The First Time I Lost My Job
Well, VU just made it official. Despite glowing reviews from both the department chair and my students, despite donating countless hours above and beyond the duties of my job, despite having been there in one capacity or another for thirteen years, despite being a damn good teacher, despite excellent annual evaluations, despite sitting on every committee asked of me, despite having never been written up/reprimanded/complained about in all of my time there, and despite being advisor/mentor/social worker/friend to thousands of students over the years at a job I have cherished, loved, and poured my soul into--I am being laid off at the end of this semester, and will no longer have a job. Student enrollment is so low that they "have to" let teachers go, and on paper, I'm the most recent hire in the department.
I've never been let go from a job, not ever, not one time since I was thirteen years old and entered the workforce with a special work permit. It's a weird feeling. It's bewildering to know that none of what I did mattered to them in the end, not really. "It's important to us that you know this has nothing to do with your teaching or with your performance at this job." That statement is both comforting and haunting. It seems like it SHOULD have a little bit more to do with performance, doesn't it? But it doesn't.
I've known about this, because my boss (and her boss), with whom I have always maintained a wonderful professional relationship, were kind enough to call and talk to me about this ahead of time. They called on a Friday, and after the initial shock wore off, rage followed. This was not a surprise. So many of my emotions show up to the scene as rage--hurt? rage, sadness? rage, anger? rage, confusion? rage. It's in my nature. On the Monday following that phone call, after a weekend of ruminating and rage daydreams about giving that university a REAL piece of my mind, I got on my knees that morning--tired of feeling so angry and bitter and opened my day in prayer and meditation, like I do every day. But at the end of this prayer I added, "God, please help me today. I need a little extra oomph. This one's tough."
I logged onto my computer a short time later and opened up my emails and Zoom links, preparing for a day of teaching virtually, and I had a message from a vaguely familiar name--Jack So-and-So. I barely remembered him. I had taught him in my first ever semester teaching at Vincennes University in August of 2008. Here is part of what he had to say:
Hello Ms. McFarland,
Hope that all is well so far for you this year. I am contacting you because in 2008-2009 I was a freshman at VU and had you for my English class first semester. I've been wanting to say this for quite some time and even went looking for you in your office on my last day of classes there but did not find you. I wanted to tell you what a wonderful teacher you were, that you were the best I have ever had. What you brought to the class and how you taught it has left an impact on me, and the connection you were able to make with all of us was strong. You were able to teach us with funny stories, like the worst first date you ever went on in college. You taught us by sharing some of life's sadnesses with us, like when you lost a friend to suicide. You taught us with compassion. You taught us how to write by letting us share our lives with you through writing. You had made what some people find a boring subject, entertaining, and I learned so much more than writing from it. You are the best teacher I have ever had. Please keep up the amazing work I see you are still doing. Thank you for the lessons you taught us all those years ago in that class.
Jack
And there it was--the help I had gotten on my knees and asked for that very morning. I asked Jack what made him reach out to me, and he said it was because he saw a meme on Twitter, something to the effect of "Ya' know that teacher you never told what a difference they made in your life? It's never too late. Tell them now." And he said he thought of me and checked VU's website to see if I was still teaching there. My name had changed, but he recognized me from the picture, so he reached out. And just like that, the Creative Force/Love lifted me in Its grace and light, just enough, just like I needed. God—the Great Show Off.
All of these years, this career I've built there--it might not mean anything at all to Vincennes University. But I never really worked for them anyway. I worked for those kids--those little fumbling, faltering, oft-annoying humans trying to learn how to adult in a world where so many odds are stacked against them, those beautiful, wonderful, incredible people--over 2000 of them over the course of my whole career. What a gift!
And the truth is that if you and I are close, you know that I was planning to leave and head south anyway after this year, hopefully. It wasn't set in stone; it's still not set in stone. But maybe God just wanted to give me that little extra push, to do for me what I might not have been able to do for myself in the eleventh hour when the time REALLY came to cut the cord and start anew.
But it still doesn't mean this is "easy." And getting the "official" letter today still stung. It came from the president. He knows nothing about what I do for my students. He knows little to nothing about the teachers who are being laid off on his watch. And that's just the trouble with education--none of the people making the furthest reaching decisions actually KNOW anything about what is happening where it matters--in the classrooms, among the students and the teachers, day in and day out, on the ground, in the trenches, where we teachers make the magic happen.
So here I am--in a place I hate to be. I call it the "In Between," when I'm stuck anxiously waiting, fearful, without a clue what happens next or when. I hate it here in the "In Between," putting one foot in front of the other in blind faith without knowing towards what or towards where I'm working. It's scary. Luckily, the "In Between" doesn't require bravery. It just requires that I'm willing to take the next right action in love while I make sure that the Still Small Voice in the background is just a touch louder than the scary one. It only requires that I suit up and show up and know that the THEN will eventually become the NOW, and when it happens, I will know.
If you're still reading, please don't tell me how sorry you are. Instead, reach out to that teacher--you know the one--and tell them what they meant to you. This year of virtual teaching and planning and social distancing has a lot of us teachers exhausted and feeling unappreciated and scared. I promise your former teacher will be happy to hear from you.
