featured in the NY Daily News | Dec. 5, 2022
I shut myself in my office, hoping to avoid teary goodbyes and my own inevitable breakdown. It was the last day of my career as a teacher and administrator. I opened my desk drawer to gather my personal belongings, aiming to pack quickly and dash to the nearest exit. In the pen tray was my college name tag, its tea-leaf logo prominently displayed. Beside it was the mangled paper-clip chain my colleagues and I had cobbled together, makeshift tinsel for the office Christmas tree. Under yellowed registration forms was a paperweight — a single red rosebud encased in acrylic — given to me by Tomas, a student I’d shepherded through his English composition class. I cradled it a moment, then carefully wrapped it in a sheet of newsprint and tucked it in the box.
On that momentous day, I could not have imagined that a mere six years later, presidential hopeful Mike Pompeo would declare the head of the country’s second-largest teachers union the world’s “most dangerous person.” Or that he would go on to assert that what I and my colleagues were teaching was “filth.” Because although six years ago, teachers were just as overburdened and underpaid as they are now, they still enjoyed some modicum of respect in the broader community. Back then, it seemed that people generally accepted this truth: choosing to teach is an act of the heart.
In the few years since my retirement, the anti-education rhetoric has gotten louder, more pervasive and noxious by degrees. This hateful language is meant to divert the attention of voters, to convince them that the care and dedication they witness every day in their children’s classes is a fraud. Looking for scapegoats upon whom to heap the blame for their own political impotence, right-wing conservatives have amassed a pile of perceived ills and targeted teachers as their newest scapegoat. We have been called “groomers,” “activists in disguise,” a “woke mob.” A relative suggested to me that colleges are simply factories designed to churn out the next generation of communists.
I can dismiss these insults because I know what I was about. My goal as an English teacher was to help people to better their communication skills and, by extension, their lives. When students worked on persuasive essays, I taught them how to substantiate their own arguments, regardless of their perspectives, political or otherwise. My job was to encourage young people to think critically, to fortify their reasoning skills and distinguish credible sources from bogus ones.
Later, as department dean, I got a true education about my own profession. Tasked with evaluating others, what I observed were teachers encouraging students to read deeply, to deconstruct and interpret data, to form their own conclusions; teachers with an instinct for drawing students out, for creating an atmosphere that allowed them to grow; teachers demonstrating that no one was more important in that moment than a student with a comment, an inquiry or even a reservation. What I saw was generosity, patience, dedication. Thus, my outrage over Pompeo’s comments is more about them, my distinguished colleagues, and the rest of our nation’s respected teachers.
Still, outrage is hardly the point. The conservative in-crowd needs to be careful about what it wishes. At the same time it seeks to micromanage teachers, as right-leaning PACs dump millions into school board elections and as they, in turn, ban books that dare to display our actual history or diversity, too many of our most devoted educators have had enough. They’ve exited the profession in droves, leaving America with an unprecedented teacher shortage. In some states, classroom doubling has become a quick fix, as has hiring unqualified individuals who lack not only certification but subject matter expertise and even college degrees.
These trends could not have occurred at a more critical juncture, when students are struggling to recover from the pandemic’s effect on their academic progress. Ironically, the most ardent right-wing conservatives are the very same people who argued so vehemently during the pandemic for a return to face-to-face classroom instruction.
On my last day of work as I pulled thumbtacks loose, freeing the photos, newspaper articles and certificates from my bulletin board, I examined each relic of the life I would leave: my smiling ESL students in their green caps and gowns, arms outstretched around each other’s shoulders, a certificate with a bold headline “Teachers Who Made a Difference.” I slid them beside my other precious mementos and fitted the cover on the box. One last time, I turned to look at the empty room, the yellowed rectangles that had framed my photos the only sign that I’d been there at all. But I didn’t despair. I knew my colleagues remained to carry on, to teach with integrity, probably better than I ever could.
Now, I can only hope they are still there.
Boulanger is a writer and educator.
Originally Published: December 5, 2022 at 5:00 AM EST
