“What Do You Want? A Medal?”
In a very appearance-focused world, sometimes off-putting virtue signaling is necessary
I work in a job that appears very altruistic and giving. I handle special education paperwork and communicate with parents about meetings and their students’ progress. When people ask what I do, I generally just tell them I’m a special ed teacher — that’s a lot easier to explain.
I’ve worked in inner-city schools that are predominantly Title I, high poverty, mostly Black and/or Hispanic with one or two White kids in schools of 600 kids, and, well, you get the point.
I say this all to say I used to talk about what I do — a lot, but I don’t anymore. People tell me I’m doing good work all the time, and I’m not going to lie: I used to seek out that validation more, but now, I just do what I do, do my best, get paid for it, occasionally get too attached to the success of my students, but go home and attend to other things.
The reality is every day is filled with moral dilemmas and compromises that really make you question whether you’re doing the right thing. In my third year of teaching, one example was how strictly we had to enforce a uniform policy. A student couldn’t even enter our classrooms without a uniform on.
