I really really really like this post but I want to make two addendums!
Thirteen year olds aren't that bad (I know you're using hyperbole! Just want to point that out).
Grace is not yet the best version of himself at the start of the story.
I think Grace appeals to a lot of people because he's someone who already started his character development before the story begins - as this post points out, he was Much Worse before he got kicked out of academia and became a teacher. It's interesting to see how his avoidant behaviours, a problem, might have developed as a result of him trying to tamp down his ego/temper behaviours, which were a much bigger problem.
Children and teenagers require you to develop enormous amounts of patience and self-control in order not to traumatise them. When you start teaching you basically have to accept that at some point you're going to accidentally hurt a child, because you don't know when to push and when to ease off and when to open up and when to shut down conversations. Children and teenagers are so so so fragile, and practical experience is the only way to get better at raising them. I know for a fact Grace probably has sworn in front of a child, has lost his temper with a rowdy class, has misjudged when to invite a kid to open up and when to leave them alone. It's inevitable.
I don't think Grace ever fully dealt with his temper or his ego, and that's why those parts of him come out during stressful moments. But as a teacher, he was forced to put those things aside so that he didn't hurt his kids. Say what you will about his character flaws but he genuinely loved them, and he tried to change himself for the better for them. He stops swearing because he can't do it in front of the kids, so he needs to take swearing out of his vocab entirely. He fucked up his life by losing his temper, so now he's the cool chill teacher who plays the lava game to make learning fun.
On the other hand, there's a flip side to developing these repressed behaviours. He got kicked out of his life's passion because he wrote a risky paper, so now he avoids risk and takes the safest path. He's tethered to the world but it's easy to cut those ties when needed. Teaching is perfect for that.
It's the fact that you're essentially told not to love your kids. You're not supposed to care about them too much or become attached to them. For understandable reasons - grooming, playing favourites - but at the same time, you also witness parents outright abusing their children and you are powerless to stop them. Teaching is the perfect vehicle for Grace to express his love of science and feel like part of a community, like he's doing good, without any expectation of ongoing commitment, and no risk to his personal safety. (Well, that actually might not be true for American teachers, but I don't want to speak on their behalf in that regard.)
I don't think the kids were purely a cowardly excuse for him to avoid the mission. I think he genuinely missed them and missed the sense of purpose and community he had with them. But he missed the safety of teaching too! They were instrumental in leading him towards self-development, but they weren't the finish line. Grace became a better, more self-actualised person once he found Rocky, developed a committed relationship he was prepared to genuinely risk himself for, and recognised that the halfway-done development he'd already undergone was incomplete.
Anyway just my little onion, hope you don't mind OP.
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