Stephanie is an amazing woman, she is also a mother, a wife, and a teacher. Her story is one that we saw a lot during the COVID pandemic that hit the world in 2020. As many different aspects of life began to rain down on the laps of education. There was a moment at the beginning of the pandemic when educators were hailed as frontline workers, very important people to the machine that runs America. But unfortunately, as the pandemic continued and the rhetoric about issues that were never a part of the educational system began to take over, and the lives of many teachers changed. And like them Stephanie found herself being accused of teaching falsehoods to the students in her history class when in fact she was teaching what she had read, what she had learned, and what everyone knew to be fact. She now stands before the school board, the community, her administrators, other teachers and her students and their parents to give her letter of resignation. She can no longer be an educator. She can no longer stand in front of her students with the freedom to teach them the things that they need to know in order to leave her classroom saying that they have an understanding of what American History truly is. This resignation did not come lightly. It came on the heels of an attack on her and her family that was led by a group of people that decided that they would be judge and jury as to who she was as an educator. The number of teachers that are retiring early or leaving the field of education altogether since the beginning of the pandemic is staggering, numbers like we have never seen before. This is just one of the many stories of educators who had to make the most difficult decision, to leave the job that they love, the students that they live for, in the field that they are passionate about because they no longer felt safe in their own classroom and in their own skin.
Reasons We Must Leave
(Stephanie, a woman in her early thirties flips through note cards talking intensely to herself working hard to hold back her emotion. She gets frustrated and looks in the mirror, takes a few deep breaths and splashes some water on her face.)
You can do this Stephanie, they forced you to do this. They forced me. They forced me. (She dries her face and exits the bathroom into a room next door. Lots of flashing lights as she makes her way to the podium.)
(Addressing the audience) First, I would like to thank all of my students and their parents for coming to today's school board meeting. I wish I could get this many students to come to after school tutoring. (she laughs) I contacted the school board president Mr. Brooks and asked if I could be on the schedule as a last minute addition. So, thank you Mr. Brooks for saying yes to me as this was a conversation that I definitely wanted to have, and I wanted to have it right now. My name is Stephanie Reese and I have spent this entire school year defending my choices as an educator, as a person, and even as a mother. Today in front of this board and everyone in this auditorium I'm going to recount to you all of the reasons that so much of this propaganda and rhetoric and complete and utter bullshit has drowned myself and other educators in a pool of, “Why did I become a teacher?” Welcome to my chat, get comfortable it's going to be a long ride.