sold

Well, as of yesterday, I am officially leaving my school, going to give it a shot at a charter school in Harlem (don't worry, not this one).

This was the worst choice I've ever had to make. I think I know what my kids need. And if I've done nothing else, I've tried like hell to give it to them. I've spent three years thinking of almost nothing else. And now I'm just another TFA guy who left. That's it.

I'm not sick of the kids. I love them. I want them to have a great math teacher more than anything else. When they do the "wrong thing", academic or otherwise, a little part of me (or, many times, all of me) cries because I know I did the wrong thing. And wrong thing upon wrong thing upon wrong thing has become too much for me to bear. I haven't given up on them. I have a ton of respect for all of my kids; so much that it breaks my heart to know they have an inadequate math teacher. In a way, I've given up on me. I don't have the answers, and I came to realize that I don't think I'm going to find them at my school, at least not at a pace I could be satisfied with. I've lost hope that I can be the teacher I see in my head here.

To make matters worse, my school is a bizarro world kind of place where I walk home every day wondering how I could ever be effective, but I am constantly put on a pedestal for being a model teacher. I receive a ton of praise from a ton of people. I get smiles, slaps on the back, thank yous, technology, and the freedom to do whatever I want. I'm not tooting my horn; this drives me nuts when I see and I know how much my kids aren't learning about math, self-respect, personal responsibility, pride, teamwork, justice and active citizenship. To name a few.

Why didn't they learn it? Because I didn't teach it to them. Because I don't know how to pull it all off.

So what do I want? I want to get better. I want to be more effective. I want to be that teacher. I became convinced where I'm going next year will help with that. Maybe I will get my ass kicked. Likely, I will. But if it makes me learn and get better, so be it. And then maybe I can take what I've learned and go somewhere, build something, do something. While dealing with my own inner charter turmoil somehow.

When I first joined TFA, before I ever even picked up the chalk, I had dinner with a guy who was leaving at the end of his two years. He told me, "I just can't be around all this failure." I see it now too, only the failure is all mine.