10 reasons why I ought to quit my job

10. They put a 17-year-old thug in my 9th grade English class. I realize he doesn't mean to be a thug. I realize that all children in America have a right to an education. I realize that I need to help all students succeed, wherever they are at physically, mentally, emotionally. But when this, shall we say, reluctant learner, tells me that my class is "mad shitty" and puts his hands up a 9th grade girl's skirt, why, I begin to wonder what the point of all this fairness is.

9. Last year they put a kid in my class who had just got back from serving a year in prison for shooting a previous teacher in the eye with a pellet gun.

8. I have an 18-year-old kid who is nice and decent and comes to school and wants to be a good person but he can't read or write at a 6th grade level, let alone an 11th grade level. He will never pass a Regents exam. What will happen to him? He will never graduate high school.

7. Two years ago there were five classes of 9th graders. Now we have two classes of 11th graders. Where are those kids? What happened to them?

6. I have to share my classroom with 5 other teachers. We all hate each other.

5. I have never had a raise.

4. I will never get a promotion.

3. Most people think poorly of teachers. We are not immune to your scorn. I work about 50 hours a week planning, implementing those plans, grading. I am a friend, counselor, warden to kids who are despised by all. I am intelligent, educated and savvy. Is it becuase I work with children that makes me so despised? Or is it because most teachers are women? Perhaps it is because of July and August? Maybe some idiot hurt you when you were in school, so you hold the entire profession accountable to that mistake?

2. The power and responsibility are scary.

1. They die. They get raped and commit suicide. They get stabbed in the neck and face. They get jumped. They get shot at and shoot at people. They become drug addicts. They suffer. They slip away barely noticed. I dream about them.