Tina was going back to school for her third master’s degree. She was a Special Education teacher, but she couldn’t take her job anymore, so she had quit. The kids were out of control. There were too many of them in one classroom for her to manage effectively. The school administration ignored her pleas to add teacher assistants. They ignored her complaints that some of the kids were simply little monsters. They were discipline problems that other teachers had shunted off to Special Education.

The administration didn’t even respond to her complaint that one oversized young student had pushed her down one day onto the floor. Tina wanted to call the police, but the school principal talked her out of it with promises to improve things. Two weeks later, not one promise had been fulfilled.

Tina angrily visited the principal, who told her that if she didn’t have the patience to wait for things to improve, maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a teacher.

“How dare you! The issue is not whether I’m cut out to be a teacher,” she angrily replied. “I am a teacher, and a damn good one. But no teacher can get along forever with inadequate supplies, with overcrowded classrooms, with students who are dumped into her class, and with students who attack her. And especially,” she growled, “with idiots like you in charge who continually ignore the needs of Special Education students and teachers.”