I got laid off

Dear Readers,

I got laid off from my job as a middle school drama teacher.

About five or six other first-year teachers got laid off, too, from the middle school. The principal made it clear that it was because of budget cuts, and not because of my performance. He said he would write me a letter of reccomendation.

That's nice.

I bet that if I wouldn't have quit at the high school last October, I would have been able to work there again next year.

In a way it's sad, but in another way, I'm glad.

I've got a few job leads that I'm working on.

Anyway...

I recently sent this email to a lady (I'll call her "Y") who is in charge of professional development for first and second year teachers at the school where I teach.

Y,

I don’t think I’ll be attending the meeting, and I don’t think I’ll complete the BEST program. I got laid off. And I’m not planning on being a teacher again next year, anywhere. I don’t think teaching is for me. Of course I’ll still try to do an OK job for the next 5 weeks, though.

This semester has been a little better than last semester, but I wanted to say that you were right- a whole month of rehearsals made classroom management a big issue again. I did teach a few mini-lessons like you suggested, and tried to keep the students meaningfully busy while others were rehearsing, but in order to get these plays ready on time, we need to devote large chunks of class time to rehearsals, and the classes are getting pretty squirrelly and blah blah blah. But I’m handling it pretty well. The show must go on.

Thanks for all your help. You really did help me while I was here. I can tell you really care about teaching and I can tell that you’re a great teacher. I’ve been really impressed with a lot of the teachers around here. They do an amazing job. Both my mentors, ----------- at the high school and --------- at the middle school were wonderful teachers.

I feel like I ought to apologize to the district for not doing the job I said I would do when I got hired. I feel very ashamed of the things that went on in my classroom because I was not doing a good job with classroom management. Very ashamed. I feel ashamed of the way some of my students treated each other on my watch. They were very disrespectful to each other. And I feel ashamed of the way I let some students treat me sometimes. And I feel ashamed of the way I robbed my students of the good educational experience they deserve.

There were a few positive things that happened in my classes, though. There were times when good things were happening and I think the students learned at least a little bit.

And I feel like I ought to apologize to you for wasting a lot of your time. It must be frustrating to work on developing first year teachers, and then to have them quit/get laid off or whatever.

Well, again, thanks for all your help Y, and I’ll see you later.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa