Up the Not-So-Corporate Ladder

When I first became a teacher, I firmly believed that with hard work and good results, I would soon have my pick of courses and students. My first year, I earned the respect of my peers and my department head, recognized for my grace under pressure and superb classroom management skills. I was on my way up, reaching towards that lofty goal of teaching AP. Just the letters are beautiful, evoking thoughts of students engaged in lively discussion about Literature and current events, bringing new perspectives and respecting each others views.

Excitedly, I waited for the day when I would receive the magical course list, the list that would tell me exactly what I would be teaching the next year. When that day came, I closed my eyes, held the paper in my hand, and imagined. What would it be? Senior English? AP Lit? Honors?

Nope. All regular English - juniors. The same thing I had been teaching that year.

I let out a small sigh and decided that I just had to put in one more year of grunt work, and then everything would be fine.

New year, same story, again ending with the same schedule. This time I was not so ambivalent about it. I was angry. I was more qualified to teacher upper level classes than anyone else. Why was I getting the dregs?

I had made a mistake that many idealists make. I thought that I would be able to move up based on my performance, and the education industry just doesn't work that way. I had to muscle my way in.

Finally, I got my chance. The previous department chair had stepped down from her position, due to the fact that her job had been eradicated from the school (don't worry, she was moved up in the county hierarchy despite having only been a classroom teacher for one year). This was my chance; I had to be the new department chair. I wanted it, I needed it, I had to have it. And lucky for me, the other teachers would rather die than hold such a thankless position.

And then, like magic, it happened. A week into my reign as head English honcho, I was offered seniors. Then, College Composition. Then, under-the-table machinations towards a coup for AP Language. My time had come. I had arrived.

I want to believe in a system where merit is rewarded, I truly do. But when I see people who haven't been in a classroom more than a year or two promoted over and over again for no reason other than the fact that they had the gumption to go out and get what they wanted, well, then I'm going to go out there and get what's mine, too.