A Teacher Walks Away

Sin, Confession, Penance, and the Decision to #WalkAway

For much of my eleven years in public education, I was derelict in my duty — an oathbreaker of unspoken vows. Where Western civilization bestowed the values of reason, truth, and education upon me, I served the false gods of progressivism in their place. The price I paid for my misplaced faith is heavy, but it was mine to bear as a consequence of my ignorance and cowardice. As I rediscovered the values of Westernism, I prayed for the strength to endure the wrath of the public education system, for my penance demanded a defiant revolt against my former masters.

When the state granted me the teacher title, I believed in the institution of public education. This is not to say that I had forsaken entirely the traditional Western values in my heart. However, my infatuation and commitment to the fantasy of schools as progressive beacons of hope betrayed these values. As all men do, I wrestled with doing what was right by virtue and what was expedient. As all sinners do, I made a choice. I abdicated ownership of my actions as all that dwell in perpetual suffering do. Yet, as all who have found redemption and renewal did, I confessed and confronted the consequences of my sins and penance.

The Early Years

The idealistic naivete of youth betrayed me when the realities of public education were revealed. These progressive churches and the progressive priests that ran them were tainted by bureaucracy, corruption, and collective apathy. I saw this as a betrayal of what progressive education was supposed to be! Filled with righteous indignation, I committed to rising above a culture of indifference. My mission was to help the institution live up to its progressive ideals, whatever the cost. And so, I openly disregarded the Draconian rules and procedures that shackled teachers and students to mediocrity and made it a point to verbalize my defiance. When my superiors and colleagues objected, I would chastise and remind them of our purpose: to uplift the oppressed masses. For a time, I believed I could awaken others to do the same, though I was blind to how institutionalization had plundered their souls of morality. In time, I would suffer the same fate.

Given the zealotry with which I pursued this mission, my early years in public education were not kind to me. However, I was not the only one who suffered. I witnessed many good souls break under the autocratic weight of the bureaucracy. I watched students- forced into a deteriorating building with substandard resources- emanate hate. I witnessed new teachers- filled with vibrance and enthusiasm- end their days in tears. I observed security guards- forced to uphold the Byzantine rules that maintained control- reluctantly execute their authority. We were all victims and participants in holding up a terrible and dehumanizing system. My feelings towards my colleagues alternated between self-righteous blame and empathy. More frequently, it was the latter as I felt the pull of gravity strip me of my passions and ideals.

High Priests

When it came to the principles of my progressivism, the administration likely agreed with me. But preserving the theocratic institution takes precedence over the purity of progressive faith. The appearance that the institution was functional and successful mattered far more than whether it was. Actions and voices threatening the church, even theologically pure, were forbidden. It was this attitude amidst mediocrity that was the source of my anger. I saw the public schooling model as an autocratic hierarchy in which power was placed within the hands of “high priests” who had the influence and ability to lead, model, and inspire. And what did they do with their power? Maintain the status quo, even at the expense of the progressive values they all espoused.

The “Students First” Lie

Beyond the “students first” pomp and pageantry of public education, the institution, not the children, comes first. Public education is an entity that is, first and foremost, concerned with its existence and survival; children are an afterthought.

While I still hold teachers responsible, administrators bear the most blame for a school’s dismal state of affairs, for they have the greatest power. Yet they frequently lack courage, and that is where I see the greatest failure of teachers: to pressure the administration to fulfill their responsibilities and to hold the system accountable. But that also requires courage because challenging the system is to endure her wrath and risk remaining in her employ.

Thirty Pieces of Silver

In time, I had lost faith in the institution of public education and progressivism itself, likely because I was intimately experiencing the reality of progressivism’s greatest failure- public education. This crisis of faith left me feeling purposeless and questioning my decision to become a teacher. I spent many nights asking myself why I could not simply profess faith in the school system and collect a paycheck in peace. After all, there was a minority of teachers who could survive the system until retirement, why couldn’t I?

I tried to do the same; I really did, but it was antithetical to my nature, and to this day, I am still an agitator. Where complacency and cooperation promise peace, I resist. I could not resign myself to a life of false-hearted homage to the gods of public education, even if it meant I could continue to do what I love and achieve some measure of goodness. To do so would be to live in conflict with values.

In time, I discovered the limits of my resolve and the price for my soul. While I received accolades for my work in the classroom, my distinctions were insufficient to shield me forever. Remember, the institution extolls professions of faith, but when she is threatened, she is merciless. Ultimately, it was an administrative “talk” that I would choose. In no uncertain terms, I was told I could continue my problematic mission until I was jobless or submit and serve in peace. Fear had found me, and for “thirty pieces of silver,” I chose to betray what I stood for.

I remember leaving this administrative meeting- which they always tell you are just “conversations for reflection”- on the verge of tears. I had submitted in word and spirit out of fear. I bent the knee and knew what that meant: joining the ranks of the spiritually shattered and discontent. Another sad face feigning happiness but truly living weekend to weekend. While I would become obedient and compliant, I would learn that some things are worse than unemployment.

The faith demanded of teachers is one of empty and symbolic tokens. One long rite of hollow words and obligatory gestures becomes part of public education’s smoke and mirrors. While I taught as best I could, knelt when required, and deferred to the almighty “wisdom” of my superiors, I loathed what I had become in my heart. And so, my spirit was broken; the price paid and deserved for my self-interested decision. I had become what I had once criticized, and my self-loathing grew into self-hatred. I was a shell of my former self—no longer a teacher but a bureaucrat occupying the ninth circle of civic hell.

The soul and body are intimately connected; when one goes, so does the other. My spiritual sickness began to manifest in all manner of ways physically. I was frequently sick, my weight soared, and my doctor pleaded with me to consider the toll this job was taking on my health. Yet, I could not find the will to break free from these self-imposed chains. I continued at peril because I could not see beyond my current condition. I soon embraced the shadow I had become and drowned my suffering in whatever substance would ease my pain.

A Virus and a Martyr

Fate, it would seem, would not let me resign to a miserable life. When the pandemic hit, for the first time in years, I was free from the insufferable burden of the daily act that had become teaching. I no longer had to feign care and love for the institution, but I knew this was only a temporary reprise. Nightmares of returning to what I had left plagued my sleep, and I realized something had to change, yet I did not know what.

It would be George Floyd’s death at the hands of Derek Chauvin that would be the final nail in the coffin of what remained of public education’s nominal commitment to reason and impartiality. Like most Americans, the image of Floyd dying with a knee weighing upon him angered me. Where I differed was in the relief I felt over the swiftness with which our justice system had acted. I was not naive to the historical font of anger that flowed in response to what we all witnessed, but I presumed that the expedience in which our justice system had responded would herald a reminder that things had changed. I still had some faith that the American people would demonstrate the better angels of their nature as the wheels of justice turned. This faith was scorned by the fires of vengeance, which illuminated the nighttime sky as the opportunists among us used the cover of darkness to sow chaos and bring their fantasies of revolution closer to fruition.

Was the anger over Floyd’s death a legitimate emotional response to an emotionally traumatic event? Yes. However, I was not blind to the machinations of political forces that seized an opportunity in this tragedy. The fledgling Church of Woke, which had struggled to become mainstream, now had a martyr. One that they would use to proselytize a narrative and divisive theology of revolution amongst the hordes of pandemic-disaffected Americans. Their faith spread faster than the fires burning across America, and I watched reason give way to madness amidst this “Great Awokening.”

As a historian, I was a powerless observer of what was to come. I knew this was not a transient movement but the emergence of a new faith and that the chaos engulfing our nation was not an anomaly but a violent preview of what was to come. 

When the violent and bloodthirsty mobs clamoring for revolution used Floyd’s death to incite an ideological uprising, my immediate economic livelihood became trivial. What of the future of the Republic that my son and his generation would inherit? Many of my peers told me I was being reactionary. Violence was just, they argued. They explained that one should abide by the righteous flames of anger as a blood price for historical injustices.

Once again, I was tasked with choosing between silence and speech. This time, however, I knew that my silence would not buy me long-term quarters in safety, for they would eventually come for all unbelievers.

Church and State

Any reservations I harbored about the course of our nation’s future were dispelled when I witnessed my school pledge allegiance to the Church of Woke. She was no longer an ideological adherent of the faith but an active proselytizer. Nowhere was this more evident than in the newly established Department of Equity and Inclusion.

It should have been no surprise that schools- disingenuous institutions- would capitalize on the fashionable politics of the day. This was another example of her insisting upon contemporary relevance despite her academic failures. However, unlike her previous transient flirtations with the politics of the day, this wholesale embrace of the New Orthodoxy would give birth to generations that would usher in the Woke’s empty and Orwellian future.

In service to the Church of Woke, the ranks of teachers- and later their unions- bowed down in reverence. The ideological capture was complete. What little reason and enlightenment survived the predominant ideology of public education had been erased. This was most evident in teachers: progressives served with renewed purpose, the apolitical had converted, and the heterodox grew silent.

Looking back, I now see the predictability of the unholy transfiguration of public education into a means of indoctrination. Schools had always contained elements of inculcation; all they needed was a national catalyst to give it renewed purpose with steadfast speed and zealotry.

As a teacher, I now had to contend with an entirely new act: that of a missionary of the faith. I knew that when schools reopened, we would be expected to convert our pupils to the Church of Woke, and I was not wrong, for by 2021, I watched as Wokeness became an institutionalized mandate in my school district.

Penance

I believed in redemption, and a confession without such was virtueless. I saw two paths before me: the one I had walked before- albeit with new ideological mandates- and one where I walked away. Yet I knew that walking away would not solve the problem, for at some point, the generations of children indoctrinated under this new orthodoxy would form a new and unquestionable consensus. I faced the possibility of being surrounded by a society intent on dismantling the fabric of my existence, where the blood-red graffiti cry of “REVOLUTION!” capitulated into blood-tinged streets of a rebellion. And so, before I walked away, I would tell as many as I could what was happening in America’s schools and defy any attempts to silence me.

A Return

Before I became a teacher and bought into the expected progressive politics, I held a purer vision of a teacher’s purpose: to enkindle the sacred flames of truth, reason, and learning in their pupils. The ideals originated in Ancient Greece and carried forth into the Western Enlightenment. Instruction that preserves and builds upon our most outstanding achievements is what teachers are called upon to do, not to fuel the flames of division and wrath that would ignite the pyres of America! Out of urgent necessity, my deepest calling had been reawakened. And so I said to myself, “Never again will I be afraid to speak, for the price of silence is far greater than the price of defiance.”

My penance was to do what was right. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I acted not for my survival but that of the Republic. I would not forget the responsibility entrusted to me as a teacher but reclaim and fight for it because even though the institution of public education may not have been worth fighting for, the promise of classical Western education was. The promise of classical Western education was rooted in reason and enlightenment, and those things gave birth to the most remarkable society our world had ever known.

Perhaps my choice was not difficult, but it was the easiest one I had ever made. Facing the possibility of the dissolution of our great country and the suffering that would be wrought from such social division, did I have a choice? How could I weigh the risks of being outspoken against the dangers inherent in my silence? And so, I began a long battle to speak and expose the truth from inside the public school system.

While what unfolded is a story for another day, when I had done all that I felt I could to show as many people as possible what was happening inside America’s schools and what the consequences of speaking openly about it and in defiance of progressive or Woke politics were, I made the decision to walk away, for good. While it is true that events were in motion that would have seen me terminated had I stayed, it felt good to walk away on my terms and not let myself be a victim of “cancellation.” Walking away was not the end of my journey but the beginning of a new one: fighting to end the public education status quo and cleanse our school system of the ideology that has captured it.

Follow Frank McCormick on X (Twitter)

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