Second Grade Teacher Fed Up with His Elementary School's 'One-Size-Fits-All Curriculum' Tenders Resignation on YouTube
Second grade teacher Stephen Round, a 13-year veteran of the Providence (RI) school system, had enough of teaching students to be "good test-takers" rather than "lifelong learners," so he decided to resign and return to his true calling: Remedial tutoring.
Round asked to be allowed to read a letter of resignation at a recent school committee meeting, but was rebuffed.
Not wanting his grievances to go unheeded, the educator recorded a video of himself reading the letter and uploaded it to YouTube, where it subsequently caught the attention of local news operations.
"It was purely frustration," Round said. "It got the point where I can't stand by and watch kids not learn, and I have the key to help them."
Round, who takes issue with the (ironically named) Providence school district's insistence on conforming to the "misguided notions of 'educrats,'" says he would rather quit his secure, $70,000-a-year plus benefits teaching position and tutor kids for free "than be a part of a system that is diametrically opposed to everything I believe education should be."