Esteemed colleagues,

    I’ve been a high school teacher for eleven years now. This wasn’t how I imagined my life turning out. I wanted to be an actor, but I didn’t get accepted into any theater programs way back in the day. Since I had no other skills to speak of, I decided I might as well become an English teacher. Seemed easy enough. I could just reword some vague, pretentious literary analysis from Schmoop every night before class, stick it in a PowerPoint, and add some fancy transitions. Bam, there’s a lesson plan. Now, I can imagine everyone in my department self righteously shaking their heads, but let’s be real, I’m sure none of you guys actually wanted to be high school English teachers. You guys are what, failed novelists? Unsuccessful musicians? Food critics without readers? We all thought that chicks dig teachers. Women love guys who are good with kids, right? I figured I might not be the next Leonardo DiCaprio, but everything would turn out okay.

    Turns out, I was hideously wrong. Here I am, a thirty-three year old man with greying hair. No matter who I’m teaching, I can’t win. When I have on-level students, I have to worry about them turning in their work and passing. With honors kids, I’m afraid they’re going to ask a question beyond my knowledge of literature, and then they’re going to complain to the administration that I’m underqualified for my job.

    And ha, I thought that I’d be more attractive if I were a teacher! Well, look how well that’s worked out for me. I haven’t been on a date in seven years. Turns out, size does matter...the size of your paycheck. I’m not exactly making it rain over here. I’m just making my rent. Barely.

    Point is, we teachers have it rough. After a full day of classes, I have meetings to attend, papers to grade, and emails to check. I usually work about twelve hour days, plus my commute, which leaves me only three hours of spare time each evening to sob into Hot Pockets while watching Real Housewives. And then I have nightmares about what’s going to happen to Skylar if Amber keeps spreading lies about her. I often wake up, screaming, “Brittney, he’s not cheating on you!” 

    Anyway, seniors have their skip day, and I think it’s about time we teachers band together and start doing our own. Just one day a year, coordinated sneakily through social media, we all call in sick. The administration couldn’t possibly determine who was actually ill. And they wouldn’t be able to punish us, either. What are they going to do, reduce our pay to minimum wage? That wouldn’t be that bad of a change. And they couldn’t exactly fire and replace us–not that many people are foolish enough to go into teaching. If the students can sit on their asses and stare into their phones one day they’re supposed to be in school, we’re entitled to the the same damn thing.

I mean, don’t you guys think that we deserve a skip day? I mean, what are we even doing with our lives? We slave away every day for what, so that our students can passive-aggressively post about us in their Facebook groups? So that our parents can lie to their friends, saying that we became something respectable, like a tollbooth operator? So the media can criticize us for only ‘teaching to the test?’

Jesus, it makes me mad enough to want to violently overthrow the government or something. But that would take away from my Real Housewives viewing time, so let’s just compromise for the skip day.
   

Sincerely,
    A fellow downtrodden teacher