What was your worst/ hardest job?
From Cindy S.:
The hardest job I ever had was as the teacher of a 4, 5, 6th grade class of students with emotional and behavioral disorders. It was my second career having made the shift from teaching college English to elementary special education fueled by a passion to do something more meaningful and put my experience as the mother of a child with special needs to good use. However, I was unprepared for the emotional and physical stress of responding to extreme chaos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I lasted two and a half years years in a job that had the highest teacher turnover of the district with an average tenure of 5 months. In fact, multiple times I had substitute teachers go AWOL in the middle of the day, disappearing at lunch.
To summarize my experience, within just a few weeks of taking over the class, I wound up in an ambulance having run full speed into a steel pole chasing an out of control boy who had spent months terrorizing the campus. He had roamed freely, entering any classroom at will, especially first and second grade classes, cussing out the teachers and running amok. I was determined that behavior would end. Instead it almost ended me! I was out for several days with a bruised kidney and my inclination to chase children much dampened!
In addition, that student's mother was a member of a local gang and because of threats she made, a restraining order was taken out. The entire school went on lockdown several times when she came onto campus to hunt the teacher who had suspended her son. Truthfully, I had fear in my belly for years afterward when I would see a dark blue Suburban on the road that looked like her vehicle.
I have many similar tales...the 5th grade boy who tried to break my arm and then later in the day, broke the arm of a first grade girl; the day I had to go home after a powerful kick to the groin from a 4th grade boy who was the most mentally ill student I encountered with behaviors I cannot share in this venue; the many, many encounters that led to police intervention, broken windows, thrown computers, chairs, and overturned desks. I had 8 students and never a day in those 2.5 years where at least one and sometimes many wreaked havoc while I desperately tried to teach in the same program where my daughter had learned nothing.
Then I would head home to my own chaos with a child who set fires, broke furniture and windows, and when all was said and done, was 5150ed more than thirty times and hospitalized repeatedly over the years before being placed in a group home at age 20.
From that position, I moved schools and became a resource specialist working with students in their general education classrooms. It was like going from hell to heaven! I still only lasted a total of 12 years in special education, ending my career by mentoring new teachers for Pacific University. Because there is such a shortage of special ed teachers, my college students carried the burden of immense caseloads and worked with the most challenging students, all on an emergency credential often times with no previous teaching experience at all. It was a lose-lose situation with children who got poor or no effective instruction and teachers who felt overwhelmed and ill prepared, as well as under-supported by their districts. It was a depressing end to my 22 year career in education.
I don't know what the answers are for supporting those families or the teachers of their students. I just know I did my best and sometimes I can't believe I survived and that Roger and I have this amazing life in the peaceful hills of Amador County!
