In the Before Times, I was a professor

I remember a scene from The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred cautiously approaches a “Martha” in the kitchen and in hushed tones asks, “What did you do…before?” People have asked me a similar question, with that same tone. Baffled, the capitalist and classist question is posed: “Why would you leave a college for a high school?”

The premise of the question, though possibly well meaning, is incorrect. It is laced with classism, and it dismisses the hard work teachers have put in to educate the society – a society that treats making large sums of money as a virtue, and poverty as a personal flaw.

In the Before Times, I was a professor.

I taught in the Humanities and Sciences Department at a for-profit college. That basically means that our tiny department of liberal artists were an intellectual oasis in a desert of left-brained worker bees. The liberal arts were treated with disdain and often dismissed entirely. I was there for 16 years in a time of constant transition. Three presidents, positions created, positions eliminated, new responsibilities, economic woes, academic standards — constantly changing. I saw mediocre people rise to the top and excellent people get shoved out the door. For a long time, the admissions practices were questionable and the quality of the education as well. But the professors worked hard – despite the stereotype. We worked hard to improve the educational standards, to meet under prepared students where they were, and to pull them up. We worked hard to earn our stripes in the academic community by conducting research and publishing even though our educational corporation didn’t require it. By demanding 16 courses per year, 4 per quarter, with only two weeks in between to prepare, how could they?

It was a for-profit corporation that had a business attire dress code. Kids would be written up for having pink hair, being dressed in African Garb before prayer time on Fridays, or wearing the wrong gender’s clothes. Creative minds did not fit. I was well liked and respected for the most part, but I was always an oddity. Not just as the only African American professor for years, but an artist in a left-brained world.

So why did you leave college for a high school? The questions’ premise is incorrect. I never left a college for a high school. I left a corporation for my art. Everyday I am immersed in the literary arts. The phrase ‘fish out of water’ comes to mind when I think of my 16 years at the college. A fish can’t live long like that. 2017 and 2018 I experienced severe illness and had three surgeries. One was an emergency. I felt like death was at the end of my stretched out finger tips.

I left a corporation to pursue my art.

In 2020 I started at the Capital Area School for the Arts, CASA, their first African American teacher. Did I encounter people asking questions or looking at me strange because of my dreads? No. That was my first day at the college. Did I encounter people complaining about their black inner-city students? No. That was at the college. Did anyone tell me not to wear my African garb to work? Did anyone accuse my cultural clothing of being “pajamas?” Nope. That was at the college. I would have never survived the dumpster fire that was 2020 with the left brainers there. CASA was my only light in that darkness.

So for those who live by the numbers, and think prestige should determine ones’ vocation, try on these numbers for size:

from US News and World Report:

Top 5 Best Performing Charter High Schools in Pennsylvania

National Charter High School Rankings – Top 15%

Top 10 Best Performing High Schools in Central Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania High School Rankings – Top 20%

National High School Rankings – Top 16%

So why did I leave a college to teach in a high school? To the critical thinkers out there, the answer is obvious. I left a corporation, one that lives on a system of inequity in education and the economy, for a school that cares deeply for its students and faculty. I left the corporation to be immersed in poetry and prose. I left the corporation to be able to walk into work fully as I am, and to be respected as a person and a colleague regardless of my skin color, hair texture, size or anything else.

I am exactly where I belong.