When a Teacher Fails

Do you have a teacher you still think of from time to time? Most people do. Sometimes it is because the teacher made some positive impact on their life. They push the students to explore new heights. They believe in the student when no one else does.

I was lucky when it came to my teachers, but there was one who always stuck with me. She was my Honors Algebra 2 teacher. It was the first time I made a B in any class (outside of art). Every day was a struggle to keep up and comprehend the material. She never gave up on me. She worked with me after school, giving up her personal time in the process. She didn’t give me an inch. I earned everything. She made me a stronger student and a stronger person. Math was always my least favorite subject, but she became my favorite teacher simply by challenging me while giving me the support I needed and the space to grow. Luckily, I was able to thank her when I became a teacher. I actually didn’t realize how much she influenced my teaching style until I started writing this. Her careful balance of pushing and support is what I drive to mimic every day. It is almost an impossible task, and messing up can stick with a child forever.

The teachers who stick with us are not always there for positive reasons. Some teachers haunt us because of their mistakes. Some teachers make these mistakes because they just don’t care. Teaching is just a job. Sometimes it is due to youth and inexperience. Many people who become teachers are still basically children themselves. It is a lot of responsibility to get right.

Also, we are all just human. It just takes a moment to slip up while juggling the needs of thirty diverse students.

Most kids, whether they show it or not, are constantly watching and learning from adults. They especially place teachers on a unique pedestal in their minds. The older they get, the more this erodes, but teachers often lay the foundation with our words and actions.

I don’t know about other teachers, but I take this responsibility seriously. Teachers can stick with us, but it goes both ways for me. Some kids I’ve taught will stick with me forever. Some are for positive reasons, but some because I failed them. Those fails will forever haunt me.

This failure haunts me the most. I was about four years into teaching, hitting my stride in many ways but facing one of my most difficult groups.

At the end of the day, I taught a double-block class for struggling readers. At least, this is how they sold the class to me. Instead, it was a class for troublemakers, students with criminal records, and students with very little English.

I put a lot into the class, and by the end, there were many successes. It is the failures that haunt you though, right? A few of the students were expelled despite my best efforts to motivate them to stay out of trouble.

We will call the student I couldn't help Zy’kera. She came into the class prepared to cause as much hell as possible. She hated authority and she let everyone know it. Adults were the enemy. She didn’t want to be bothered by them. She also didn’t want to do her work.

I spent a lot of time talking to Zy’kera despite her eye rolls. I gently nudged her to do her work, but the initial weight was on relationship building. She slowly opened up to me over the semester.

By the second semester, she had a C in my class and shared most of her problems with me. She was staying out of trouble and working to get her grades up in all of her classes.

One day Zy’kera came to class with a bruised face. It was clear someone had beaten her. Remember, I teach her at the end of the day. No other adult checked on her.

She told me her mother’s boyfriend did it. He threw her to the ground, got on top of her, and hit her in the face multiple times. This same man would walk around naked in front of her and make sexual innuendos.

Needless to say, I went to guidance and DSS.

I legally couldn’t do anything else, but Zy’kera kept me up to date. DSS came to the house and told the mother the boyfriend needed to leave. He left.

A week later he wrote some love notes on scraps of paper and the mother let him return.

Around the same time, Zy’kera was caught skipping class. She cursed out the principal and was expelled. At the time, I usually received an invite to the hearing if a student was up for expulsion.

I didn’t receive a notice this time, and she was gone before I could ask questions.

I went to her guidance counselor to figure out what was going on. Disrespecting an adult was grounds for suspension, but not expulsion.

The guidance counselor gave me the following reasons for expulsion:

1. She was going to fail her classes. This was not true. She was close to passing all of her classes at that point, and she had a strong C in my challenging class.
2. She had too many referrals. Zy’kera only had 4 referrals. I confirmed this with her guidance counselor. I taught students in Zy’kera’s class with over 50 referrals.
3. She was 16 in the ninth grade. She was too old. I also taught a 17 year old in the ninth grade. It seemed like an excuse to justify getting rid of her.

That’s it.

Zy’kera was really expelled because the principal wanted her gone. He felt disrespected and wanted to prove a point. The other adults seemingly didn’t care either. She was stubborn and hard to motivate. If she was gone, their lives were easier.

The saddest part of this is the absent parent. My students with 50 referrals were still in school because their parents fought to keep them in school. This mother couldn’t even bother to pick up the phone for the expulsion hearing.

I attempted to talk to the principal about Zy’kera’s situation, but I stopped short of truly pushing back.

I made her life more difficult by reporting her situation to DSS, and then I didn’t truly fight to keep her in school.

I never saw Zy’kera again. I don’t know where she is or if she is okay now. It was years ago. I hope she is better.

It still eats at me.