The students were goofing off in class, apparently because of the nonsensical task their public school teacher had handed them, so the former teacher’s assistant says.
It was one of those packets for bureaucratic purposes they were working on.
Three days of classes were slotted for that, says the teacher’s assistant—who is now a proponent of homeschooling after becoming disillusioned with the public system and quitting.
He was sitting in the classroom with everyone else and agonizing that he would rather be spending the time with his newborn daughter.
Those three days were the straw that broke the camel’s back for Mr. Lieber, now 31, who currently teaches at a homeschool co-op started by like-minded parents in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He just needed one final push to send him over the fence to greener pastures.
There are no regulations for homeschooling in Michigan (not yet, he says). So abandoning his teacher’s license just weeks from completion, he would still be allowed to teach the children of Christian—or any—parents willing to pay him, if they were happy with how and what he taught.
Disillusionment first began to eat away at Mr. Lieber, to his surprise, right from when he reentered college in Grandville in 2019 to teach social studies—undoubtedly because of his former band teacher who had inspired him to be “the best version” of himself; everything he would see in the public school system would be held up next to her example and fall pitifully short, in his estimation. She was his reason for wanting to teach and the kind of teacher he wanted to be.
Mrs. Blanche was right-leaning, a Christian, and passionate about helping students get somewhere in life.
“When you’re a musician, and when you’re going through the band program, you have to be accountable,” Mr. Lieber said, speaking of the life lessons Mrs. Blanche imparted. “Not just to yourself, but to everybody else as well.
“Because if you don’t know your part, then when you go to do your performance, it is going to be a mess.”
That kind of accountability was a far cry from what he saw being promulgated in college.
“The original purpose of the public school system was to create factory workers,” he said, calling his social studies college classes “reductionist,” “very one-sided,” and filled with “liberal biases.”
“The education classes, especially as of late, are specifically structured for indoctrination purposes,” he said.
Attending college to teach social studies, there were moments when he spoke up in class, questioning a viewpoint, he said, but soon an email from a professor told him “You’re not going to do well” if your writing is not “agreeing with me.” He would have a target painted on his back.
So, Mr. Lieber just played ball to slog his way through, writing six essays about global warming that he didn’t believe in, and he said his teachers just ate it up. Mr. Lieber’s notion was that things would get better once he was out—but there were also problems in public schools, he said.
As college classes drew to a close, and his time as teacher’s assistant began, he was so excited on his first day of school. But although being a substitute had been a joy, allowing him to teach as he had always wanted to, from day one as a teacher’s assistant in public schools, he knew something was not quite right. There was “pure apathy” coming from teachers, he said, who had begrudgingly returned to in-person classes immediately following the pandemic, and who wanted to stay in their slippers and pajamas.
“It was a combination of not being happy about having to actually return to school full time; it was the learning loss from the students—the ninth graders were acting like seventh graders; twelfth graders were acting like tenth graders,” Mr. Lieber said, enumerating the gripes.
He describes his two mentor teachers as coaches, both fairly close to retirement, who neither cared about the students anymore nor about learning, and who taught the same old lessons that were out of date regardless of whether or not the class was receptive, showing “PowerPoints from 2007 with no pictures on them, just really outdated.”
“Just the way that things are run, nobody’s really had the time or opportunity to update any of the ways that people learn,” Mr. Lieber said. “And so we’re still using all of these antiquated teaching techniques.”
On the part of the students, there were unhealthy trends that had cropped up on platforms like TikTok—one being to vandalize the school’s bathroom and rip off pieces, like the nozzle of a hand drier or paper towel dispenser, and post it in class like a trophy.
“It was called ‘The Liq,’ right?” he said. “‘Oh, look at the sweet liq I got from robbing a liquor store,’ you know? And that happened at the school where I was doing teaching.”
His day to teach finally came when the teacher called upon him to stand up in front of the class and give a lesson. The topic was the Middle Ages, and the eager assistant gave it his all. The ancient PowerPoint he was to use he found “really bad,” and his solution was redoing it with fresh graphic designs and YouTube videos geared toward really teaching and engaging with the students.
“At first it was jarring for them because they didn’t understand what I was doing. And all I was doing was I was actually teaching,” Mr. Lieber said. “After that, there was just this wedge between me and the actual teacher.
“I wasn’t supposed to do that, because, to be honest, I think that he was upset that I made him look bad.”
This was around when the three-day packet came, and Mr. Lieber was already scouting the field on his laptop for alternative teaching avenues. The Christian homeschool co-op he eventually found only emerged on his radar because he'd begun to find his stance on life—one that diverged from his progressive college professors.
Life after college had gotten gritty. With little money and life’s issues starting to spiral out of control, what else but Dave Ramsey’s radio show helped steer him toward economic soundness and common sense? “He’s like my red pill, I guess, my gateway to conservatism,” Mr. Lieber said.
And of course, there were the words of his cherished band teacher, Mrs. Blanche, once again echoing in his ears, telling him “the exact same stuff” he was now hearing from Dave Ramsey’s radio show. “Her values were being reflected in the different viewpoint that you don’t learn in college or in public education,” he said.
On his initial tour of the homeschool co-op—not only for a teaching position but also for his child to attend—he half-expected to find socially awkward, weird kids of overly protective parents. Instead “there were a bunch of kids in there doing karate,” he said, “cooking classes and baking,” and “elementary school-aged kids doing learning with Legos.”
“I was completely sold by the time I left,” he said. “And I talked to the president about ‘Hey, how do I get in on this? This place seems pretty awesome.’”
And the rest was history. Mr. Lieber would get his chance to teach the way he wanted. They would even openly talk about the pandemic, debate controversial subjects, and contemplate the differences between capitalism and communism.
“I‘ll strongman their arguments, and I’ll say, these people believe this, here’s why, here’s the history behind it,” he said, adding that it’s a “free speech classroom.” “I will then go back, and I'll punch a bunch of holes in the arguments as best I can.”
Yet, at the moment, those good classes are still a ways down the road.
For the teacher’s assistant sitting in a class full of kids goofing off, a question awaited an answer. That was, whether to finish getting his license or bail ship right now.
Then, the school’s principal helped make it easy.
“He was horrible. Nobody respected him,” Mr. Lieber said.
Students had just returned after the pandemic and taken the new TikTok challenge. When the bathroom got hit and had to be closed down, and the culprit posted his “liq” online, there came a message on the intercom.
Browsing his laptop, Mr. Lieber listened.
“Hi everybody, I want to just acknowledge that a student of ours decided to make a poor choice and that I believe that the students here at the school are the best in the world,” the principal’s voice crackled. “And let’s just try to use some better judgment moving forward. Thanks, everybody.”
Weighing both sides, Mr. Lieber made the leap, mentally.
“The kid had to do a Saturday suspension for literally vandalizing and destroying the bathroom to the point where they couldn’t use it for two days,” he told the newspaper. “I’m like, that guy’s not going to be my boss.”
