I Did Not Know I had a Power Problem Until...

T~

            I have to go back into a wound that really hurts to write about power.  It’s painful to think about what I gave up and the prestige that went with being a super teacher.  I enjoyed being popular with parents, students, and administration.  I loved being the crazy science teacher who knew how to make a pickle glow like a light bulb or put a skewer through a balloon at parent orientation. At graduation I was mentioned as a favorite teacher.  One Principal told me that he went not hesitate to put me in any grade in the school because he knew I would do a good job.

            My students learned about the History of Science through lecture and replicating some of the famous principles that were discovered through the ages.

            I started with the Greeks and Archimedes with his water displacement theory.  We worked our way through Galileo and falling objects to Newton, Einstein, and beyond.  It took me two years to get through a curriculum of my own making with my husband and me test driving the demonstrations and labs before I taught them.  

            This all changed when I realized my students needed a better curriculum and a teacher with more education.  I was self-taught and being asked questions I could not answer; I did not understand the mathematical formulas in the new curriculum.

            I moved to elementary and taught fifth and then third grade.  I loved teaching math, science, Bible and social studies.  I thought I was doing a great job and I worked 25 hours a week.

            Fortune’s wheel has a way of changing.  During this time our family was dealing with a major illnesses, death of a beloved grandparent, and my husband’s job loss.  I did not know that I was being considered for termination.

            I got the bad news, protested loudly, and was rehired 24 hours later, but honest to goodness, that one day tanked 28 great years of teaching.  I now knew what it was like to lose security, prestige, and mental and physical health.

            I came back and taught one more year.  I  was scared and unsure. The place I loved, nurtured, and the school I considered part of my family was no longer safe.  I resigned at the end of the year before I was put on probation and possible termination.

            I have no doubt that at 57 I could go back in the elementary grades and be a terrific teacher.  What I cannot face is the meetings, expectations, paper work and the pressure to be a pleaser to a diverse group of people.

            I thought I never had a power problem until so much was stripped away.  Power and prestige is something I look at every day and remind myself that I do not want to intentionally hurt another person.  The cost is too great.