My work supervisor is no bleeding heart liberal. That is a bit unusual considering her profession. She is not only a principal but an educator as well. In her own words she is a “socially moderate and fiscally conservative Conservative.” For me, she has destroyed many of my long held stereotypes about folk of her political ilk. One of them is their often reported affinity for corporate tycoons and purported disdain for the little guy. That’s not her, but what is her, is that passion of the educator so often associated with liberal and progressive instructors. I have witnessed those emotions bubble to the surface when a struggling student makes a statistically significant skill gain. I have also been present when those same emotions erupt uncontrollably when the same category of students earn their high school equivalency diplomas. But on the day about which I am writing, those tears visited as a result of something that I had done.

My group of students were nearing readiness to take their final exam. Sometimes I am a tutor, on other occasions I have been a TA, and there has also been occasion where I was the teacher,. On this day I was the latter. The day’s lesson was a continuation of the two previous days, and the topic was factoring. I was being assured that they would ‘never use this shit’ and that as a general rule ‘math is stupid.’ Yet, as we proceeded further into the lesson and I wove in the previous sessions on combining numbers and on the multiples of numbers the tone and tenor changed. By the time we dismissed the class my title as “math whisperer” was still intact, and I was being told how tremendously easy factoring was. However, even though they knew nothing of calculus, they still thought that I was a weirdo for calling it elegant, because only women and cars were elegant.

The students left, and I began to gather up my materials so that I could return to the other part of my job, office clerk. I was feeling good, I was feeling that joy that only teachers can relate to, but then I noticed my supervisor. She had been sitting in the opposite corner of the room, and it was clear that she had been crying. I asked her what was up, and in the most serious of tones she said, “you have to do this, you have to teach.” She, of course, had witnessed my teaching exploits on paper from student skill gains and tests scores, but she had never witnessed me at work, prior to this day. I assured her that I very much intended to teach, but that it would be on the collegiate level as the gangster inclinations and fast money proclivities of my youth would preclude me from teaching in public high school–which seems a bit nearsighted as there are schools in Chicago where one would think that my story would be just what the doctor ordered. She was not concerned with which level I would teach at, only with the certainty that I shared my “gift.” It was a gift because I had never received instrucTION on how to instruct, yet my instrucTING and how I instrucTED was as effective as any she had ever seen. Another of her colleagues told me that he too had watched me from a distance on more than one occasion. He said that it was hard to tell by the lecture if it was a math, ethics, or sociology course, but that everyone was fully engaged and seemed to be learning so much more than math.

That newfound “gift” is the return on the investment that the people of Illinois and Iowa have made. To date, meaning for the previous 26 1/2 years, taxpayers have doled out one million dollars to segregate me from society,* and they potentially get in return a professor replacing the drug dealing gang member who was convicted of the unintentional homicide of his former friend. It too appears that the taxpaying public is content with that exchange since nary a soul nor lone entity has contested my petition for clemency to Governor Pritzker.

A wonderful opportunity to study for my PhD at the University of Iowa, so that I might teach, has come and gone as I have waited, hoped, and prayed for the past year and a half for mercy. Be assured, this is a governor who tends towards mercy when a viable case is made. I have witnessed it, Pritzker is no Rauner nor even Quinn. He has shown that he is serious about criminal justice reform and equity. Yet, I lack the wherewithal and bandwidth to make the case for myself, a case that many agree is beyond compelling. My hope is that you, dear reader, will ask the governor to extend the needed mercy, and to halt the diminishing returns on your money. And further, to assure that the new PhD opportunity that has availed itself is not needlessly lost.

*That one million dollars does not include the cost of my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, those bills were footed by my dear wife and deceased mother.