I Failed My Students

I failed my students. I must have; otherwise, how could so many of them support the current, fraudulently elected president? I have spent almost six months trying to analyze why I am so disheartened about this hideous political calamity, and I have finally decided that it's at least partially my fault because I failed my students. 

I most obviously did not do a good enough job emphasizing how crucially important it is, that all human beings deserve to be considered worthy, regardless of whether they are millionaires or Syrian immigrants.

I failed to teach them to think clearly enough to recognize that human rights have more precedence than money. That 43 million Americans, a figure so huge as to defy complete comprehension, should live in destitution, while tax cuts for billionaires and corporations continue to abound, is absurd.

Yet, so many of my former students support an individual, who spits on the elderly and the sick, that I have to point a finger back at myself, as being at least, partially responsible. I might have believed that I would have had some sphere of influence, if I taught a given student for at least one school year. Figure 50 minutes x 180 days = 9,000 minutes. 

I feel sick to my stomach that in 9,000 minutes of their [undivided, I’m certain] time, I could do no better than to leave them so abysmally unprepared. I obviously forgot to teach my students that people matter more than money. I forgot to teach them that our globe has finite resources, and that when we run out, we are all messed up.

Now I would just say, “We’re all fucked,” but in my zeal to model what I taught, I refused to drop the F-bomb in a classroom. In sixteen years of dealing with the little middle school darlings, I never once used the word fuck in any way, shape or form. That’s a lot of effort on my part.

Now I can’t go one declarative sentence, without including at least one colorful zinger.

Why did I not put just as much effort into teaching basic human rights? Why did I not focus on the concept of bullying, every single day of my career, so that my students would recognize it, later on in their own lives? 

Our nation is being bullied by a madman who places money interests above those of science.

Our nation is being bullied by a madman, bent on bringing our country into war, just to build on the Swiss bank accounts, so pivotal in the lives of our country’s leaders. 

Our nation is being bullied by a madman, bent on reducing the impoverished of this nation to walking/talking zombies, in pursuit of nothing more than staying above the water level. Otherwise, they, their kids and a lot of elders, will most certainly drown.

Our nation is being bullied by a madman, bent on reducing human worth, while completely dismissing an entire culture. This is horrifically reminiscent of another madman, who drove his nation into war on the promise of racism and making his country “great again.”

What was I doing, standing up in front of my students, if not instilling in them one of the most basic concepts that exists? Teaching them language arts? Teaching them to diagram sentences? Teaching them to perform as a unit, when they pulled off stunning coups in the theater?

What a waste of precious time. I'd have been better off teaching them to play Tiddlywinks.

That's me, bottom left.

For those of you who would argue that diagraming sentences, is far more important than teaching them to love and value their fellow man, I would bellow, “Nay!”

“‘Twould have been infinitely better to have done anything, other than what I actually did. 

Because I failed my students.

Over and over I examine the evidence. Maybe I did not do it by myself, but I most certainly did fail my students.

So much so, that in order to attend any semblance of a public event in the ‘Ville this summer, I will have to turn into a seventies hair-guy, complete with Duck Dynasty beard, just so’s I fit in.

That way, no one will recognize me, thereby reminding them how I failed my students.