Part 15: My Everest

I climbed my mountain and now might lose it all.

When I pull into the driveway of the school, I’m aware that this might be the very last thing I ever do as a teacher. I’ve been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation that could result in my termination.

After tonight, I may never be allowed to set foot in this school again. I can’t believe that I might be barred from a place that has come to mean so much to me.

It represents, without exaggeration, a dream come true.

When I was a boy, I would tell people that when I grew up, I wanted to write for a living and teach for pleasure, but honestly, if all I ever accomplished were becoming an elementary school teacher, I would’ve been overwhelmingly satisfied. For a long, long time, a goal as simple as becoming a school teacher seemed utterly unattainable to me, because it was.

When I graduated from high school, I left home, not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice. My parents — my stepfather, really — made it clear to me that their accountability for me ended with my diploma.

For Christmas of my senior year, I received a microwave oven and a set of dishes.

On my birthday, I was given bath towels and flatware.

There was no doubt what was expected of me after I finished school.

My senior year of high school was a terrible time for me in many ways. In December, I was in a near-fatal head-on collision — two days before Christmas — that put me in the hospital for more than a week and killed off my senior year of pole vaulting.

Nevertheless, I still graduated in the top 10% of my class. I was a district champion in the pole vault during my junior year. A bassoonist and drummer. Writer for the school newspaper.

I was also already managing a McDonald’s restaurant full-time.

I accomplished all of this without any parental support. I was on my own and doing well. By all accounts, college shouldn’t have been unattainable to me. My grades and my extracurricular activities alone should’ve made me college-worthy.

Yet throughout my entire high school career, not a single parent or teacher said the word “college” to me.

Not once in 18 years of life.

No guidance counselor ever met with me to discuss my future. No one implied that I even had a future.

I never understood why.

I’d sit in my math class, waiting for my name to be called to the guidance office to discuss college applications, safety schools, and SATs. I’d pray that someone would notice me or remember me and save me.

No one ever called. And because it was the 1980s, information was unattainable. I needed adults to help me. Experts to guide me along a path I could not see. Absent the internet, I wasn’t able to Google how college admissions worked, how to apply for financial aid, or how to schedule myself for the SAT.

Honestly, I didn’t even know what an SAT was. I knew that kids were taking them on Saturday mornings, but I never knew what SAT meant or why they were important.

As a result, I never took the SATs, and I never needed to. It turns out that if you wait almost six years to attend college and start your journey at a community college, no one ever asks or cares about your SAT scores.

I could’ve asked someone for help, of course. A teacher or guidance counselor might have been able to assist me. My parents or a friend could’ve guided me in the right direction. But I couldn’t bring myself to ever do so. I felt ashamed for not knowing. Ashamed for being so uninformed, stupid, and lost. Ashamed for not having a future.

Mostly, I was ashamed that no one seemed to think I deserved a future.

Instead, I opted for silence and sadness. I thought that my dreams had died before my life had even begun.

So to be a teacher today — a former Teacher of the Year in a school district of nearly 1,000 teachers — means the world to me.

It’s my Everest.

I can’t imagine anything better.

Now it may be taken away from me. This moment in the sun — Shakespearean English translated into the modern tongue by fifth graders — might very well be my last act as a teacher.

My final hurrah.

I know this so keenly as I insert the key into the lock of my classroom door that it hurts.

During my senior year of high school, my classmates placed a number in the corner of every blackboard in the school. It represented the number of days left in the school year. Every day, that number would be ceremoniously erased and the new number written in its place. It was a countdown to the end of the school year.

My classmates rejoiced at the changing of every number. I ached inside. As the numbers decreased, the number of days until I needed to find a place to live and a way to take care of myself also decreased.

When 100 turned to 99, I started to panic. Double digits. I couldn’t believe it. After 13 years of school, starting long ago in Mrs. Dubois’ kindergarten classroom, I was down to double-digit days of school left. 2,340 days of legally required school days, spanning more than a decade, had been reduced to just 99.

At the end of class, I went to see Mr. Chrabaszcz, my vice principal. I had interviewed him for the school newspaper and sparred with him over a front-page editorial about being required to type papers in school despite not being afforded access to the typewriters because I had not been required to take the class.

“The Right to Write” was the title. In some ways, it was a precursor to my blog:

My first attempt at publicly pushing back against authority.

After these encounters, I felt like I knew Mr. Chrabaszcz well enough to request a favor. I sat across from him in his small office and asked if I could do another year of high school.

“You have enough credits to graduate,” he said. “Right?”

“Yes.”

“Your grades are okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why?”

I told him that there were still classes I wanted to take and that I wasn’t ready to leave.

He smiled. “Really?”

“Yes,” I lied. I wasn’t about to tell him that I wasn’t ready to survive on my own and was terrified about having to move out.

But there were also classes I still wanted to take. Knowing that this might be my last chance at formal schooling in my life, I wanted to learn as much as possible.

Mr. Chrabaszcz tapped his pen on the desk for a moment, then he told me that he’d have to reach out to someone at the state level to find out. “No student in the history of the world has ever asked this question.”

Three days later, he pulled me out of math class to tell me I could not return to high school in the fall. “Like it or not, you need to accept your diploma and move on.”

He said this with a smile, not knowing he was stealing away my last bit of hope.

More than a decade later, I had finally returned to public school. Though I’m a teacher this time instead of a student, it still feels like home to me.

Now I might be asked to leave my home again.

I started the day thinking that it would be just another Tuesday of teaching. Another mountain at the top of my mountain.

Less than a dozen hours later, it might very well be my last.

I push open the door and enter my classroom. It’s never looked so beautiful.