Last month I reflected on the best days of my 25-year teaching career. You can read about that HERE.

But it should be no surprise that not all days were great. What might be a surprise is that the worst days had absolutely nothing to do with my classes or with my students. The worst days were thanks to administrators and fellow professors and instructors. Those were the days of charges of racism and sexual harassment, of lawsuits, of spying, of cruel gossip, of corruption. That, however, is a subject for another day. 

Right now, I want to focus on my four worst days in the classroom.

One

I’ll start with the incident that seems the least impactful. And perhaps it is. But I still remember it even though it was seven years ago. And I think it is most depressing because it is so emblematic of the attitude of so many students.

My dad passed away after a battle with cancer in St. Louis in February of 2017. My plan was to wait until Spring Break to travel to St. Louis from Los Angeles to go through his apartment with my sister and to complete my role as the executor of the will. We had already decided to hold a memorial in the summer, so there was no hurry to get back home. And this way, I could go for a week and wouldn’t have to cancel any classes. But a few things were happening that concerned me, and I realized that I couldn’t wait. I needed to get to my hometown as soon as possible. 

So I booked my flight and the next day in class, I announced that I would be missing the next two class meetings. Before I could say anything else, the class erupted in cheers, high-fiving each other, and already making plans as they packed up for the day.

Shocking. First because someone spending thousands of dollars to take this class should seriously not be that excited to have class canceled. I’m not an idiot. Most students would be happy to skip class. Most of them don’t want to be there, especially in a required English class. But to feel so comfortable to blatantly celebrate right in front of me is something else entirely.

Before any of them could leave the room, I called for their attention.

“Just so you know, I am canceling class because my dad just died, and I have to fly back to St. Louis. So I really appreciate that you are all cheering because my dad passed away and now you get to miss class.”

Silence. 

Everyone slowed down as they collected their belongings and wandered out the room. Probably half of the students stopped by my desk to offer their condolences and their apologies. I appreciated that. But dang. Really??

What they revealed to me that day about themselves and about their attitude about their education was extremely disconcerting.

Two

The next two days I’m going to discuss both had to do with students who had serious mental health issues. The first was very early in my career when I was still working as a part-time instructor.

Back when I first graduated with my master’s degree in English, it was typical for people seeking a job teaching at a community college to spend years as a freeway flyer. A freeway flyer is a community college instructor who has multiple part-time positions at a variety of campuses and spends more time on the freeway than in the classroom. 

This commonly happened because full-time positions were few and far between, thanks to the corruption of the community colleges and of the California state government. At the time, the state required 75% of classes at community colleges to be taught by full-time faculty. But consistently, colleges fell far below these requirements, sometimes to as low as 30%. The state let these colleges get away with this because the state budget was continually in crisis, and part-time instructors are much, much cheaper than full-time instructors. 

Oh, and I apologize. Going forward, I will refer tol part-time instructors as “adjuncts.” This shift in language took place when I myself was a part-ti… I mean adjunct. I remember because people got very dictatorial about the change. I also remember asking why the change. I was told it was because some people are offended by the term part-time. The term adjunct makes it sound like the person is more integral to the college. This confused me. If you call me an adjunct, I still know that I am working only part time, don’t I??

Besides, the reason the state allowed departments to be made up mostly of adjuncts is because they are so cheap! They are paid hourly rates, on;y for classroom time, and they receive zero benefits.

When I was in this position, I was teaching at four different colleges and teaching two classes at each one, for a total of eight classes (twice the number a full-time professor would teach for about ⅓ of the salary of a full-time professor – without benefits).

One of the classes I was teaching at the college where I was eventually a full-time tenured professor was held in a trailer on the parking lot. (There’s the impact of that California state budget again!) We were reading and discussing The Great Gatsby. At the beginning of one class, a student asked if she could make an announcement. This wasn’t unusual because students who were involved in clubs on campus often asked if they could make announcements about meetings or events.

The woman came to the front of the class and began talking about how she knew “the truth.” Then she proceeded to tell a story of a teacher who was having an affair with a married PE teacher. I was quite confused, and it took me a minute to figure out that she was not talking about any organization’s announcement. She was making a pretty shocking accusation. 

Suddenly, I realized that she was talking about ME!! What in the world?? 

I froze. What was I supposed to do?

I told her that was it and that she needed to not only stop, but she needed to leave the room. She ignored me and continued talking. Of course, I was not having any affair, but I didn’t even know any PE teachers at the school. Did the school even have PE? There wasn’t a gym. What was she talking about?

The only thing I could think of doing was to go get help. She wouldn’t stop telling her story, and she wouldn’t leave. I left the class and ran over to the closest building. I saw the chair of the department in a classroom and peeked in, asking him to please come talk to me. I let him know what was happening. He was calm, told me not to worry about it, and sent me back to the room, instructing me to get her to leave. I could also have another student go to campus police for me. He said to go ahead and dismiss class, if necessary.

I went back, and the woman had left. The class was still there waiting for me. I went ahead and dismissed them for the day. And I was shaking. It was all so crazy.

I did report the incident to administration, providing them with the name of the student. I told them I wanted her removed from my class. But surprisingly, it wasn’t that easy. The VP I was talking to first lectured me on the fact that I should NEVER leave the classroom. Never. There was absolutely no excuse for leaving. 

Uh, ok. Point taken. But also, these were adults. I didn’t leave a classroom of six-year-olds. But I was scared. And I wasn’t equipped to handle the situation.

Thankfully, the woman was administratively removed from my class.

Three

That student wasn’t the only time I had to deal with a mental health issue. This particular time was much scarier.

I specifically remember we were reading Shakespeare. I think Othello. 

One day, a female student asked if she could talk to me in private before class started. We stepped out into the hallway, and she let me know about a problem with one male student who was probably eighteen or nineteen years old. Apparently he was stalking her. She had given him her number at some point because he needed help in the class and she offered to help him. Then I guess he offered to give her a ride to campus so she didn’t have to take the bus. She took him up on that one time. 

But then he started behaving very strangely and making her very nervous. He was leaving her messages and following her around. And some of these messages were about me. She didn’t give me the specific details, but they were sexual in nature and referenced what he wanted to do to me.

Once again. What the h&$$??

She wanted to warn me about what he was saying about me and also that there were a few female students in the class who were very concerned about him and uncomfortable coming to class.

Then class started and this young man walked in. All semester long he had been very quiet, not really having much to say. But on this day, he dominated the class discussion. Who was he? He was animated and rambling. He had never behaved this way. Now I was nervous. The end of class could not come fast enough.

I raced over to the administrative offices and told them what had happened. Now a full-time professor and a lot more confident, this time I demanded the student be not only removed from my class but also expelled from the college.

Our particular college was known in the district for having a very well resourced disability office for students. I was informed that this particular student was served by the Disabled Students Program and Services. Apparently what this meant was that he was untouchable. I was told that he had a condition that could not be revealed due to privacy but that he was on medication for it. Unfortunately, he had apparently stopped taking his medication, which is why he was acting so strangely and so frighteningly. 

As if I cared.

The school agreed to remove him from my class, but they refused to remove him from the school…because he was disabled. For the next year while he remained at the school, I always crossed campus scanning my surroundings to keep an eye out for him.

Four

Perhaps one of the worst days occurred when a student from another one of my classes showed up, poked her head in the door, and requested I come out to speak with her. I told my class to give me a moment, and I stepped out.

The young lady had tears in her eyes. She had bad news.

The previous semester, she had been in a class of mine with another student named Angel. 

At the community college where I held tenure, the students who were typically drawn to my classes were of two types. One was middle-aged Hispanic women. Many of them were either recently divorced and looking to develop some job skills. Some had children attending the college, and they took that opportunity to continue their own education. And others were just trying to assert their independence.

I loved this brand of student! It was so great to have women with a few years and the accompanying experiences under their belt. They could give a perspective that proved to be very useful in class. I could usually count on them to keep the other students in line and to model the behavior of motivated students.

The other group of students typically signing up for my classes were 18-year-old ex-gang members. Yes. These were students, often the first in their families to attend college, who were trying to turn their lives around. They looked to the older women as mother figures, and the older women looked to these young men as their sons. It was really a great mixture. And a lot of fun!

Angel was one of those kids who had been a gang member. He was way behind and was enrolled in my remedial English class designed for students who read at the fourth grade level. But he was a sweetheart and quickly won over the class with his upbeat attitude and his quick wit. He also did the work and improved dramatically from the first day to the last.

“It’s about Angel,” she said.

What about Angel?

“He was shot in the head this weekend by a rival gang member.”

My heart sank, and my stomach clenched.

I had actually heard about that shooting but had no idea who the victim was. Thanks to the execution style of the killing, it made headlines. The newspaper article indicated that Angel had left the gang a couple of years ago. But sadly, that life is not easily escaped.

I returned to the classroom, visibly upset. I told them what had happened; some of them had heard about the killing as well. Luckily, class was nearly over. It just didn’t seem appropriate to return to a discussion of sentence fragments.

That was a really bad day. But it was a day that reminded me just who was often sitting in front of me in my classes.

I have to say that revisiting these days, both good and bad, has unexpectedly turned into a bit of a sentimental, nostalgic journey. Each incident came back to me in vivid detail, despite the fact that I hadn’t thought about many of these in years.

By the same token, looking at these four bad days makes me unbelievably grateful. That these were my worst days with students is not so bad. I know there are plenty of teachers who have had way worse days than these in the classroom. But that’s probably why I lasted as long as I did. Because I absolutely loved being in the classroom. 

And I miss it terribly.

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All three available on Amazon

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Check out my latest project Praying in Chicago: Religion in the Windy City, now available on Substack.