Why I Left MOST Schools

First off, I really dislike talking to people who don't understand the use of quantifiers and toss around words like ALL and NONE casually. This is why I used the word MOST in the title of this post. MOST does not mean ALL.

I have taught at many schools both at the secondary and college levels and I actually was never fired from any of them and just resigned. Why fire someone willing to work like a dog for peanuts and spend their own money on pizzas for math club meetings?

If I was at a school which had a significant number of underrepresented students who were doing poorly in math and I concluded that

THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO TO CHANGE THE CULTURE OF THE SCHOOL/DEPARTMENT

I left.

Obviously, someone could disagree with my assessment of the school/department, but it really was just my assessment.

I was on a mission and I concluded that there was no way my mission would be successful if I was fighting colleagues and administrators, in addition to the inertia of an existing school culture, and I wasn't going to waste time trying. Life is short.

My "leaving criteria" begs the question as to how I would arrive at the conclusion that there was nothing I could do to change the culture of the school and department?

It was actually unfortunately very easy. For example

• If a colleague acted shocked that I had solved a problem, as in the recent ARML anecdote.
• Or if an administrator said something like, "I can see how you could be intimidated by your colleagues." Incidentally, I wasn't even a little bit intimidated and to imagine I would be was ridiculous.

Obviously, there were many of these comments and I rendered my verdict when I had heard enough of them. I was always puzzled why anyone would imagine that I would put up with this nonsense.

I concluded that few, if any, black and Latinx students will ever excel at this school in math. How could they? Apparently these people think I'm an idiot too, is what I would say to myself, and it isn't even a good place to be a black teacher, let alone student. Sometimes, I would make an effort to see how these schools had evolved over time, and I never saw any evidence contradicting my assessment and I was glad I had not invested 10 years in a losing battle. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, you should never fight the enemy on their turf. 

The only school I was ever sad about leaving was Chicago State University.  The school always had an enormous number of issues, but I was finally beginning to achieve exactly what I was trying to achieve all along: a functioning math club which was helping to train students at a higher level to prepare them for possible success in advanced work. For a few wonderful years it was a beautiful thing....until it all fell apart. On second thought, correction: I wasn't actually sad about leaving, I was just sad it all fell apart. What a waste.

I am grateful for that time, but I regard it as a tragic squandered opportunity to do something for the students on the south side of Chicago who like math and computer science, but will never be welcome at a school like University of Chicago for example.  Hopefully, someone resurrected the math and computer science club.

Note: Why did I say MOST not ALL you ask? Well, for example, I left New Trier High School because I did not think I was a sufficiently dedicated teacher. I was a bit naive and thought that I would have the time and energy to work on my PhD in math (not education) and also volunteer on Saturdays in the hood/barrio coaching math teams. Ridiculous. I barely had the time and energy to grade all of my papers. The truth is that  there were very few underrepresented students at New Trier when I taught there so there was literally nothing to complain about on that front.