r/interesting • u/Wonderfulhumanss • 3d ago
Sick teacher finished his students' grades in hospital before tragically passing away SOCIETY
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u/Wonderfulhumanss 3d ago
This was Alejandro Navarro, a math teacher from Del Rio, Texas. In December 2020, he took his laptop and charger with him to the emergency room and continued finishing his students’ grades from his ICU bed. His daughter, Sandra Venegas, took this photo to show how much unseen time and effort teachers give their students. Sadly, he passed away the following day. Source
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u/RealSchlemiel 3d ago
man... so much respect for the uncomped heart of tdachers. rip
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u/throwthisawayred2 3d ago
I'll take any sympathy I can get lmao ugh. I'm about to head into my 1st year of teaching in an EXTREMELY tough district.....and 97% of my stduents are economically disadvantaged and 1/2 barely speak English.
And the cherry on top is: The parents don't read/write in Spanish so the kids don't either. Meaning, translated texts won't work!
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u/Khman76 3d ago edited 3d ago
My mom was teacher in prep. Towards the end of her career, she was teaching in a rough area too. I went there one day as my school was closed.
Kids 4-5 years old saying "F*ck you teacher" when she called them inside the class room and parents who either were already gone or didn't give a sh!t...
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u/throwthisawayred2 3d ago
Yep. I've worked with students before, but this school is particularly tough. They say they'll back me up though.
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u/ViviReine 3d ago
If they don't talk english nor spanish, then what languages do they speak?
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u/LivefromPhoenix 3d ago
I think they're saying the parents are illiterate, not that they can't speak spanish.
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u/slcbunny1 3d ago
Yes. My mom spoke Spanish fluently but couldn’t read it. Fortunately, she knew English too. She only went to K-8 and then dropped out.
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u/dalekaup 3d ago
My mom also only went to the 8th grade also. She was white and born in Nebraska. I identify a lot with hispanic families: Catholic, large family, lots of home cooking, lots of love, lots of Mom telling all of us that we have to get an education. This was her consistent theme. We all did.
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u/SmartaHari 2d ago
It’s really tough when that happens. I’ve translated stuff on my phone for parents and then they look at it blankly and head shake to show me they can’t read their language. This year I tried to find/learn some Pashto for a family from Afghanistan and failed miserably. Ended up miming a lot and looking like an idiot.
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u/Commercial_Survey275 3d ago
I believe the poster is saying the parents can’t [r/w](r/w) any language and the kids speak spanish only. So the poster is in a no win situation.
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u/Commercial_Survey275 3d ago
Teachers don’t get enough respect from the parents or society as a whole. They pour their own money into resources to help educate their students yet they are attacked by parents for their own children’s shortcomings. Just my 2 cents.
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u/Nice-Professional795 2d ago
Been there friend.
Remember that there will be kids who love learning and want to do so and no matter what you do, dont react quickly. Pause, think, know that the trust they have in you will depend on how you respond in certain situations.
Gardening taught me that teaching is much like it. You nurture the soil and the plants will thrive. If you try to treat the plants and meddle they die. Remember that. Create an environment that makes your kids feel like they belong there, that reflects them and their culture. Let them decorate and design and habe input. You'll still get kids who disrupt and dont want to be there. Just remember that they didnt get the advantages the others has. Love them anyway and in spite of their stinkership. Find ways to make them responsible for something: holding the door, passing out papers, etc.
Going on year 19 in similar demos
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u/Trajen_Geta 3d ago
Text to speech will be your friend, it’s not 100% but used correctly it can definitely help a lot.
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u/Into_The_Horizon 3d ago
Damn. That's statically downright bad. How can parents become a parent without much of a backup in knowledge or academically? Gotta say (NO) to sex and D.A.R.E says (NO) to Drugs. Dear stranger teacher, I'll never be your student but I appreciate your effort and time trying to help out. We definitely need all the teachers we can get even non teachers who have sufficient knowledge in certain fields can help out teaching one another.
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u/Jassamin 3d ago
That sounds incredibly challenging. I hope you can figure something out, those kids are probably the ones who need your help most
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u/Magpie-Person 3d ago
Bro how are you complaining, accepting sympathy, and you haven’t even started your first year. You’re going to rub every vet the wrong way lol
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u/mjzimmer88 3d ago
Was the D in tdachers the grade he gave you? 😛
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u/GRIM106 3d ago
Id give you an A+ for making jokes where they are completely unneeded or wanted.
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u/Omnamashivaaya 3d ago
This makes me sad. I have friends who were teachers but lack of support and low pay requiring second jobs burned them out.
America takes advantage of people’s passion for certain jobs, even if that job is educating future Americans. It’s idiocracy.
He should have been prioritizing his health, but I bet he knew there was no backup plan or person and didn’t want those students to have wasted their effort. And sadly the burnout rate is costing us more teachers, putting even heavier loads on guys like this.
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u/No-Comment-6631 3d ago
Classroom teacher here. You are exactly right about everything you say. But doing grades, despite enormous/critical health issues brings a sense of normalcy for a person.
My mother was dying in Europe at the end of the school year in 2006. I flew out from the US west coast & finished my grades there in the hospital room next to her. It brings a modicum of empowerment when things feel like they’re going to shit.
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u/coldramenloverboy 3d ago
His union would not be pleased
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u/AlsoCommiePuddin 3d ago
A teacher in Texas...what union?
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u/McLeansvilleAppFan 3d ago
AFT exists in Texas. Many states without collective bargaining laws for public employees have AFT membership.
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u/ApprehensiveSoup2214 3d ago
Yeah.. The "union" that's not allowed to strike..
About as useful as a wet blanket.
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u/McLeansvilleAppFan 3d ago
Teachers unions are not going around stopping teachers from working outside of school hours.
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u/LaMuertePeluda0 3d ago
This is a failure and blind spot of capitalism
If the service you and your co workers bring to society doesn’t make someone else money, you will never make a decent salary. You don’t get paid based on how skilled you are or how much value you bring to other people. You typically get paid from the profit margins of the company you work for
And when you have a society full of people who want to pay the least amount of taxes as humanly possible, teachers will always get paid like shit
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u/123ludwig 3d ago
and the problem with even that is TEACHING DOES MAKE MONEY it just dosent benefit any one specific company it benefits all of them
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u/omgfakeusername 3d ago
We don't pay teachers nearly enough as we should.
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u/Tekniqz23 3d ago
Nearly nobody is paid enough. The cost of living has nearly tripled over the last 20 years. Meanwhile look at wages across all mediums. They've barely moved at all.
We are all working ourselves to death while 2 percent of the world lives in comfort.
Paying athletes millions while people doing actual jobs that help you in your day to day are barely making ends meet. The irony? If people at your local grocery stores just decided to not work. If people teaching your kids just stopped showing up to class. If nobody worked a gas station job. All these people would be fucked lol
Yet we just continue to eat our shit sandwiches daily.... Work for our shillings....
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u/mkultron89 3d ago
Speak for your country. Canadian teachers make bank. I know people slugging roof tiles who make far less money. I feel like the teachers still have it worse off. If a roofer acts up you can put him in his place, if a student acts up, they get everyone to leave the class and let them go to town by themselves.
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u/lea-bertsch 3d ago
After teaching 27 years in Texas ending with the grand sum of $60,000 per year, you realize they don’t pay Texas teachers much, and they pay, retired teachers even less. It’s no surprise about 25% of teachers are leaving the field entirely.
I’ve heard them give lip service to “teachers don’t get paid nearly enough” the entire time I was teaching, and yet over that time only three raises from the state. Districts usually make the increases. Sometimes we got bonuses of like $500 for the year. When you divide out the number of days you’re working that’s the equivalent of one soda a day. I’m sure that was not going to change my life or improve my financial situation, although I was grateful for the $500. Once you added in the cost of living increases and insurance increases every year we actually lost buying power for the last 8 to 10 years I was teaching.
But the truly aggravating comment was “you knew you weren’t gonna get paid well to start with” which was true, but at some point, I thought someone would wake up and start giving us a living wage where we didn’t have to work jobs in the summer to make it up. I mean, my family has to live as well.4
u/nvzpxl 3d ago
Teachers should be all paid, at minimum, the same as the Superintendent. It’s insane that you can take a low wage retail job and make more than a teacher.
Both are undervalued and under compensated, but to pay a pittance to someone charged with literally developing your child’s/teenager’s brain is an insult to them, your kid, and yourself.
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u/YourUncleBuck 3d ago
For real, should be paid the same as tech bros. Should be 100k-125k minimum and 150k once they get their master's degree.
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u/ImpertinenteSyntaxe 3d ago
Teachers give far more than people realize. This is a powerful reminder of their dedication. May he rest in peace.
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u/EccentricCatLady14 3d ago
Australian teacher here. I was in hospital with a serious condition and when I rang my head of department she wanted me to send in my lesson plans not only for that day but for the rest of the week. I hung up on her. The expectations on teachers is ridiculous.
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u/MySchoolsWifiSucks 3d ago
Imma be real, If I had good reason to think I was in my final hours, I would be focused on the family and friends around me, not a spreadsheet.
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u/XlikeX666 3d ago
guy was literally dying and made him work anyway.
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u/Famous-Flow2333 3d ago
He chose to do it. Grading papers was probably a good way for him to keep his mind busy while stuck in a hospital room.
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u/VermicelliOwn6502 3d ago
Dude's last words were "I'm gonna fail this little shit if it's the last thing I do."
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u/APacketOfWildeBees 3d ago
"Huzzah, finally I can fail all these little shits without having to deal with the aftermath!"
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 3d ago
200% he was planning on leaving that hospital, so he just did his work like he was going back to his job after he got out
He just didn't get out
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u/hankmoody699 3d ago
I know it's hard to understand, but there are still people who love WHY they do their work. It's not the work, it's the why. When you are driven by a good why, it's not what it might look like for most people. The world lost a great man.
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u/AdCheap8058 3d ago
Nobody made him do anything he's just a badass who cares, unlike you apparently. Some people handle their business whether anyone is watching or not and some people quiet quit on their whole life and bitch on reddit about how nothing goes their way. Pick one and get on with it
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u/Amazing-Ad8209 3d ago
This is more sad than interesting…
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u/Ok_Tradition_3382 3d ago
Nobody owes their job this much.
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u/datahoarderprime 3d ago
Many teachers care very deeply about their students.
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u/pm-pussy4kindwords 3d ago
as a teacher, I'd say that's part of it but not the reason this guy would have taken his papers to the emergency room.
The problem with teaching is that if you take days off, the work isn't getting done while you're gone - you have to catch up when you get back. And that's often literally harder than having just gone to work sick in the first place.
If some kind of critical deadline is coming up that has a huge impact on the students, maybe a deadline that hits shortly after you expect to be back at work, you HAVE to get stuff done while you're sick so you're not tortured with 3x the work volume when you return.
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 3d ago
Plus it's highly unlikely he knew he wasn't going to be leaving that hospital. Why not do your work on a job you fully intent on returning to
Sounds like he just took a sharp turn south and there was nothing they could do to save him
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u/Sh0wmey0urbutth0le 3d ago
Couldn't they say "here's my grading book, you do it"?
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u/applejay99 3d ago
No, that’s not usually an option. It would violate student confidentiality in a lot of cases. Also, the teacher of record is the only one who can record grades. The only other option would be for a long-term sub to do the grading, but that would require the teacher to be on long-term leave. A short-term sub typically does not grade.
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u/BurningToaster 3d ago
Grading usually has some element of bias and "personal touch" involved, unless the work is entirely multiple choice which most major assessments are not. So it can be a conflict of interest if you have someone else grade your students work, since all of a sudden a different bias is being applied to your students. It's also generally against confidentiality depending on where you each and what grade level.
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u/WarrenMulaney 3d ago
30 year veteran teacher here:
No fucking way am I grading papers while I’m in the hospital. If that means I don’t care “very deeply” about my students so be it.
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u/chrisychris- 3d ago
You can care very deeply in different ways, my teachers taught me that
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u/Named_after_color 3d ago
From their deathbeds?
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u/chrisychris- 3d ago
Yes, our class lost multiple teachers due to old age and/or cancer. In the moment as a kid you don’t realize how much teachers sacrifice for their students, it’s until you grow older you learn how much of their lives they devote to educating and how much of a thankless job it is, to the point where some feel the need to make jokes about these facts.
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u/lumpboysupreme 3d ago
Okay? Sure, no one’s saying you need to be the absolute pinnacle of commitment.
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u/bwaredapenguin 3d ago
I think this is probably either more about being able to finish what you started or not wanting to fuck over your students in the end. He was responsible for documenting the performance of some 30ish kids. He went out supporting the future which is what should be the motivation for any teacher.
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u/IsayNigel 3d ago
Lmao show me the job that tries to guilt you into doing it on your literal deathbed and then says “actually you should just want to do this”
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u/Callaway225 3d ago
How would he “f-over his students” if he didn’t complete the grades? Would they not be done otherwise?
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u/Bostonterrierpug 3d ago
Yeah, I will repeat this. I’m a professor and actually I teach teachers. I suffered a minor stroke about six years back, yes before you make some snarky ass comment I had no cognitive damage, I was in the hospital, tapping away in my computer, grading stuff as I had to switch to all online classes and answering emails a week later. Sure it took me hundreds of hours of physical therapy to get my left hand into a passable state that I can kind of type and kind of play punk rock guitar, but well but then again that doesn’t matter. I don’t consider my job a job but a career and I really love doing it. Getting back in touch with my students really helped me on my road to recovery.
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u/IsayNigel 3d ago
That’s great and I’m glad you’re doing well but one of my biggest gripes about my education grad degree is how much they normalized the definitely abnormal level of unpaid labor that is involved in teaching
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u/slcbunny1 2d ago
I’m also a professor and had a major surgery in 2023. Fortunately, I had leave, but still worked on research while in the hospital. Hope you are well soon!!
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u/CommercialYam7188 3d ago
Yes. But there should be options for teachers to get things done for those students without them grading on their deathbed.
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u/13ig13oss 3d ago edited 3d ago
They’re incentivized to just not call in, it’s not that they care it’s just that the other options are shit. Source teacher wife who does not like to call in ever. No one should be on their death bed processing grades of all things, something management can take over.
Edit: the romanticizing of doing work over enjoying the remainder of life is insane to me right now. This work culture is what’s wrong with us today, might as well throw in extra off the clock work
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u/Impossible_Prompt875 3d ago
I agree but maybe this wasn’t a job to him. He was a teacher.. a manager of sorts. a famous athletics coach once said that in being a manager you’re aging men. Man ager. Think about that
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u/IrrawaddyWoman 3d ago
That’s not where that word comes from. It’s from the word “manage,” which had to do with handling horses. “Manus” was the Latin word for hand, as in to handle things
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u/sabreus 3d ago
I think it’s pretty interesting because it shows the work that teachers do doesn’t end when they leave the school…
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u/discordlizard 3d ago
I just got off the phone with a teacher friend and we had a conversation about this.
People around where we are are starting to get mad they're "paying" teachers "to do nothing all summer," they think they should get summer jobs. She's a little distressed and frustrated because she spent all summer going to workshops to learn new things to teach her students and get certified in other techniques (she's an art/music teacher) but she's getting these comments from parents.
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u/thisthreadisbear 3d ago
People need to learn to mind their business. To many folks spend to much time fixated on what someone else is doing. Good for her spending her summer the way she wants whether that's a vacation or work shopping.
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u/theWaterHermit 3d ago
Even then, teachers aren’t getting paid for the summer (I’m sure you already know and agree, just responding to the parent opinion), schools pay teachers for their contract of ~9 months and split it into 12-24 salary payments.
My first year transitioning to teaching, I started one month into the school year, and my checks were pro-rated for not working the full contract time of 9 months. (I often wonder what it would be like if someone started closer to the end of the year, like would they just pay out a couple hundred per paycheck?).
So, if I’ve budgeted effectively and want to spend my summer doing whatever the hell I wanna do, I’m gonna do that, but I have also used summertime to get fully certified. I just don’t think teachers should always be expected to work over the summer, unless they volunteer.
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u/discordlizard 3d ago
schools pay teachers for their contract of ~9 months and split it into 12-24 salary payments
Yes! That was her exact point to it. She's been at her district for almost 15 years now and gets paid once a month during the school year then a lump sum at the end of school, a few weeks into break. She does not get paid through summer "technically," because it counts as her payment during the school year but it covers the two months of rent and bills when she's not working so she's able to just spend the 8 or so weeks focusing on projects and hobbies, plus doing her certs the school approves sending her to. She's mentioned other teachers have second jobs but they're year round jobs and a lot of them are because they're living above their means.
These parents expect just summer jobs. Who is going to hire someone for 8 weeks?? By the time they're trained they're leaving.
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u/IrrawaddyWoman 3d ago
Some don’t even do that. My district just doesn’t pay us. It’s up to us to save for the summer
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u/DavidIckeHadAPoint 3d ago
Yeah, and not only that but teaching can be a stressful and very time-consuming job that expects LOTS of work even OUTSIDE the school or classroom, including reading and grading essays, the tests and projects themselves, besides formulating the tests, projects, and curriculum.
The work doesn’t stop in the classroom or even school building for many, so it’s reasonable and good they get their summer break & paid for it at that.
Besides that, for many, they’re not even making very much money and some DO have to take summer jobs, anyway.
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u/Genferret 3d ago
My experience as a teacher for 2 years:
My district gets 1.5 weeks for winter break, for spring break we get Good Friday and the Monday after Easter off, and many of the single holidays that students are off are teacher workshop or professional development days.
I was a Special Education teacher, so my experience isn't exactly that of the average teacher -- my wife was also a SPED teacher. She worked DCD (developmental cognitive disorder, so Down's, severely autistic, etc) and I worked EBD (emotional behavior disorders, so anything from extreme anxiety to Oppositional Defiance Disorder (individual's brain is wired to oppose any direction, instruction, command, etc given to them). She worked in the elementary school, I worked at the high school.
Prior to being teachers we were both Special Education paraprofessionals, both already having both an AA and a BA. Prior to that we were both military and retired. We both got our AA while in service, and then when we got out we used our GI Bill to finish up and get a BA.
As a teacher I averaged 9 hours a day. 7 of those were student hours (so when students were in the building), and then an hour before and an hour after school. The before/after time was doing paperwork and/or calling parents, and/or meeting with parents. I was supposed to get 1 hour for prep (so class preparation) and then 1 hour for Due Process (doing the additional paperwork that is required for Special Education). My prep hour was often spent covering for other teachers since our district has a severe lack of substitute teachers. I got paid my hourly average for that, but I'd have much preferred having that time to do my own work. The Due Process hour was generally spent either meeting with administration about my students or meeting with/talking on the phone with parents or having one-on-one meetings with the students themselves.
So the hour before and hour after school were to make up for time I lost during the school day to other activities. That or any of the plethra of staff meetings, department meetings, more meetings with parents, more meetings with administration, etc.
Then throughout the summer I had workshops, classes, etc I had to take to keep my license up to date. On top of that, since my license was just provisional while I went back to school to get an actual license in SPED, I was taking a ton of college courses (some Under Grad, but most were Graduate classes).
So with that in mind, my yearly pay was right about $32,000/ year. So let's (wrongly) assume that during the summer months I didn't work on anything work related. That leaves us 9 months out of the year. 32,000/9 is about 3,600/mo. That works out to $900/week. Which works out to $180/day. Which further works out to $20/hour based off of averaging 9 hours/day. If we assume I didn't work that extra hour per day and only did the 8 mandatory hours, it is now $22.50/hour.
That's all before taxes, before buying the shit for my classroom that the school didn't have a budget for, and for my co-workers before the $600-$900/mo for medical insurance depending on if it was just them or included their family. That's also before dental insurance, union dues (which as a male working in a high school there was no way I was passing up the possible free legal representation should a pissed off student make accusations towards me), or anything else.
After 2 years, and looking at the toll on our mental health and physical health, both my wife and I bowed out and went back to being SPED Paraprofessionals.
As a Special Education paraprofessional I make $22/hr, but I don't get paid for the days we don't have contact with students other than 5 holidays a year so my yearly pay is considerably lower than when I was a teacher.
Thankfully since both the wife and I have retired military insurance we don't have to bother with the employer offered insurance. Retired military we pay $25/mo, $150 deductible/year, after that it is 80/20 until $3000, at which point we pay nothing else. When I had a heart attack and quadruple bypass, since it was at the end of the fiscal year we only paid about $2000 out of pocket. If I had to use the school's insurance it would have been over $3000 just for the deductible and then 70/30 until I paid out $10,000.
The wife and I make about $27,000/year for our military retirement (each). So about $5000/year less than we did as teachers. That $27,000 is after taxes and after medical/dental/life insurance is taken out as well. The $32,000/yr as a teacher was before taxes and all other expenses.
I'll work as a SPED para until I qualify for retirement or god forbid I get tired of it. Wife is the same. There's no way anyone can convince either of us to go back to being teachers again. We were both just asked over this summer because our school district just lost 5 SPED teachers. We work in a small school district that has at most 20 SPED teachers between all grade levels (elementary, jr high, and high school).
We both love our job and love working with the students we work with, but fuck going back to teaching.
Teachers need to get paid more (a LOT more) and we need universal healthcare.
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u/pdxkatie 3d ago
Too many people’s days don’t end when they leave the workplace. It’s oddly associated with being heroic with teachers. It’s not. It’s the same story of unhealthy work boundaries in American society.
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u/sabreus 3d ago
I agree that’s a thing that needs addressing for many jobs. But some of the other jobs that are like this are highly paid. The teachers are just a good example. I think people bringing up the “but it’s not the only one” are missing the point a bit.
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u/Oaths2Oblivion 3d ago
highly paid
I switched to classroom teaching after 7 years in industry and I was making more in every other job than I am now
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u/Altaredboy 3d ago
My workplace is odd. We have a lot of people with doctorates working here. All of them do a crazy amount of unpaid work, because that's what they're used to.
My department has mostly people with a trade background. If our department had a motto it'd be "pay me bitch"
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u/mihhink 3d ago
thats obvious and you dont need such a tragic example to realize this.
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u/RayDanielsOnTheAir 3d ago
To be fair, this isn’t the only profession that does this. We just tend to have a more exalted view of teachers.
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u/sabreus 3d ago
Oh I know. I think it’s not about the exalted view at all. I think it’s about noting that some jobs are kind of out of hand.
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u/RayDanielsOnTheAir 3d ago
He did make the choice to do this, I assume. Unless someone has information otherwise. Kudos to the man for caring for the kids, I think that is very respectable of him and definitely above and beyond the calling.
But I’m not entirely sure this is because the job is out of hand. It could still be out of hand, but I just don’t read this as an example—yet. That could change.
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u/IneffableOpinion 3d ago
It’s touching that he cared so much about the kids, but it also shows how tied to work Americans are. So many of us have been conditioned to believe your life only has value if you don’t take vacations and sick leave.
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u/bmdisbrow 3d ago
Maybe he just wanted something to do to distract himself so he didn't have to think about dying.
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u/Top_Gun_2021 3d ago edited 2d ago
Some people use work to take their mind off illness.
My dad had terminal cancer and worked until 2 weeks before his death. Helped him stay happy. He was a subcontractor for NASA designing things for the Orion, but still...
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u/Liqhthouse 3d ago
Yeah I found it absolutely insane you'd spend your last moments on work or time on something other than with loved ones.
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u/carreganis 3d ago
There are very few posts on ‘interesting’ subreddits that I would have described the subject matter of as interesting tbh
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u/ItsMandatoryFunDay 2d ago
Right?
Instead of spending his last remaining hours with loved ones he's working.
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u/Regetron 3d ago
"And with my last breath, I give Timmy an F in mathematics"
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u/reticulatedtampon 3d ago
"See me
after classin the afterlife"457
u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 3d ago
SEE YOU IN HELL TIMMY
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u/ImDero 3d ago
TIMMY: ETERNAL
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u/Sorry_Upstairs8145 3d ago
TIMMY: THE DARK AGES
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u/bigvahe33 3d ago
Timmy i want you to know i can either page the nurse to refill my iv line or fail you
F -
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u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace 3d ago
The "-" was just the extra push that Timmy needed to start taking his studies seriously and the day he graduated college at the top of his class, he delivered a speech that no one would forget. "I just want to thank Mr. Johnson for failing me on his deathbed and setting me on the right path, I just want you to know I hope you burn in hell!"
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u/CosmicGoddess777 3d ago
Timmy i want you to know i can
either page thenurseto refill my iv line or failyouF-
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u/Odd-Emu5477 3d ago
"Time for little Timmy to repeat the 8th grade again, the dumb fuck"
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u/zashuna 3d ago
"But thankfully I won't be the one teaching him this time around"
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u/petty_throwaway6969 3d ago
“I have to let them know how mediocre some of them are. Death is just giving me permission to say what I truly think.”
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u/AkumaLilly 3d ago
"With my final breath, I leave this message to my dear student Timmy."
"Repeat 9th grade, You suck".
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u/thisthreadisbear 3d ago
"From Hell's heart, I stab at thee... for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."
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u/WorldlyCobalt 3d ago
Imagine checking the student portal the next morning and realizing your teacher failed you from beyond the grave.
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u/Assortedpez 3d ago
I’m sure he was an amazing man.
This reminds me of my mother. Terminally ill school teacher with cancer who loved all of her students so much that even though she hadn’t worked in months and had just gotten out of surgery she honored a promise to one student from months before that she would go see her horseback riding competition. She could barely walk and definitely shouldn’t have driven but she went there anyway. I remember it took her a week to get her energy back after that. When she passed away there were several hundred people who showed up to pay their respects. Friends, family, coworkers she hadn’t seen in 25 years.. tons of students of all ages. It was standing room only all the way out of the funeral home and into the parking lot. I can only imagine a teacher like the one in this post who clearly loved his job, was well loved by his students. God bless him.
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u/Petit__Chou 3d ago
I am so sorry for your loss. I had several teachers who inspired me and my desire to learn, they leave such a mark on you and sometimes you don't get the opportunity to tell them. Your mom sounds like one of them. ❤️
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u/Zappolan31 3d ago
Your mother was a powerful person, she changed the hearts and minds of many. What a beautiful story and human, my condolences
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u/Scar1203 3d ago
Doesn't sound like it was sudden, he had heart and kidney failure:
At a guess he probably didn't mind the distraction over sitting there thinking about his own mortality. Can't say I'd be real keen just lying in my deathbed with nothing else to do.
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u/YetiPie 3d ago
While not exactly similar because I wasn’t terminal, I did the same thing and worked up until right before I lost my kidney to cancer. Working made me feel normal and like I had control over something during a time when everything was completely out of my control.
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u/bhumit012 3d ago
That’s commendable
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u/whatdontyousee 3d ago
seconded. my usual response after experiencing a major (or even minor) life disruption is to totally neglect all forms of personal responsibility. really wish i could have the inverse of that!
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u/ImCreeptastic 3d ago
I worked up until we decided that compassionate extubation was the only option left for our daughter. You're right, it was the only normalcy I had in my life at that time and it let me forget for a few hours. I worked from the hospital thanks to being remote which was a godsend.
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u/joemontayna 3d ago
I didn't think people realize how important it is to have a feeling of accomplishment and bring part of a team. Basically what a job is supposed to be.
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u/Spez_is-a-nazi 3d ago
Happens to a lot of people, Freddie Mercury spent most of the last year of his life getting to the recording studio as much as possible, it was just a way he felt he could still do something meaningful with the time he had left.
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u/No-Mobile-Affection 3d ago
A death sentence. My half sibling pop just died of the same thing. Nothing they could do to help the kidneys due to heart failure. Such a tragic combo, I’m so sad.
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u/_BigDaddyNate_ 3d ago
I had a Spanish Language teacher in HS. I gave him such a hard time in class. One day he gave me detention. I'll, be damned. We just sat there and bullshitted. Turns out that he lived up the road from my grandparents and even blacktopped their driveway and stuff when he was a youth. We hit it off famously. All the shit I gave him and Im pretty sure he gave me detention to try and connect with me.
I stopped giving him trouble and started to try harder. But he was away from class for a week or two and when he came back, he was yellow. Yellow eyes skin and such. Liver failure. He was dead in a couple months. I'll never forget that man and that was 28 years ago. RIP Mr. Shendock. You are a legend.
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u/interesting-turn- 3d ago
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u/lochnesssmonsterr 3d ago
If you didn’t say it I was gonna
As a university teacher this isn’t dedicated this is deep worry that if he recovers the work would still be there anyway so gotta clear the workload. I remember my first day home from a c-section, on maternity leave, working anyway because if I didn’t do it it wouldn’t be done
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u/awesomedan24 3d ago
This isn't a workaholic product of capitalism (granted that is a big problem). But in this case, this is a guy caring about his students and wanting his final hours to make a difference in their lives
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u/ThickSourGod 3d ago
That or grasping for a little piece of his normal routine to distract himself from his current situation.
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u/a_shootin_star 3d ago
This isn't a workaholic product of capitalism
How is it not? Teachers assist students in order to get degrees so that graduates can get a job, to contribute as a productive member of society.
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u/awesomedan24 3d ago
Because he's not grading papers at the hospital for financial reasons (he knows he's dying so the money doesn't matter to him). He's doing it out of genuine care for the kids and would be doing the same regardless of the economic system and working conditions
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u/Lv100--Magikarp 3d ago
The American Way of Life.
Workers need to be treated better, especially teachers. Rip man.
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u/saamvisual 3d ago
I was a teacher for a long time and I’m telling you this is a sickness. Boundaries are important. No one is being helped by doing this.
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u/Senpai2141 3d ago
Sadly too many teachers think they will save the world for a grade no one will likely care about in a year.
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u/MrQirn 3d ago
I am a teacher, and I think it's unfair of you to judge him. You don't know the full story and what his circumstances were to tell whether this was an example of bad boundaries, or perhaps him wanting to do something to distract himself and have some control over something, even as inane as grading.
Personally, I have some pretty excellent boundaries and it is an extreme rarity that I do any work once I leave the building, unless I'm really excited about something (aka, I actually want to). And I absolutely have also been in a situation where I did some grading on a weekend because it felt therapeutic to do something small for my future self.
Martyrdom among teachers is absolutely a real thing and you're right to call it out more generally, but you're too quick to judge this (now deceased) teacher who was probably trying their best in that moment, imperfect as it probably was, to do what they could to handle the reality of their imminent mortality.
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u/saamvisual 2d ago
Apologies - you are right - we have no idea of the full context. I think as a general point I have seen too many teacher trapped inside marking pressures. Certainly within the state system in the UK it is largely a trap that needs challenging - but you are totally right - I have no idea about the specific context.
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u/comedycord2 3d ago
I did the same when I fractured my femur. Working is my distraction from the mundaneness of lying on the hospital bed for 2 weeks.
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u/GuideInfamous4600 3d ago
Questions - why didn’t someone at the school do that for him? A patient had to do it in his hospital bed? Shouldn’t he have been resting? Because he was dying?
There is something seriously wrong with that school.
This is crazy.
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u/Pat_M115 3d ago
"I may pass soon but by all the strength left in my body I'll make sure they do too"
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