Monsters

I thought I needed them.

It’s been seven weeks since I left teaching. I don’t regret it, except for the prickling-of-conscience moments when I think I should have toughed it out.

When those guilty moments hit, I would think about two students who got under my skin: the one whose Machiavellian hijacking of the administration resulted in a revised spring semester class roster benefitting only her, and the other so brutally critical of his classmates’ work that I spent workshops with my stomach in a knot, waiting to see which of his peers he’d traumatize. I thought about these two a lot, actually, because I told myself I might still be teaching if they had not made things untenable.

Then, over the weekend I found out that Harsh Critic’s parent was involved in a career-ending scandal. Later, on a run to Target, I saw Architect of the Self-serving Spring Semester behind a register, dutifully ringing up a long line of customers.

You may be thinking so what? and I get it. I, too, experienced both notoriety by extension and a part time job, and neither one resulted in manipulative or cruel behavior. But this past weekend I was able to transform these two thorns in my side from excuses for quitting my job back into teenagers, meaning I left my job not because of them, but because I wanted to leave my job.

Quitting was an uncomfortable personal choice, so I cast these kids as monsters. But they aren’t. They are just people, young people at that, shaped by their pasts and working through their presents. I was there, and I got myself out. Turns out no monsters were necessary.