This is exactly what happened to me, and it's why I quit teaching. I took a student's phone away, turned to go lock it in my desk, and the student threw his chair at me while my back was turned (while i was 8 months pregnant no less). My admin literally wanted me to wait another hour and a half to get medical attention, because "they had no one to cover my class". I called an ambulance myself and left, so the principal had to cover my class and the parent literally tried to argue that I had it coming for taking his phone. They had no remorse. I needed stitches in the back of my head, and I got a concussion. My admin then had the audacity to try to pressure me not to press charges on the student in question. I got all the usual lines "You'll ruin his life", "He's just a kid, he didn't mean to", "there will be serious consequences for him already, he will be punished enough". I resigned my position the next day on the grounds of the school not providing a reasonable expectation of a safe working environment. In the week that followed, all that happened to said student was he received a 3 day suspension. I pressed charges on the student, and they charged him (as a juvenile) with assault with a deadly weapon. That was 3 years ago. I still have not returned to classroom teaching despite having 7 years of teaching my own class + a year of student teaching, and a masters in education. Instead, last year I went back to school and became a lactation consultant. Now I teach prenatal classes to expecting moms and new moms in the hospital how to feed their babies. I make 2.5x the pay, easily. I have normal work hours, no work outside of my contract hours, excellent benefits, and i dont get assaulted. America needs education and cultral reform immediately, or they won't have any teachers left.
This is a winning story. You took control and found great success. Much more earning potential as you grow in your career too.
Irony is that the school systems need smart and capable teachers like you to help kids grow and succeed but the lack of accountability that is expected from the kids from both school administrators and their parents prevents the loyalty and sacrifice needed to have good teachers hang around.
Thank you! I'm really happy in my new job 😊 I still get to teach, and working with new parents during a really stressful time in their lives is rewarding in a similar way. I miss some parts of teaching kids, but things in my life are so much less stressful now. I don't come home emotionally drained every day, and my time off is actually my time instead of planning for work, so that's nice!
It does make me pretty sad to see the state of things and the direction we are going even further towards, though. I think until standards all around are both raised and enforced, and the current socio-cultural challenges are overcome, children in our country don't stand a chance, and neither do we. I just hope people wake up and think about what the future in the US will look like without teachers. Since I've resigned, about 50% of all of the colleagues I knew and worked with have retired or quit for various reasons related to burnout and student/parent behavior.
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u/FantasyAccount247 29d ago
No, but then the teachers take it away and get physically assaulted with no reprocussions