergrad were universally kind, at least to me. as a little Black girl, i didn't know anything about institutional racism or the school-to-prison pipeline—i just knew that i liked school, i wanted my teachers to like me, and i wanted to be like them when i grew up. 

ironically, i spent a lot of the year i had my first Black female teacher worried she disliked me. in reality, she probably just had high standards for me that she expressed more firmly than i was used to. but at the time, i feared her criticism, which i always perceived as a killing blow no matter how minor the wound.

as much as i wish i could, i can't go back in time to get a more objective view of my teachers and their flaws. as just one child out of many in the classroom, my largely pleasant experience with them can't account for days when they were overwhelmed, how they reacted to students who weren't so fixated on being (or at least appearing) "good," and most importantly, the biases and prejudices that surely got taken out on my classmates of color who were less assimilated to their expectations.

just like anyone in a more or less privileged position, i'm not in control of the circumstances i was born and raised in. as lukewarm of a take as this is, it took me a long while to truly accept this and stop feeling like i needed to repent by giving up my earthly possessions, becoming a nun, or traveling to another country to experience the suffering of citizens of the so-called "third world." 

one of my favorite novels of all time, imbolo mbue's behold the dreamers, has a subplot where one of the side characters does exactly this, dropping out of columbia law school to move to india in an attempt to distinguish himself from his wall street father and socialite mother. westerners "finding themselves" in foreign countries is nothing new, but the idea that in doing so, i'd be leveling the playing field is admittedly a delusion of my own creation. after all, how would my own struggle ease the struggles of others? 

we don't get to follow the character in behold the dreamers during his time abroad, but i have to imagine that his perspective on the "good" he's bringing to his new environment differs from that of the people on the receiving end. i've always feared becoming that kind of teacher, so fixated on my own intentions for my students' futures that i neglect their experience in the present. 

and you can't mess up if you never try. there were a number of reasons i didn't go into the classroom, but all of them were overshadowed by my fear of failure. i was fortunate enough that my positive experiences with teachers had more of an impact than my negative ones, but that's essentially a crapshoot. knowing that, by the time my students reached my classroom, they could have had any number of negative experiences in school that their previous teachers were oblivious to, ignored, or played a role in made me want to help them as much as it paralyzed me with fear. 

can i give myself grace for recognizing that i wasn't equipped to handle something so intense? or is it a show of cowardice to shirk my duty to an area that needs more well-trained practitioners? i never know how much i'm allowed to absolve myself.