A Letter to Failed Teachers. And to Taryn Elam, wherever you are, I’m sorry.

There’s this strange, gutting thing that happens when you’ve spent years studying someone’s life — not in the abstract, but intimately and painstakingly — and then stumble upon their real-world unraveling playing out online. A digital breadcrumb trail confirming the very fears you tried not to say out loud in your research.

That’s what happened to me when I came across Taryn Elam’s (pseudonym) social media post. And it hit like a punch to the chest.

Because it was all there. The burnout. The resignation. The anger. The silence turned static. And worst of all: the confirmation. Taryn Elam was one of those teachers you remember — respected and trusted by students, and colleagues, and genuinely a joy to work with. She had the kind of presence that made a classroom feel steady and alive at the same time. She wasn’t just capable — she was exceptional. But like so many others, Taryn found herself at the mercy of an urban charter school job that was slowly unraveling her spirit and her health.

She lacked for neither skill nor dedication, but the post-COVID situations in schools like hers had changed around her dramatically and offered her no real path to change with it. The needs of students were shifting rapidly: more IEPs, more behavioral disruptions, more trauma walking through the door. And while those students deserved the very best (teachers like Taryn), Taryn wasn't getting the training she needed to meet those needs.

I didn’t get to train her enough. I didn’t get to provide the kind of sustained, evolving support that this moment demands. And she had none of the institutional buy-in that might have made those supports stick — no coordinated effort from administrators, no coordinated systems-level response to the growing chaos of the work. The toll became so great that doctors advised her to step away.

We all (society really) asked her to keep showing up for her students, but we didn’t show up for her. That’s on all of us.

Watching her walk away — knowing what her absence would mean for her students and her school — and having to accept that all the pressure points we flagged, all the traumas we mapped, all the institutional betrayals we named didn’t improve but unfolded exactly as feared… it’s more than frustrating. It’s heartbreaking.  And for that, I carry real regret.

Please understand that it doesn't have to be like this. Teachers aren’t just overwhelmed; they’re being strategically starved. Underfunding isn’t accidental — it’s systemic. It’s the slow squeeze that leaves classrooms without counselors, outdated textbooks, broken HVAC systems, and too few support staff to manage the needs of modern students.

We strip the resources, raise the expectations, and then plant the doubt: Maybe you're just not cut out for this anymore. We turn to teachers and ask why they can’t “handle it all.” This is how gaslighting works. The system doesn’t just fail to support them — it insidiously convinces them that their inability to thrive under these conditions is a personal shortcoming, not a structural one. That kind of emotional erosion, over time, doesn’t just lead to burnout. It leads to doubt. 

The result? Brilliant educators questioning their worth not because they’ve changed — but because the everything around them has made it impossible to succeed without breaking. It chips away at confidence, passion, and belief — not only in the profession, but in themselves.

But this isn’t a post to dissect her story.

This is a letter. An apology.

An apology to....every teacher who has stood in front of a room and cried on the way home.

....every teacher who has questioned their sanity because the system gaslit them into silence.

....every teacher who once felt called — and now just feels discarded.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry we made you the hero and then handed you a battlefield with no backup.

I’m sorry we told you to be innovative and then tied your hands behind your back.

I’m sorry we expected you to be counselor, social worker, parent, security guard, curriculum expert, and grief sponge — all before lunch.

I’m sorry we said we’d listen… and then turned away the minute you raised your voice.

I'm sorry for the the broader political context that made things worse, and for those in your school who can't or won't name it.

I'm sorry that the Trump administration’s approach to education didn’t just neglect you— it undermined you.

From Betsy DeVos’s relentless push to defund and destabilize public schools, to the weaponization of “parental rights” as a way to silence culturally responsive teaching, this era actively devalues educators and erases your expertise. And I am sorry. I am sorry for the ways you have been painted as enemies of free thought instead of protectors of it. I am sorry that, instead of being supported as professionals figuring out unprecedented teaching difficulty, you are being surveilled, and second-guessed. I'm sorry that the climate of hostility doesn't just bruise egos — it helps push good teachers like you, dear reader, out of the field entirely.

I am sorry because as a society, we have failed to defend you - the people we most depend on.

I’m especially sorry for how we treat Black women teachers.

We called you strong, which is just another way of saying we planned to ignore your pain.

We called you passionate, which is how we framed your exhaustion as inspiration.

We called you “a presence,” and what we meant was: you can take it.

And Taryn — if you ever come across this — I’m sorry we didn’t stop it from going exactly how we feared.

Not because you didn’t fight hard enough. But because the rest of us didn’t fight with you hard enough.

And, finally, to everyone else, especially those thinking, “Well, teachers knew what they were signing up for,” —

No. Full stop.

They signed up to teach.

They didn’t sign up to be emotionally gutted by systems too rigid to respond to reality.

They didn’t sign up for trauma roulette, for lockdown drills, for school boards that call them indoctrinators one week and miracle workers the next.

They didn't sign up for a president who poisons the well they and their students drink from.

What they signed up for was to help our young people grow.

What they got was a front-row seat to a system unraveling — and a muzzle.

So this is my apology.

But hopefully it’s also a wake-up call. Because for every Taryn who posts about what she’s walking away from, there are dozens more suffering silently, disappearing without fanfare, burning out without documentation. We are hemorrhaging brilliance. We are exhausting the very people we trust to shape our future.

And if we don’t name it now — not with platitudes, but with policy, practice, and actual cultural change — we’re not just failing teachers. We’re failing students. We’re failing ourselves.

So if you’ve ever been taught, mentored, supported, or even just seen by a teacher who held you up when they were falling apart — tag them. Write them. Thank them.

Or better yet: Ask them what they need to stay. And help give it.