I was moved by a Facebook post about a first-grade teacher’s last day at school before her retirement.

Her name is Mrs. Carter, and here’s her story:

Today, a 7-year-old told me I was useless. That’s how my last day as a public school teacher began. No smirk. No attitude. Just a plain, indifferent voice — like he was commenting on the weather.

You don’t know how to do TikTok, said the boy. My mom says old people like you should retire.

I smiled. I’ve learned not to take it personally, but still … I felt something crack a little deeper inside. I’ve been teaching first grade in a small town outside Columbus, Ohio, for 36 years. Today, I packed up my classroom for the last time.

When I started in the late ’80s, teaching felt like a calling. We were trusted. Even admired. We weren’t paid much, but there was respect — and that made up for a lot. Parents brought brownies on conference nights. Kids drew me birthday cards with misspelled words and crooked hearts. And when little ones finally read their first sentence out loud, there was a kind of joy no paycheck could ever match.

But something’s changed. Slowly. Quietly. Year by year. Until one day, I looked around my classroom and didn’t recognize my job anymore. It’s not just the iPads and smartboards — though they’ve taken over, too. It’s the exhaustion. The disrespect. The loneliness.

I used to spend evenings cutting out paper apples for bulletin boards. Now I have spent them documenting every incident on a student behavior app, just in case a parent threatens to sue.

I’ve been screamed at in front of my class. Not by students, but by parents. One told me, “You clearly don’t know how to handle children. I watched a video of you on my son’s phone,” she said. The boy was filming me while I tried to calm another child having a meltdown.

No one asked how I was doing. No one cared that I was holding it together with gum, caffeine, and sheer will. Kids are different now and it’s not their fault. They’re growing up in a world that’s too fast, too loud, too disconnected.

They come to school sleep-deprived, overstimulated, addicted to screens. Some are angry. Some are scared. Some don’t know how to hold a pencil, how to wait their turn, or how to say “please.” And we’re expected to fix it all. In 6 hours. With no aides. With 28 students. And a budget that wouldn’t buy snacks for a birthday party.

I remember when my classroom was a little haven. We had a reading nook with bean bags. We sang songs every morning. We learned to be kind before we learned to multiply. Now, I was told to focus on “learning targets,” “data points,” and “measurable outcomes.” My value was based on how well a 6-year-old fills in bubbles on a test in March.

I once had a principal pull me aside and say, “You’re too warm and fuzzy. This district wants results.” As if human connection was a liability.

I kept going though because there were always moments. Small, sacred ones. A child who whispered, “You’re like my grandma. I wish I could live with you.” Another who left a note on my desk: “I feel safe here.”

Or the quiet boy who finally looked me in the eye and said, “I read it all by myself!”

I held onto those moments like life rafts because they reminded me that I was still doing something that mattered — even when the world insisted I wasn’t. But this past year broke something in me. Violence increased. One child threw a chair across the room. Another threatened to “bring something from home” after being told to sit down. My classroom phone became a hotline for behavior crises.

The guidance counselor quit in October. The substitute list was empty by November. The burnout was so thick you could feel it in the air — like a fog of quiet despair.

And me? I started to feel invisible. Replaceable. Like an outdated tool in a digital world that no longer sees the need for human touch.

So today, I packed up my classroom. I peeled faded art projects off the wall — some going back decades. I found a box of thank-you cards from a class in 1995. One said, “Thank you for loving me even when I was bad.” I cried when I read that because back then, being a teacher meant something. Now, it feels like a job you’re supposed to apologize for taking.

There was no party. No speech. Just a firm handshake from the new principal, who called me “Ma’am” and looked at his phone halfway through our goodbye.

I left behind my sticker box. My rocking chair. My patience. But I took the memory of every child who ever looked at me with wonder, trust, or relief. That’s mine. They can’t take that away.

I miss a time when teachers were seen as partners, not punching bags. When parents and schools worked together. When education meant growth, not just grades.

If you’ve ever been a teacher, you know. We didn’t do it for the summers off. We did it for the kid who finally learned to tie his shoe. For the one who smiled after weeks of silence. For the ones who needed us in ways no test could measure.

We did it for love. For hope. For belief in something better because in a world that moves too fast, we stayed. In a system that crumbled, we stood. And in a society that forgot them, we remembered every child.

Here’s my take on her story:

I don’t wonder why so many children feel unloved and unwanted. They are financial liabilities to struggling single moms; they come home to absent dads or to dysfunctional parents and too many are being raised by custodial grandparents. They are latchkey kids who feed themselves with frozen microwave meals and tuck themselves in at night to nobody’s calm voice saying, “Good night. I love you.”

Mrs. Carter was a dinosaur. Her last years were spent in a profession where kindness and compassion have been erased by a digital world now heading into the grip of artificial intelligence that could soon drain the last drops of warm blood running through the veins of humanity.

She deserves more than gratitude. If there was such a thing for public service, Mrs. Carter deserves the Medal of Honor.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com