Ghastly to Ghold: PFormer Pflugerville Special Ed Teacher Makes Sense of Tragedy, Tries Hand at Filmmaking

AUSTIN, TX - Murlin Evans isn't exactly a poster child for the Texas Education Agency's "Career Transition to Teaching" campaign. Idealistic newbees and well-intentioned career changers would do well to steer clear of his invective laden assessment of teaching in Texas public schools.

"Just know that if you're going into special ed, you're going into behavior management," Evans' stare pierces through a scratched up pair of bent bi-focals. "And what that means you're the new rent-a-cop. You really won't be teaching much of anything except maybe compliance...and good luck with that!"

While the former journalist's short lived teaching career began and ended at Hendrickson High School in Pflugerville, after the district declined to renew his contract last May, he credits the experience, and the "complete and utter psychological meltdown" that ensued, as fundamental to his return to his first loves, writing and videography.

With his contract fulfilled at Hendrickson, Evans worked feverishly over the summer, making inroads toward his goal. With the extra time, he successfully landed and completed contract work for Internet content providers, wrote and directed Instructional and marketing web videos and recently published his first book.

"Sometimes you have to really hit bottom to figure yourself out," Evans says, "I mean, okay, behavior management isn't my cup of tea. But the ironic thing is, 99 percent of the problems in schools aren't caused by the students, but by technocratic administrators and rigid ideas about learning.

When you're expected to work with a teacher who has filed felony criminal assault charges against one of your students for getting scratched during a physical restraint it kinda throws a wrench in the whole teacher/parent rapport."

Part of his spelunking led to a life threatening illness which sent him to the emergency room three times within a three-week period.