Sample passage

“I was told in 2019, when I was first punished for thinking in a school system built on conformity and compliance, that fighting back against my employer would be the hill I die on. And it was. But in words that have echoed through the annals of history since the French Revolution, if not long before: it is better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees as a slave. Of course, my goal had been to live on my feet – not be the first teacher fired in a democracy for teaching historical truth. 

My story is uncommon in that I had foretold my fate years ago in a book I wrote in 2016 called A High School Teacher Bares All:

A memorable event in my teaching career was when I got fired. I was only months away from retirement when it happened. I was first given the chance to quit, but I’m not a quitter – except when giving blood. I’d been canned like tuna before in my life, but this time it was embarrassing for me and my family because it became a national news story. I’m not lying when I say my face covered almost half the front page of the biggest newspaper in Canada. Ironically, I was fired on the annual Fun Day at my school. I hope other people had fun.

I’m no oracle, which is in reference to the Oracle of Delphi, who was one virginal girl after another from nearby villages who were taken to the clifftop Temple of Delphi in Ancient Greece as long ago as 1000 BCE. Each Oracle would have her head placed over a vase of hydrocarbon gases, and her consequent drugged speech was mulled over as advice from the god Apollo. I just knew long ago that teachers walk in a minefield, knowing at any instant their careers could blow up by saying the wrong thing or showing the wrong image. It was a lucky guess in 2016 that the National Post would make my dismissal in 2023 into a story featured on the front page, and on a separate day my face did indeed cover almost half of one page of the newspaper.”

Jim McMurtry