I am so, so sorry this is happening to you.

It’s a literal crying shame that teachers are treated so badly in America. I knew quite a few teachers in the New York City school system, and in all but one case it was thin dribbles of teaching covered with thick globs of despair, cynicism, terror and ubiquitous apathy.

I’ll tell you about the one exception. He worked in a science magnet school so the students were pre-selected for an interest and aptitude in science and technology, and the city was determined to make it work.

The pay was pretty good, but this man lived like a hermit and devoted his entire energy (and my guess was considerable personal money) to this task, He was a good friend of my partners, but I only met him twice because he simply spent his entire time and energy on science education and “the kids” — he was very personable and sophisticated in person on a number of topics, but he really fired up when he talked about the kids.

Now, I am not unrealistic about how the world works.

Technology magnet schools are immensely useful in wealth generation and serving industry so it’s not surprising the-powers-that-be can do it right in this one case. It’s great for these kids, but if you’re someone who isn’t ever going to be able to solve a differential equation, then you’re in the cold.

But it still made me happy that this one nice unselfish guy who only wanted to teach ended up in the perfect place to get a lot of teaching done, so I’ll give this story to you too.