Feeling bitter? Write it. Then, rewrite it.

TL;DR:

A teacher faced parental anger over a plagiarism incident and initially responded by writing it out feeling bitter and sarcastic.
A colleague suggested rewriting the piece to focus on understanding parents’ frustrations and the education system’s challenges.
Lesson learned: Channel bitterness into productive reflection, seek accountability from trusted colleagues, and aim for thoughtful, compassionate communication.

Feeling Bitter?

About midway through my seventh year of teaching, I got yelled at by a mother over the phone. Her daughter, a junior in high school, had admitted to plagiarizing a few paragraphs on a short, formative assessment.

Her mother was, of course, “really not happy about this,” and I agreed that the situation wasn’t great. But luckily, her daughter had plagiarized on a rewrite of a small, formative assessment, an assessment on which she had originally received 16/20 points. Since it was a rewrite, and since it was a small assignment, I’d permit her to keep her original grade on the assignment, which really wouldn’t have a huge impact on her cumulative grade.

Just like teachers hold our students accountable because we care about them, sometimes, we need to find colleagues, friends, and family members who hold us accountable because they care about us. Click To Tweet

I thought that explanation would smooth things over. But the mother was still angry, especially with me.

“You emailed me about this whole thing at 8 AM this morning. And then, you waited all day to call me. You think I wasn’t panicked? I was worried sick.”

I reiterated that her daughter’s mistake wasn’t going to cost her daughter much if anything at all. I was disappointed that she’d plagiarized. But I was calling because that was school policy and also because I wanted to reassure her mother that her daughter would not fail the assignment in question.

But the mother wasn’t really upset about the plagiarism. She was generally disappointed in my teaching.

Her daughter “works herself to death” and my class “is the source of her daughter’s stress.”

“Ever since the old English teacher left, English has been terrible for her,” she admonished.

I explained to her that my curriculum is rigorous and that my standards are in line with the Common Core State Standards, which, for writing, prioritize college readiness. I reminded her that her daughter sometimes comes for extra help, but as I’ve said in previous emails and in our last parent-teacher conference, her daughter would benefit from more consistent, one-on-one help, as she sometimes struggles to elaborate on her ideas. But her daughter still has a B, which is, at a college preparatory school like this one, no doubt a marker of success.

Challenges in Teaching and Parent Expectations

Still, the mother wasn’t placated.

“It’s been a year and a half with you, and my daughter still doesn’t have an A in English. Good God, give the kid a break.”

This particular mother has yelled at me before; I had taught her daughter when she was in the tenth grade and when I had just landed a teaching job at this school. She’s what other faculty at my school call a “repeat offender.” Last year, she made a habit of emailing her younger child’s school counselor with urgent demands: “Call me now,” or “I need to speak with you immediately,” usually about a matter that was important, but not dire. She had on several occasions slammed the Dean of Students for complimenting her youngest daughter’s outfits and then politely reminding her of the school’s dress code. She loved to remind us all—and she reminded me in this phone call—how much she pays to send her daughters to our small, private girls’ school, how much she sacrifices to get so little in return.

And here she was, making me a martyr for all of her frustrations.

It was 3:30. We’d been on the phone since 3:00, and I was exhausted.

Finally, I relented, and I humbled myself. I apologized for emailing her at 8 AM, for not doing enough to meet her daughter’s needs, and for not acknowledging how hard her daughter works. I thanked her for her time and consideration.

“I’m sorry if I came off aggressive at first,” the mother said. “I’m just really defensive of both my girls.”

Seeking Common Ground

I told her that I understood. I repeated back to her all of the things that we agreed on today: that I had to do more to help her daughter feel successful in my class, that I had to make my expectations on assignments clearer, that I had to explicitly teach eleventh graders that copying and pasting someone else’s work and presenting it as your own was plagiarism.

I asked her if she had any more suggestions as to how I could better meet her daughter’s needs.

She didn’t at this time. She thanked me, and I thanked her for her time. We said goodbye, and finally, I packed up to go home.

This happened on a Tuesday at a particularly busy time of the school year. And even though it shouldn’t have, it embittered me for the rest of the week.

So, I did what I often do when I’m feeling resentful. I wrote the whole thing down.

I recorded the conversation to the best of my memory: the mother’s berating comments that I didn’t know what I was doing, that my curriculum was too rigorous and my expectations too high, and that I lacked grace for her daughter.

I talked about the parents who got mad when we disciplined their children for plagiarizing or made them ineligible to play in a Friday night football game because of grades. I talked about how those same parents loved to argue that the public school system was failing their children and that we weren’t teaching their children how to succeed in the “real world.”

I listed more contentious interactions with parents: that time when a mother tried to argue that teaching in the Harkness model had no business in the writing classroom, the mother that thought I was unreasonable for expecting a seventeen-year-old to check his email, the mother who once texted me at 7:20 PM because her son needed help on an assignment, and she didn’t even say please or thank you.

My closing paragraph was pessimistic to the point of sarcasm.

Clearly, I wrote, no matter what logic I presented to a parent that their child was in the wrong—she’d plagiarized, she’d neglected to take advantage of the copious opportunities I offered for extra help, she didn’t choose to read and digest the feedback that I wrote her on assignments—and no matter how carefully I documented the evidence that their child had made a mistake, that I was following protocol and holding them accountable—everything was always going to be my fault. Seven years of teaching, and clearly, I would never be able to change anyone’s mind. I guess I was unteachable. I guess I was just driving myself insane.

Writing it all down felt good.

I felt petty. I felt powerful. I felt like I was finally letting out all that I’d been holding in since I started teaching.

I wanted my words to go somewhere. I fantasized about publishing it on a blog for disgruntled teachers, sharing the story to my LinkedIn profile with the caption: “Hey, parents, wondering why no one wants to teach anymore? Take a look at your own behavior.”

So, I sent the story to a friend of mine, Brian Miller.

Brian Miller has a personal blog where he posts weekly stories called Friday Thoughts. In the past, he’d encouraged me to send in a story of mine, a story about teaching that mattered.

Of course, entrenched in resentment, I thought that this story mattered.

Brian and I talked on the phone a few days later. He loved the piece. He appreciated my way of capturing a typical plight of an educator and a common interaction between teacher and parent. What he didn’t appreciate was the ending.

“It’s sarcastic. You sound bitter. It doesn’t show that you learned anything, and it doesn’t prompt your audience to learn anything either.”

Anyone who knows Brian Miller knows that he’s thoughtful not just about leading schools, but about why we teach what we teach, how we approach tough topics, how we formulate messages.

He’s also a leader who builds enough rapport with his faculty and friends so that he can tell them the difficult truths.

I won’t lie and say that I agreed with Brian right away. I didn’t. It had only been a week since the incident, and I wanted it to be sarcastic. But Brian wouldn’t post it to his blog if I didn’t rethink the ending, and I wanted the story to go somewhere.

I reread the piece. Even though I was still mad, I willed myself to see it with a new purpose. What could readers learn from this? What did I really learn from this?

If readers were teachers, did I really want to make them bitter? If readers were parents, did I really think that my derision at the close of the piece would prompt them to understand what teachers experience on the other end of the phone line?

As I reread, all I could hear were the mother’s frustrations with things that weren’t in my control.

She was upset that her daughter didn’t have an A in my class and that my class was what was preventing her from getting a better GPA and a scholarship to college.

She was upset that she was a single mom, paying for her daughter to attend a private school that cost too much and didn’t necessarily guarantee admittance to a top-tier university.

She was upset that I couldn’t give her daughter the one-on-one attention that she needed.

She was upset about a lot of things, and she was upset with a lot of other people besides me.

Rereading the piece helped me see that I really wasn’t the problem. And writing with scorn about the problem wasn’t going to solve it, anyway.

So, I completely revised the ending, this time for the purpose of giving voice to this mother’s real frustrations.

I sent the new piece with the new ending to Brian. “I friggin love this!” he wrote back. He posted it on his blog, I shared it on LinkedIn, and I got plenty of compliments about my thoughtfulness and grace.

Brian’s challenge that I rewrite the ending made me think better and teach better. He guided me back to the truth that I need to recognize anytime that I’m frustrated: that more often than not, parents are not frustrated with you. They’re frustrated with the system that you work for and represent. And, if we’re being honest, kind, and thoughtful, we can certainly have compassion for that frustration.

Now, I’m thankful that the original piece didn’t go anywhere. And, I’m thankful for the lesson that I relearned.

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When you’re bitter, write about it.

Let it all out. Talk about the injustices of how teachers—the ones who are the most aware of the limitations and occasional failures of the American education system—are always the ones who take the fallback for public mistrust of the American education system. Lament the falling standards, a symptom of parents who want their children to get an A when they haven’t earned it. Whine about the times when you’ve apologized and you shouldn’t have had to.

Allow yourself to be bitter and throw all your resentment on the page.

Then, show it to someone who wants to make you better.

Think about the colleagues that you trust and admire. Consider who you can turn to as a leader, mentor, or professional parent. Show them what you’ve written or take them to coffee to talk about it.

Tell them that you want their honest opinion, and steel yourself for their reply.

See their feedback as an opportunity to re-see the situation.

Then, rewrite the story.

You can read the revised—and much more thoughtful, professional, and compassionate—story here.

Also, if you love honest, thoughtful conversations about education, I highly recommend Brian’s podcast, Schurtz and Ties.

About Catherine Dorian

Catherine has taught English in public and private secondary schools for over seven years. Through writing and experience, she explores the challenge and dynamic nature of teaching in the Harkness model, thinking of new ways to teach writing, and developing students’ multimedia literacy in the digital world. Catherine loves teaching for the same reason that she loves writing; both require that we constantly dispute our ideas, question possibilities, seek connection, and find creative ways to navigate our most pressing obstacles. Catherine holds a BA in English Teaching from Montana State University and an ALM in Extension Studies, Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University. She lives and teaches in central Massachusetts.