01/03/2026
Why i mentor 💕
The note that saved a boy’s life wasn’t flagged by a safety algorithm.
It wasn’t caught by a keyword filter.
It was written in faint, erasable pencil on the back of a pop quiz, squeezed into the margin beside a wrong answer about The Great Gatsby.
If I had done what the district wanted—if I had used the new tablet’s auto-grade feature—that quiz would have vanished into the system in three seconds. The student would have received a 60 percent. The software would have assigned remedial reading modules.
And a quiet sophomore named Leo, who wore the same gray hoodie every day, would have remained unseen.
But I don’t use auto-grade. I use a red felt-tip pen. And because I actually looked at the paper, I saw the words Leo had written, barely there, the letters shaking:
“Mr. Vance, I don’t think I’m okay. Please help.”
I was thinking about Leo as I sat in the windowless auditorium at district headquarters. The air conditioning hummed with the steady aggression of a meat locker.
Onstage, our new Superintendent of Innovation paced with a clicker in hand. Dr. Sterling wore a smartwatch worth more than my first year’s salary and spoke with the buoyant confidence of a man who had never tried to teach literature to thirty exhausted teenagers on a rainy Tuesday.
“The future of education is frictionless,” he announced.
Behind him, a massive screen lit up with a graphic of a child’s head connected to a cloud icon.
“With Apex Learning 4.0,” he continued, “we eliminate the bottleneck of human delay. Real-time assessment. Personalized pathways. You are freed from the drudgery of grading so you can focus on facilitation.”
Facilitation. That was the new word.
We weren’t teachers anymore.
I looked at my hands. Blue ink stained the creases of my knuckles. I am sixty-two years old. Chalk dust has lived in my skin for decades. I have taught in this district for thirty-five years. I remember when textbooks fell apart if you opened them too fast. I remember buying fans with my own money because classrooms hit ninety degrees in September.
But mostly, I remember students.
Around me, three hundred teachers sat in silence. I saw Sarah, a gifted history teacher, rubbing her temples. I saw David, a math instructor who used to bring his guitar to homeroom, scrolling job listings beneath the table.
We were being told our instincts were inefficiencies.
“By removing subjective bias,” Sterling continued, “we project higher test throughput and reduced staffing costs.”
That phrase did it.
Subjective bias.
I stood up. My knees protested. My back popped. Not to make a scene. Just because I couldn’t sit there while my life’s work was reduced to a flaw in a spreadsheet.
“Excuse me,” I said.
Sterling stopped mid-step. “Questions are scheduled for later, sir.”
“I’m not asking one,” I replied. “I’m correcting something.”
I walked toward the aisle. Slowly. Steadily.
“You said bias,” I said. “Let me tell you about friction.”
I turned to the room.
“Last week, I received an essay that was perfect. Grammar flawless. Structure immaculate. Your system would have given it an A instantly.”
I paused.
“I gave it a D.”
Sterling smiled tightly. “Exactly the issue we’re addressing.”
“No,” I said. “I gave it a D because it wasn’t his voice. I’ve known this student for two years. I know how he writes when he’s excited. I know his mistakes. That paper came from a machine.”
I took a breath.
“So I didn’t grade it. I sat him down. We talked. I learned his parents were separating violently. He hadn’t slept in days. He used the software because he was overwhelmed. We didn’t discuss symbolism. We discussed survival. I walked him to the counselor. I listened. That is the job.”
I pointed to the glowing data behind Sterling.
“Your software can count commas. Can it tell if a kid is hungry? Can it tell the difference between laziness and a student working nights to keep their family afloat?”
The room had changed. This was no longer boredom. This was recognition.
“You want to prepare them for the real world?” I asked. “The real world is loud, lonely, and unforgiving. These kids live under constant judgment. The last thing they need is another screen scoring their worth.”
I looked at the younger teachers.
“They need eye contact,” I said quietly. “They need to see us struggle at the board. They need to know that when they fall, a human being will notice.”
“Sir,” Sterling snapped, “you’re out of order.”
“This is a funeral,” I replied. “And I won’t carry the casket.”
I picked up my old leather satchel, scarred and overstuffed with handwritten journals.
“I’m going back to my classroom,” I said. “Where the truth still lives in the margins.”
I turned toward the exit.
For five seconds, there was only the sound of my shoes on carpet.
Then—snap.
A notebook closed.
A chair scraped.
Then another.
I didn’t look back. I didn’t have to.
In the hallway, a young teacher caught up to me. Ms. Miller. Second year. Red eyes from crying in her car during lunch.
“I was going to quit today,” she whispered. She pulled an envelope from her bag and tore it in half. “I thought I was failing.”
I put a hand on her shoulder.
“We can’t stop the future,” I said. “But machines can’t build legacy. They can’t sit with a child who’s hurting.”
We walked into the sunset-lit parking lot together.
Here’s what we must remember:
You cannot automate care.
You cannot quantify compassion.
You cannot optimize the moment when a teacher notices a student slipping away.
Technology is a tool.
Teachers are the heartbeat.
And the truth will always live in the margins.
