Why I Quit School

In January of 2011, I became a statistic, and some say part of the reason our education system is failing our kids.  The previous August I started my second career teaching sixth grade Language Arts at a Title 1 school in Jacksonville, Florida.  I did not make it to the end of the second semester. 

It is to this point one of the great failures in my life, but it was not because I did not work at it.  It was the hardest job I have ever had.  My contract required me to report for duty at 8:50 and stay until 4:10, but the reality was I was at work by 7:00 and often times did not leave until 5:30 or later.  I spent hours upon hours working at home and gave up at least one of my weekend days every weekend.  This is not uncommon for new teachers, and I did not mind the hard work.  I wanted to succeed.  I wanted to make a difference in the lives of the kids in my classroom, but the deck was stacked against me.

Maybe I was too old.  Perhaps I was too stuck in my ways, or maybe just too white to be relevant to a student population that was more than sixty percent non-white.  I wanted to be the teacher whose class was tough, but who made sure that the students knew I cared about them.  I wanted to impart my love of learning to them, to show them that education was the way to success.   I wanted them to know they did not have to allow their circumstances or their culture define who they were or what they could become.

Probably the biggest reason for my lack of success was the fact I accepted a job I should never have taken.  By academic training, I am a historian, but I took a position teaching Language Arts, English, as we used to call it.  I was already behind the eight-ball before the game even started.  Coupled with all the demands of a new teacher and the ridiculous curriculum and testing required by the state, things went downhill faster than an Olympic bobsled team. 

The people who claim teachers are lazy and the bottom of the academic barrel need to be slapped and sterilized, but not until they spend at least a semester in an urban school setting.  Just swooping in for one day and observing does not give a clue to the complexity of the situation.  Allow me to explain.

My student population was something else.  What a revelation.  We had an assignment for the kids to write a biographical essay.  As I went around the room checking their work and offering help I was shocked at what I read.  One boy was writing about the day that he saw his Uncle shot and killed during a drive by shooting.  Another student was describing the day her sibling drowned, while still another was recalling the night the police came in and arrested his stepdad for being a drug dealer, and how they hauled the man and the drugs out of the house.   Additionally, I had a student whose older sister, also a student at our school, had just tried unsuccessfully to kill herself by putting a gun to her chest and pulling the trigger.  She survived thank goodness, but who knows what has become of her since.  These are not stories that sixth graders should be telling.

I had kids in my classes that read on a second grade level.  Let me repeat that, a second grade reading level.  How did they get to sixth grade?  Who was responsible for these kids passing through the system as functional illiterates?  Most of my students were reading below grade level and very few if any had any desire to remedy the problem.  During a time of what is known as SSR, silent sustained reading, I approached one student who was obviously not reading and encouraged her to pick up her book and get started.  She replied very sternly, “I don’t read”, I said, “This is language arts sweetie, reading is what we do”; she reiterated, “I don’t read”.  How do you fix that?  I had set up a library in the back of the classroom with books acquired at my own expense, many were donated from other teachers, some were purchased at thrift stores, and all were approved by the state as appropriate for grade level.  I brought in the local paper everyday and kept a weekly supply of the paper in our reading area so that they could peruse whatever might interest them.  Most of these kids had no interest in being educated or in being informed of the world around them.  They did not see education as holding any value for them.

The mantra in Duval County Schools is to meet the students where they are.  So after I found I had kids several years behind grade level I asked permission to allow these students to begin reading material on the level they were at and then see if we couldn’t move them up a level or two before the end of the school year.  Oh no Mr. DeGrove, you must stick to the curriculum provided.  But they can’t read the current grade level curriculum I argued.  Stick to the curriculum they demanded, no variation from the county mandated plans.

Rookie teachers really are an island to themselves.  The experienced teachers are too busy with all that is required of them to be much help, although many gave encouragement and offered to help the truth was when I asked they simply did not have time.  Our grade level had four Language Arts teachers; three of us were first year teachers.  The experienced teacher had one year under her belt and half of that she spent on maternity leave.  The administrators would come in and observe the classroom and the instruction, leave a list of things I needed to do to improve and then leave.  I had the principal, three assistant principals, the standards coach, another administrator whose position I never figured out, a retired teacher from a mentoring program, and a few other well meaning folks visit my class and analyze me on a regular basis.  They all had time to criticize, but nobody had time to show me what to do to improve.

My students were not learning anything in my classroom.  I became discouraged, I became beaten down, and finally I just gave up.  It was more than I could take.  Everyone lost.  I lost a dream of a second career.  The school system lost a teacher who desperately wanted to succeed.  Most importantly and shamefully, the kids lost.  I was just another adult who did not keep his promise, another white guy who told them how much they mattered then walked out on them.  Our education system in Duval County is set up for failure, and at that, we have been successful.