Smashing the Iconography of the Apple

The Moral Injury of Teaching and The Etseb of the Educational System. 

As a freshman at the University of Tennessee, I was determined to become a teacher. This became my goal in fifth grade when Ms. Fuller taught me to read. My life before I was diagnosed with dyslexia and before I met Ms. Fuller was one-dimensional. After Ms. Fuller taught me to read my life changed forever, and I found belonging, purpose and meaning. I also stopped feeling stupid and lazy and began to feel that I was capable and worthy of learning. I wanted to help other children discover that same sense of worthiness. This was not just a vocational goal; this was a moral calling.

The time came for me to go into the classroom as a student teacher. I was assigned to a fifth-grade classroom in an urban setting in Knoxville, Tennessee. There the majority of  students were Black and were from under-resourced communities. After a few weeks of student teaching, I sank into a major depression. How could I focus on teaching these students to read or write when they were showing up to school in freezing temperatures with socks on their hands because they could not afford gloves?

I left the department of education and ran straight to the school of social work. It was there that I found a place where my moral calling met practical applications. I did not just want to help children read; I wanted to create structures that built the capacity for healthy communities of meaning, belonging, and purpose. Being seen, heard, and understood by Ms. Fuller was how I found purpose, meaning and belonging. But it turned out that teaching did not provide me the capacity to address my emerging moral calling to help children feel worthy. 

I believe that most teachers enter the profession for moral reasons. Teachers want to help children, build stronger communities, and create a better world. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, between 20% and 45% of new educators leave the profession before completing their fifth year in the classroom. The reasons stated for leaving are low pay, a lack of institutional support, and (the buzzword of the decade) “burnout.”

It’s not burnout. Teachers leave before they complete their fifth year in the classroom because they experience moral injury.

Burnout vs. Moral Injury

Indicators	🔥 Burnout	⚖️ Moral Injury
Core Emotion	Physical & emotional depletion; exhaustion	Deep guilt, shame, and a sense of institutional betrayal
Root Cause	Excessive workload, long hours, inadequate rest	Systemic constraints forcing choices that violate core ethical values
Primary Outcome	Reduced productivity; temporary medical leave	Profound loss of trust in leadership; career abandonment; workforce turnover; negative student impact

Rather than decent pay, institutional support, or adequate tools for teaching, we give teachers apples. And by apples, I mean crumbs. We give teachers crumbs from the tables of bureaucratic systems and tell them to shape the next generation of future leaders, when really the system is making them eat the “bread of anxiety, toils, and sorrows.”

The apple is an iconographic symbol of wisdom and knowledge. The apple is also an iconographic symbol of the physical and emotional hardships of childbearing, or of birthing something new. In the Book of Genesis, when Eve takes the apple (the fruit of knowledge) and gives it to Adam to eat, she is punished with the pain of childbirth. The Hebrew word used to describe this punishment from God is etseb. The meaning of the word etseb is more profoundly and accurately defined as the physical pangs or severe mental distress bordering on grief or anger that results from grueling labor and hard-earned goods. And that is what you get for taking an apple.

What teachers often “get” for following their moral calling is the bread of anxiety, toil, and sorrow without rest. The result is not simply “burnout”; the result is moral distress and moral injury.

Over 77% of public school teachers are women. For eons, women have been fed the story of Eve in the garden and her punishment by God for seeking and sharing knowledge from the Tree of Life. The consequence of this story is that many of us have come to believe this toil and sorrow without rest is our natural duty. That this is what God demands of us to reconcile humanity’s original sin. 

Those who do not exit before completing their fifth year simply endure. They endure the lack of resources, the overcrowded classrooms, and the lack of a living wage. And they continue to eat the crumbs of anxiety thrown down from the table of the bureaucracy. Because that is what you get for seeking knowledge as a person born female, and that is your duty to reconcile humanity’s original sin.

Maybe rather than gallantly smashing the patriarchy, or just pointing to the decisions of bureaucracy, we need to begin by smashing the iconography of the apple and the theology of original sin, both of which justify the moral injury of teachers and of women. Maybe we need to stop giving teachers crumps and apples. 

Let’s stop telling teachers that self-care and personal resiliency will save them from burnout. The problem is not burnout; the problem is moral injury. The problem is that we live in a culture, shaped by religion, that believes moral injury is the natural consequence and duty of being born a woman.

Stop giving teachers apples and give them decent pay, good healthcare, peer support, and the tools and resources they need to fulfill their moral calling. Lets start to treat teaching as the moral action it is which is birthing the next generation of leaders who will reconcile the sins of bureaucracy through just policies, procedures, and practices. Let’s stop giving them apples and start giving them the respect they deserve for educating the next generation of leaders and frontline workers, who might just create a real Garden of Eden for all of God’s children where knowledge is power and no one is punished for sharing it.