Why I Quit Teaching - Part II - The Kids

I spent fourteen years teaching, mostly in upper elementary and middle schools. I endured the last year as a high school English teacher. That year definitely confirmed some notions that I had about the educational system.
Given the title of this post, you might think I am going to rant about how awful kids are today. Well, they are awful but I won't rant about the fact. I think they have probably been awful ever since adolescence was invented a hundred years ago so there is little new there for me to say in that direction.

My favorite students were, for the most part, those that did poorly in my class. This bothered me a great deal. It wasn't that they were unintelligent. In fact, these favorite students of mine were generally very bright. They just didn't buy into the bullshit set-up that higher education is or has become. Mostly boys, these students were simply putting up with school until they could join the military or get a vocational job. However, when I spoke with them, I could see and hear their innate intelligence and, in many cases, a sort of wisdom others might call street smarts.

My best students, the ones that kept their grades up and carefully reviewed all grade reports to make sure that they were accurate, were awful people. Sure, they possessed a certain body of knowledge and were able to complete assignments on time and more than adequately. But they were also uninspiring, boring and small-minded. Equally disenchanted with the educational system as my worst students, they had long ago surrendered to despair and dryly tapped out their lifeless writing assignments and other paperwork so that they could qualify for whatever scholarship or school they sought.

Of course, the student body did not exist in this perfect dichotomy. There were good students that were also pleasant people and plenty of scumbags that did poorly in my classes. But the trend noted above was significant and disturbed me all year.

Now, it would be easy to blame me for this issue and say that I should have struggled to inspire those favorite students of mine so that they would perform. And I admit I am not a perfect teacher and that maybe someone else could have turned things around. I certainly tried to do so. But in my opinion, after so many years in the classroom, the problem is with the system.