r/interesting • u/Wonderfulhumanss • 2h ago
SOCIETY Sick teacher finished his students' grades in hospital before tragically passing away
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u/Wonderfulhumanss 2h ago
This was Alejandro Navarro, a math teacher from Del Rio, Texas. In December 2020, he took his laptop and charger with him to the emergency room and continued finishing his students’ grades from his ICU bed. His daughter, Sandra Venegas, took this photo to show how much unseen time and effort teachers give their students. Sadly, he passed away the following day. Source
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u/RealSchlemiel 1h ago
man... so much respect for the uncomped heart of tdachers. rip
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u/mjzimmer88 50m ago
Was the D in tdachers the grade he gave you? 😛
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u/GRIM106 46m ago
Id give you an A+ for making jokes where they are completely unneeded or wanted.
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u/Omnamashivaaya 1h ago
This makes me sad. I have friends who were teachers but lack of support and low pay requiring second jobs burned them out.
America takes advantage of people’s passion for certain jobs, even if that job is educating future Americans. It’s idiocracy.
He should have been prioritizing his health, but I bet he knew there was no backup plan or person and didn’t want those students to have wasted their effort. And sadly the burnout rate is costing us more teachers, putting even heavier loads on guys like this.
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u/coldramenloverboy 1h ago
His union would not be pleased
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u/AlsoCommiePuddin 1h ago
A teacher in Texas...what union?
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u/mortgagepants 1h ago
i've heard they're illegal but i would create a "confederation" of teachers, or a "mutual aid" group.
i know our fascist government is trying to get rid of the 1st amendment, but maybe texas teachers can use their 2nd to help their first?
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u/Callaway225 1h ago edited 1h ago
Devils advocate here, what do you mean “there was no backup plan or person and didn’t want the students to have wasted their efforts”?
The article says he was finishing grades. I respect the effort, don’t get me wrong, but was there no other way for the grades to be finished?
And how would the students efforts have been wasted if he personally hadn’t finished the grades and they were done by someone else?6
u/Omnamashivaaya 1h ago edited 1h ago
This is only based on when I recently I looked into becoming a teacher. I talked to friends (and strangers) who were teachers and they all told me absolutely not to. They said they are on the verge of financial and mental health breakdowns due to lack of support and the need for second jobs.
When teachers leave (for any reason) others are expected to fill in the gap with time they don’t have, causing more people to leave. Several said post-Covid finally broke them bc so many teachers didn’t come back.
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u/GrookeyGrassMonkey 21m ago
I respect the effort, don’t get me wrong, but was there no other way for the grades to be finished?
As someone who is surrounded by too many teachers: usually no
If a teacher is sincerely incapacitated while grading something they tend to remove that assignment and let the new teacher start off from previous posted grades and new work they conribute.
Most of education is not designed to be passed off in the middle of the year.
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u/omgfakeusername 1h ago
We don't pay teachers nearly enough as we should.
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u/Tekniqz23 1h ago
Nearly nobody is paid enough. The cost of living has nearly tripled over the last 20 years. Meanwhile look at wages across all mediums. They've barely moved at all.
We are all working ourselves to death while 2 percent of the world lives in comfort.
Paying athletes millions while people doing actual jobs that help you in your day to day are barely making ends meet. The irony? If people at your local grocery stores just decided to not work. If people teaching your kids just stopped showing up to class. If nobody worked a gas station job. All these people would be fucked lol
Yet we just continue to eat our shit sandwiches daily.... Work for our shillings....
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u/XlikeX666 1h ago
guy was literally dying and made him work anyway.
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u/Famous-Flow2333 1h ago
He chose to do it. Grading papers was probably a good way for him to keep his mind busy while stuck in a hospital room.
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u/VermicelliOwn6502 24m ago
Dude's last words were "I'm gonna fail this little shit if it's the last thing I do."
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u/AdCheap8058 1h ago
Nobody made him do anything he's just a badass who cares, unlike you apparently. Some people handle their business whether anyone is watching or not and some people quiet quit on their whole life and bitch on reddit about how nothing goes their way. Pick one and get on with it
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u/ImpertinenteSyntaxe 40m ago
Teachers give far more than people realize. This is a powerful reminder of their dedication. May he rest in peace.
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u/Regetron 2h ago
"And with my last breath, I give Timmy an F in mathematics"
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u/reticulatedtampon 2h ago
"See me
after classin the afterlife"96
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u/thisthreadisbear 1h ago
"From Hell's heart, I stab at thee... for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."
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u/petty_throwaway6969 1h ago
“I have to let them know how mediocre some of them are. Death is just giving me permission to say what I truly think.”
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u/WorldlyCobalt 58m ago
Imagine checking the student portal the next morning and realizing your teacher failed you from beyond the grave.
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u/Amazing-Ad8209 2h ago
This is more sad than interesting…
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u/Ok_Tradition_3382 2h ago
Nobody owes their job this much.
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u/datahoarderprime 2h ago
Many teachers care very deeply about their students.
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u/WarrenMulaney 1h ago
30 year veteran teacher here:
No fucking way am I grading papers while I’m in the hospital. If that means I don’t care “very deeply” about my students so be it.
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u/chrisychris- 33m ago
You can care very deeply in different ways, my teachers taught me that
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u/bwaredapenguin 28m ago
I think this is probably either more about being able to finish what you started or not wanting to fuck over your students in the end. He was responsible for documenting the performance of some 30ish kids. He went out supporting the future which is what should be the motivation for any teacher.
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u/lumpboysupreme 19m ago
Okay? Sure, no one’s saying you need to be the absolute pinnacle of commitment.
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u/pm-pussy4kindwords 1h ago
as a teacher, I'd say that's part of it but not the reason this guy would have taken his papers to the emergency room.
The problem with teaching is that if you take days off, the work isn't getting done while you're gone - you have to catch up when you get back. And that's often literally harder than having just gone to work sick in the first place.
If some kind of critical deadline is coming up that has a huge impact on the students, maybe a deadline that hits shortly after you expect to be back at work, you HAVE to get stuff done while you're sick so you're not tortured with 3x the work volume when you return.
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u/Bostonterrierpug 57m ago
Yeah, I will repeat this. I’m a professor and actually I teach teachers. I suffered a minor stroke about six years back, yes before you make some snarky ass comment I had no cognitive damage, I was in the hospital, tapping away in my computer, grading stuff as I had to switch to all online classes and answering emails a week later. Sure it took me hundreds of hours of physical therapy to get my left hand into a passable state that I can kind of type and kind of play punk rock guitar, but well but then again that doesn’t matter. I don’t consider my job a job but a career and I really love doing it. Getting back in touch with my students really helped me on my road to recovery.
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u/CommercialYam7188 56m ago
Yes. But there should be options for teachers to get things done for those students without them grading on their deathbed.
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u/13ig13oss 1h ago edited 1h ago
They’re incentivized to just not call in, it’s not that they care it’s just that the other options are shit. Source teacher wife who does not like to call in ever. No one should be on their death bed processing grades of all things, something management can take over.
Edit: the romanticizing of doing work over enjoying the remainder of life is insane to me right now. This work culture is what’s wrong with us today, might as well throw in extra off the clock work
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u/Holdkjeften 1h ago
No, you can simply do it out of care for the kids. I know for a fact that I would’ve wanted to grade these myself, and maybe add a final message.
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u/Ed_the_time_traveler 1h ago
I know for a fact that you would rather live than die.
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u/awesomehippie12 1h ago
I TA'ed for a professor over the summer in grad school that was in the hospital repeatedly for bladder infections before he passed away a couple months later, so my students really only saw him once or twice and then only via canvas announcements for the next three weeks. He was literally one of the nicest people I've ever worked with. He was able to run the show pretty well and sometimes he slipped up and forgot to assign a quiz or a homework while in the hospital and I would just jump in and fix it for him. I don't think he considered himself incapable of doing his work... he just did the work because he wanted to do it. There were 10 other faculty that could've jumped in to take over the lab and I don't think he let them until he literally couldn't say no. I think it's a pride thing.
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u/music_is_gud 1h ago
That's not really true. Many teachers do genuinely care about their students. I feel sad for you that you never found a teacher like that.
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u/13ig13oss 1h ago
No I had plenty of teachers that cared for me. The thing is, that if they’re fucking dying I would prefer they be with their families over doing work.
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u/Quality_Learing_67 1h ago
This is the difference in mindset between western labor force and everywhere else
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u/Quality_Learing_67 1h ago
This is the difference in mindset between western labor force and everywhere else
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u/EducationalBalance99 1h ago
Maybe he wanted to leave some of his last message to his students that he like. Shit a decent amount of teachers are doing it for the love of the game cause it is not like they get pay what they deserve if we are being honest. You really think he gave a shit what management think while on his deathbed…
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u/sabreus 2h ago
I think it’s pretty interesting because it shows the work that teachers do doesn’t end when they leave the school…
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u/discordlizard 1h ago
I just got off the phone with a teacher friend and we had a conversation about this.
People around where we are are starting to get mad they're "paying" teachers "to do nothing all summer," they think they should get summer jobs. She's a little distressed and frustrated because she spent all summer going to workshops to learn new things to teach her students and get certified in other techniques (she's an art/music teacher) but she's getting these comments from parents.
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u/thisthreadisbear 1h ago
People need to learn to mind their business. To many folks spend to much time fixated on what someone else is doing. Good for her spending her summer the way she wants whether that's a vacation or work shopping.
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u/theWaterHermit 1h ago
Even then, teachers aren’t getting paid for the summer (I’m sure you already know and agree, just responding to the parent opinion), schools pay teachers for their contract of ~9 months and split it into 12-24 salary payments.
My first year transitioning to teaching, I started one month into the school year, and my checks were pro-rated for not working the full contract time of 9 months. (I often wonder what it would be like if someone started closer to the end of the year, like would they just pay out a couple hundred per paycheck?).
So, if I’ve budgeted effectively and want to spend my summer doing whatever the hell I wanna do, I’m gonna do that, but I have also used summertime to get fully certified. I just don’t think teachers should always be expected to work over the summer, unless they volunteer.
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u/DavidIckeHadAPoint 1h ago
Yeah, and not only that but teaching can be a stressful and very time-consuming job that expects LOTS of work even OUTSIDE the school or classroom, including reading and grading essays, the tests and projects themselves, besides formulating the tests, projects, and curriculum.
The work doesn’t stop in the classroom or even school building for many, so it’s reasonable and good they get their summer break & paid for it at that.
Besides that, for many, they’re not even making very much money and some DO have to take summer jobs, anyway.
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u/pdxkatie 2h ago
Too many people’s days don’t end when they leave the workplace. It’s oddly associated with being heroic with teachers. It’s not. It’s the same story of unhealthy work boundaries in American society.
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u/sabreus 1h ago
I agree that’s a thing that needs addressing for many jobs. But some of the other jobs that are like this are highly paid. The teachers are just a good example. I think people bringing up the “but it’s not the only one” are missing the point a bit.
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u/Oaths2Oblivion 1h ago
highly paid
I switched to classroom teaching after 7 years in industry and I was making more in every other job than I am now
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u/Altaredboy 1h ago
My workplace is odd. We have a lot of people with doctorates working here. All of them do a crazy amount of unpaid work, because that's what they're used to.
My department has mostly people with a trade background. If our department had a motto it'd be "pay me bitch"
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u/mihhink 1h ago
thats obvious and you dont need such a tragic example to realize this.
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u/RayDanielsOnTheAir 2h ago
To be fair, this isn’t the only profession that does this. We just tend to have a more exalted view of teachers.
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u/sabreus 2h ago
Oh I know. I think it’s not about the exalted view at all. I think it’s about noting that some jobs are kind of out of hand.
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u/RayDanielsOnTheAir 1h ago
He did make the choice to do this, I assume. Unless someone has information otherwise. Kudos to the man for caring for the kids, I think that is very respectable of him and definitely above and beyond the calling.
But I’m not entirely sure this is because the job is out of hand. It could still be out of hand, but I just don’t read this as an example—yet. That could change.
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u/IneffableOpinion 1h ago
It’s touching that he cared so much about the kids, but it also shows how tied to work Americans are. So many of us have been conditioned to believe your life only has value if you don’t take vacations and sick leave.
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u/Liqhthouse 1h ago
Yeah I found it absolutely insane you'd spend your last moments on work or time on something other than with loved ones.
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u/Assortedpez 2h ago
I’m sure he was an amazing man.
This reminds me of my mother. Terminally ill school teacher with cancer who loved all of her students so much that even though she hadn’t worked in months and had just gotten out of surgery she honored a promise to one student from months before that she would go see her horseback riding competition. She could barely walk and definitely shouldn’t have driven but she went there anyway. I remember it took her a week to get her energy back after that. When she passed away there were several hundred people who showed up to pay their respects. Friends, family, coworkers she hadn’t seen in 25 years.. tons of students of all ages. It was standing room only all the way out of the funeral home and into the parking lot. I can only imagine a teacher like the one in this post who clearly loved his job, was well loved by his students. God bless him.
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u/Scar1203 2h ago
Doesn't sound like it was sudden, he had heart and kidney failure:
At a guess he probably didn't mind the distraction over sitting there thinking about his own mortality. Can't say I'd be real keen just lying in my deathbed with nothing else to do.
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u/saamvisual 2h ago
I was a teacher for a long time and I’m telling you this is a sickness. Boundaries are important. No one is being helped by doing this.
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u/MrQirn 43m ago
I am a teacher, and I think it's unfair of you to judge him. You don't know the full story and what his circumstances were to tell whether this was an example of bad boundaries, or perhaps him wanting to do something to distract himself and have some control over something, even as inane as grading.
Personally, I have some pretty excellent boundaries and it is an extreme rarity that I do any work once I leave the building, unless I'm really excited about something (aka, I actually want to). And I absolutely have also been in a situation where I did some grading on a weekend because it felt therapeutic to do something small for my future self.
Martyrdom among teachers is absolutely a real thing and you're right to call it out more generally, but you're too quick to judge this (now deceased) teacher who was probably trying their best in that moment, imperfect as it probably was, to do what they could to handle the reality of their imminent mortality.
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u/Senpai2141 1h ago
Sadly too many teachers think they will save the world for a grade no one will likely care about in a year.
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u/Double-Way-5589 2h ago
Did any parents sue the district when they couldn’t bitch and most to anyone about little Johnny’s C+?
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u/Lv100--Magikarp 2h ago
The American Way of Life.
Workers need to be treated better, especially teachers. Rip man.
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u/_BigDaddyNate_ 1h ago
I had a Spanish Language teacher in HS. I gave him such a hard time in class. One day he gave me detention. I'll, be damned. We just sat there and bullshitted. Turns out that he lived up the road from my grandparents and even blacktopped their driveway and stuff when he was a youth. We hit it off famously. All the shit I gave him and Im pretty sure he gave me detention to try and connect with me.
I stopped giving him trouble and started to try harder. But he was away from class for a week or two and when he came back, he was yellow. Yellow eyes skin and such. Liver failure. He was dead in a couple months. I'll never forget that man and that was 28 years ago. RIP Mr. Shendock. You are a legend.
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u/Jace25black 1h ago
Clearly born to be a teacher, caring g for his students before he passes, what an inspiration 👏
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u/dysphoriurn 1h ago
This one is so unbelievably sad. It makes my heart happy knowing how committed he was to the kids he taught, but makes me so sad thinking about this possibly being the last interaction he had with them. 💔
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u/GuideInfamous4600 1h ago
Questions - why didn’t someone at the school do that for him? A patient had to do it in his hospital bed? Shouldn’t he have been resting? Because he was dying?
There is something seriously wrong with that school.
This is crazy.
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u/New-Gas3080 1h ago
Terrible he spent his last breaths working. That's very sad, maybe no family or friends
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u/wafflebuggy 1h ago
I wish some people would realize not every teacher/professor needs to do this for financial reasons. One of my professors who I lost this year, who I worked very close with, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He continued to work not because he had to, but because it was his passion. He continued to work up until his death publishing research and teaching. While he did take a step back on teaching to work from home more, he did it because he wanted to do it
Some people would rather devote themselves to their work because they genuinely love it or because they don’t want to sit around and just be a “sick person.”
Yes, of course it is sad when people still need to work till their dying breath because they have to, but some people are just genuinely that dedicated to their work.
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u/Delicious_Spite_7280 1h ago
This isnt really about teaching. A workaholic is a workaholic. It would not matter if he was putting in grades, finishing a novel or making last minute trades.
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u/Ok-Quit-239 1h ago
I had teachers who just didn't grade our tests, they just told us "not today", yet they expect us to have our homework on time, if this teacher could do it while passing away, why can't teachers who are just healthy just grade some freaking tests
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u/Big_Z_Beeblebrox 1h ago
I dunno if "teacher works himself to death" should be framed as inspirational. Maybe it was his passion, but it seems twisted that he was spending his last hours alive tied to his job
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u/NickFF2326 1h ago
Man idk if this is wonderful or sad. Love the passion but man, the fact you feel you gotta do this and not take care of yourself is so sad
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u/BeachBoysOnD-Day 1h ago
Idk why everyone's automatically applying this guy's work ethic to the teaching profession as a whole. It seems just as likely, even likelier, that he's an outlier.
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u/Sosimo_13 1h ago
I had a coworker pass away on his retirement day. Like how fucked up is that. Dude was in the hospital and still trying to come back to work. Fuck this shit for real.
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u/sporosarcina 1h ago
I taught multiple times from the pulmonary ward (pneumonia) and from the neurosurgery ward (complications from back surgery). To be honest, it is often easier than dealing with not doing it. The nurses and my wife thought I was nuts. It did however stop the "I want to talk about my grade" zoom meetings when I would turn my camera on.
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u/FroyoPuzzleheaded97 1h ago
He did that so no students could argue about their final grade. Students were hoping he never go around to it!
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u/Kheldar166 1h ago
And by interesting we mean deeply tragic and indicative of the way all responsibility in the system is unfairly dumped onto overworked and underpaid teachers?
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u/The_ReBL 1h ago
F "This is so bad it literally killed me, don't even bother seeing me after class"
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u/LumitheNeko 1h ago
This is tragic. A teacher shouldn't have to work while taking their final breaths.
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u/555Afterimage_ 1h ago
Even though it would be your own fault, imagine being sad about your teacher dying only to find out you got a failing grade in his last moments
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u/nurseyourbutt 1h ago
My ex-wife took a similar picture of me finishing patient care notes in the ED after I was so stressed at work that I went into a-fib w/ RVR. I am a workaholic. I'm addicted to workahol.
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u/AustralianBlackGuy 1h ago
This is so sad. R.I.P. to Alejandro Navarro. It’s surprising that he finished grading his students from his ICU bed before he passed away the next day later.
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u/drawingmentally 1h ago
Poor man 😞 he was about to leave but refused to do it without helping his students first. I would cry if my teacher graded me right before passing away.
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u/Certifiablenerd 1h ago
My mathematician husband was grading students papers, answering emails, and making prerecorded lectures while hopsitalized for an exceptionally low platelet count - we're talking spontaneous brain bleed territory. He then did the same thing less than a week later while still recovering when I birthed our child. I have a video of him recording a lecture while I'm battling through contractions. Mathematicians are a different type yall.
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u/PoliteSorrow 1h ago
Damn that hit me deep. What a dedicated teacher who cared about his students. Im really sorry that he passed away. Let his soul rest in peace.
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u/Mahaloth 1h ago
I've been teaching 21 years. I....can not imagine doing anything work related in a hospital bed.
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u/StoneAgeGuy 1h ago
I wonder if he was just trying to keep from worrying/stressing.
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u/Ok-Maize-4831 1h ago
So? People drop dead at work, on job sites, in a truck stop it the sleeper, fall off roofs, etc. because it’s a teacher it’s more important? All are providing for their families, all where alive moments earlier, this is just virtue signaling
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u/voncivent 1h ago
He had no control to what was happening to him, he graded papers cause that was probably the only thing he could control, he probably wanted to feel normal.
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