If ifs and buts were candy and nuts….

Last night when I went to bed, my mother made an uncomfortable statement about the dream she had had the previous night.  She dreamed that she was in the classroom, and she was trying unsuccessfully to get control of her class.  My mother did not always have trouble getting control of her class, but in her last years, just before she retired, she did, and she did not always have support of her administration and the staff.  Upon reflection, she said that her life would have been easier, if she had been like some of her other co-workers and taught just the basic math in her classroom and not tried to teach the actual subject.  If she had done that, all of her students would have passed her classes, they would have gotten along with her, because she would have been an easy ”A” teacher, and the administration would have liked her because all of her students would have passed her classes.  There would have been no frustration between her and other teachers, who did not teach.  Her life would have been so much easier, there would have been less stress and my childhood would have been easier too.  But, I couldn't support her statement.

My mother was right, her life would have been easier, but I reminded her that she thought that her students should get a good education.  My mother taught 43 years in Detroit Public Schools.  And she believed that her students deserved to get a quality education.  She believed, that they should be able to graduate from high school and be prepared to compete with any other high school graduate in Michigan, whether that was at the university level or in the work force.  These were great ideals, but they came with a price.  Sometimes there were issues with other teachers, because their students did not have the skills needed for my mother’s classes, even though they had taken the prerequisite.  And, my mother would be left with the choice of either helping the students get up to speed or failing them.  Students who were used to skating by in their classes were not able to skate through my mother’s class if they did not do the work.  Some students would take time to learn, others would drop her classes, and however some students were had other issues and they were angry and confrontational.  Most confrontations were verbal, however some were physical, and those were the scary ones, usually because, my mother did not have the support of the administration within her school when they occurred.  I can recall three separate incidences when my mother was assaulted at work.  I won’t go into details of those incidences but my mother’s career produced a lot of stress.  The last few years were especially stressful, because there was a lot of upheaval and politics that occurred regarding Detroit Public Schools.  But, I think what probably hurt most was the way that she was treated when she retired.  There was no nice send off, instead she was asked to pay for her own retirement dinner.  Unfortunately, I was still living in Maryland and I was unable to provide her a nice retirement celebration and I always regretted that…

In the end, doing the right thing or having strong beliefs doesn't guarantee a happy ending like it does in the movies.  I think that my mother would have had an easier career if she had played the game, but I think that not doing the right thing would have bothered her.  I think that in the end, it is about being able to lay your head down with a clear conscience and knowing that you have done the best you can.  And, that is all, nothing else is guaranteed.