A stapler with no staples: an epic tale about my time as a teacher

My time in low income education was eventful. It is also an ongoing adventure. It was inspired by my mother, who teaches in a difficult Title 1 school in Sacramento. She said to me, “Steve, they can always use good male role models in education”. I replied, “I know, but why the hell are you telling me?”. My mother will be retiring the end of this year, Teacher of the Year and once a scientist, she runs a renowned “Green Team” and conducts regular experimentation with a group of students with wide ranging abilities and some very difficult behaviors. You see, she teaches 4th grade and for a year I taught 3rd grade at this same school. It was my first year in education, and I came out of the wonderfully positive and inspirational teaching program at California State University, Chico with three separate credentials. I could teach K-12, everything from kindergarten to high school Biology. I found myself with a job offer to cover for the teacher out on maternity leave at my mother’s school - where I’d been volunteering with her for years. I so enjoyed learning from her and picking up classroom management tricks and engaging science labs. This was extremely difficult for me, and to give you some context - day 1 of shadowing the departing temporary substitute that covered the class involved kids screaming in fetal position and most children not sitting in a chair. It ended though, with many of the young boys sitting around me in silence as I read a book from the classroom library. I remember my first thought was, “what the hell did I get myself into?”. By the time the children around me became calm and quiet as I read, I realized “I can do this”. The rest is history as they say, but my following year working fulltime at a high school position in the same district would prove to be much more challenging - one could say life threatening… This was one of the most if not THE most diverse school in the nation according to demographics data and our administration at the time. My first day was quite overwhelming, especially when I arrived and realized the last teacher had taken everything. Every pen, pencil, sheet of paper, whiteboard marker, piece of tape, or any educational material for that matter. I was left with a class set of books, an empty desk, and a single stapler… with no staples. It was sobering to hear students clamoring in the halls and having not a single connection to any of them. Some of them want you to fail and enjoy “rage baiting” until teachers crack and crumble. Teaching continued to challenge me every year in new ways, and every location/classroom/district pushed me in different ways.