Ambivalent Teacher for Hire

You can't be caring and competent and teach poor kids.


And to be clear: I say "can't" in the sense of, there is not a school I've seen or heard of that is set up to serve students properly.

There are many teachers who are caring. I am trying to withhold all my elitist lip curling disgust at teachers who want to save the children. They are being kind. But you can't teach someone if you believe you possess the power to save them.


You can be a competent teacher. However you will be an island. An isolated island of awesome teacher/classroomness. In a sea of medium/criminal.

You can even be a caring and competent teacher, but either you won't do it for long, or you will spiritually and physically burn yourself out if you are teaching poor children. Teaching in a context of poverty is less of a problem because of the material constraints. It is a problem that children are hungry. It is a problem that children do not have stable housing. But excellent teaching of poor and oppressed people happens all around the world.

I find being a teacher with high internal standards of professionalism and being emotionally invested in my relationships to students exhausting because of the psychological context my work has occurred in. To have a vision of what school could be, to have a vision of how students should be treated, and then to consistently seek to do your best work in circumstances so dismal they should be considered educational malpractice is to put oneself under a millstone.

As my respite from teaching comes to a close I am undeclared. I can compromise and teach the students I feel called to work with. I can compromise and teach in a context I see as closer to what every child deserves.

Or, I can not teach.

I'll ammend: You can't be caring and competent and teach poor kids without paying a steep price. And I can start laying my best plans for my own school. But my best laid plans won't pay the bills.

Ambivalent teacher for hire.