Mx. Pixie's Mission: This is the Beginning
A new teacher in LA trying to make meaning out of the traumas experienced while working to update our education system to the 21st century
Hi comrade,
It’s Sunday morning and I sit at Silverlake Coffee. I have decided to start writing again on Substack because I feel substuck!! (punny!)
I am a high school English teacher and I feel trapped. I feel traumatized. My experience as a new teacher in LA feels worse than my experience being raped.
It’s a little too ironic because the reason one of the reasons I became a high school teacher was because I wanted to prevent other people from experiencing rape; to teach people to respect each other’s boundaries, be considerate, and listen to when someone says no.
Instead, when I tell my admin that teaching four different subjects and creating four hours of new content every day for the last year and a half is causing me health issues, and that I feel stressed and overwhelmed, they tell me that most teachers experience anxiety and that maybe I should take pills (because a lot of teachers take pills for anxiety). They tell me that there is nothing they can do about my workload, and that I just need to manage my stress and prioritize.
I have said no, I have said that I can’t do this amount of work and maintain my work boundaries of 8 hours five days a week. I said that I am working on Sundays and Saturdays and late into the evenings during the week and waking up at 5am, and it’s still not enough. I am saying that I am so exhausted and overstimulated from teaching four hours of new content everyday that I don’t have enough energy to take care of myself. More than that, I hate who I have to be after work trying to get my needs met, and most of the time I don’t get my needs met. My bucket is not refilled, and I go back and empty it.
I have told you why, because you gave me an unfair amount of work to do compared to other teachers (and that most teachers can barely cope with the usual amount of work you give us to do), and you say that you can do nothing about it. You say that I am the one that needs to change, that I am the one that needs to take pills.
I have said this at least monthly for the last year, and yet nothing changes. Instead you say, “Well, if you can’t do this, we might not need you next year.”
I say no over and over again, and yet you still don’t listen. And because I rely on you for my money, for my healthcare, for my retirement plan - I keep showing up every day. At least, when I was raped, I could say what needed to be said, then lock the door behind them, and never see them again.
I wanted to be a teacher so that I could share my love of reading and writing with young people, and do something meaningful for my community. Do I really need to tolerate this to do that?
Every week, I think about breaking up with teaching! I look at job sections, and think about returning to publishing. But then I think about my students. If I leave, they’ll get some substitute teacher and they’ll just replace me and keep doing the same shit.
If I leave, I will make a $10,000 pay cut and loose my pension and healthcare. If I leave, I’ll feel like I am letting America’s hedonistic mainstream culture win, and ignoring the powerful emotions and feelings that shout “THIS MAKES ME FEEL SICK AND NEEDS TO CHANGE.”
I knew when changing from Academic publishing to teaching that this would be hard, that I was choosing to put myself into a machine that has been documented to churn more than 40% of it’s employees burnt out and with breast cancer (American Association for Cancer Research).
I have decided to start writing and blogging actively about my experience as a teacher because I hope that instead of having to change careers for the third time, the education system can just improve!
My admin will not listen. My colleagues are not able to speak up. They have mortgages and families to support. I do not.
The only person I am legally responsible for supporting right now is myself. While I believe that I need others and that I need to have beautiful, mutually beneficial and healthy interdependent relationships in my life, because of my job, I am too tired to maintain them. I am too exhausted to be mutually beneficial. I just want to watch TV and take baths after work unless that person is able to take care of me.
This is a dark, low place in my life and because of this kind of thinking and feelings, I struggle to do the work I need to do to take care of my students academic needs and provide the education they deserve.
My admin cannot help me. My colleagues can validate me. But who can change this situation?
I have decided to document this journey I am on. I have decided to call this the beginning.
The last time I wrote like this, I was at the end of my journey working in publishing and trying to be a writer. That journey, I embarked on in high school when again my body screamed, “THIS MAKES ME FEEL SICK AND NEEDS to CHANGE”. A vision appeared that I wrote into a novel called Pretty Words where I would work in publishing and perform poetry and live in the hipster neighborhood. I would go to theater and galleries and festivals and farmers markets. I would know creative people and be a creative person.
I set off on that journey, and I lived it until my body spoke again, “THIS MAKES ME FEEL SICK AND NEEDS to CHANGE.” So I wrote again, How to Value Your Own Thoughts, and set off to become a teacher thinking that would make everything feel better.
If I am going to be honest, most of the time on the teacher journey my body has said, “THIS MAKES ME FEEL SICK AND NEEDS to CHANGE.” Instead of moving to Greece or quitting my job, I have made small improvements.
I knew that modernizing the education system would be a war not a battle. I am currently in a battle, and I need my comrades.
I am grateful for you, for not being alone in this war. I am grateful for your patience and grace and understanding ear.
Someone in my life said to me, “You have such a strong support system in LA, I don’t understand why you are struggling so much.”
At first, I felt guilty about this. My life should be so easy, I should be so grateful. After some reflection, I realized that I would always have struggles, but unlike people without strong support systems, I would be able to overcome them, to grow.
This is why I chose to dedicate my life to educating future adults instead of figuring out how to get people to read poorly written academic papers that aren’t even relevant to them, give emotional hand jobs to those who write them, and pay only administrators for their work.
For the last three years, I have tried to keep my professional life separate from my personal life, but for me, teaching is personal. I care so fucking much.
And I need help. I need a team, a battalion. If you feel called to join me on this mission, please keep reading.
Sincerely yours,
Sammy