Dear Harry
A few years ago, when I started this blog, I wrote about finding my passion, my joy. I think, I know, it is still a passion. I still voraciously seek new ways, new techniques, old things made new to help me be the best teacher I can be, but near the beginning of this school year, my first year mentor and very good friend looked at me with such sadness. "You've lost your joy." I could do nothing but agree.
I have become hollow. The outside still stands and masquerades as a teacher because my conscience won't let me quit. I will not let me give less to every one of my students than the show that they require. I still sing and dance appropriately. I still ooh and aah. It would finish me off if even one of my students knew that I am half, half here and half somewhere else.
I can't abide people who just phone it in, so I can't be what I detest, but there is something missing in me. At the end of the day, I am not smiling. I find myself angry for no apparent reason, it's just an underlying seething of emotion that keeps my temper quick and my patience short, my skin thin. How do I get back? What has caused the change? I had to take a hard inventory. Did the kids change or did I?
Here's what I discovered. For the most part, the kids hadn't changed. They are still teenagers, full of raging hormones, too much hair gel, no clues on etiquette or appropriate language. They are still hungry all the time and unfortunately, have no table manners. They still ask the dumbest questions with complete innocence. They still tell wonderfully silly stories and sometimes laugh at my jokes. They still think they know every thing and are still the laziest creatures who sometimes have spurts of pure genius wrapped in enthusiasm. They daily have my thoughts sway between the world is lost to faith restored in humanity.
They still get offended when you point out bad behavior and tell anyone who'll listen that you hate them, when in truth, you are just trying to teach a different lesson, a life lesson. I've taught long enough now that I've had students come back, hug me, thank me, so I cry and tell them it was worth it. I've taught long enough to spot some pitfalls in a lesson, to know when the prankster, the class clown is going to crack an inappropriate joke, to know when they really have to go to the bathroom. I've taught long enough that I know exactly where to find curriculum support, how to gauge the time needed for a lesson, and when to bring headphones to a faculty meeting.
I discovered that it really doesn't matter if you teach freshmen or seniors, the maturity level is a subtle difference. This year I am teaching two subjects instead of one. I have freshmen in one and seniors in the other. The subjects are vastly different but the students not so much. I do have to remind the seniors when homework is due, but I do not have to tell them to stop running around the classroom or to not lick the calculators, well, most days. I've learned that my freshmen don't go anywhere, so their classes can stick to a pretty strict routine which helps them and me, while I have to be much more "go with the flow" with the seniors. They are absent all the time for an annoyingly long list of reasons from AP trips to sick kids to work schedules. These students are not only responsible for school, an alarming number are supporting children, themselves and sometimes elderly parents. I have more than a few seniors that are already on their own, with rent, groceries and electric bills. How do you give meaning to a Statistics lesson when they have already seen more real life than some adults I know. They are desperate for somebody to care about what they think or desperately trying to figure out where they stand. I'm preaching college/career and they are trying to figure out food and clothing.
I discovered that it really does not matter how hard I work, not all of the kids are going to learn every lesson. Sometimes my job has very little to do with math. Sometimes my job is about fulfilling bureaucratic nonsense. Sometimes, I can't plan a lesson because I am too busy writing some lesson plan form that neither helps me plan a lesson nor helps me teach a lesson, but it makes an administrator feel better. Sometimes the amount of documentation I keep on parent contact becomes a full time job and the 45 minute planning period feels like 10. Sometimes I spend more time fielding emails about new forms I need to fill out about parent contact than actual parent contact.
I discovered that not all teachers actually attempt all of these things. It took me years to discover that not all teachers contact parents. That not all teachers search for new ideas, new techniques, take meaningful grades, have expectations. Then I discovered that the majority of the policies I am struggling to fulfill and still keep my class relevant are because of those teachers and all of the problems that stem from those behaviors. Now please let me be clear, that number is very small. I work with some SUPER TEACHERS, capes and all. When I see them walking down the hall, I see them just like that, capes and hair blowing in the wind. I rarely see the worry lines, the stress. I rarely see the temper and impatience I too feel.I discovered that administrators sometimes mess up and that maybe I hold them to too high of a standard, but maybe not. I discovered that because of us SUPER TEACHERS, administrators try to use our methods and standards for all teachers, which is unrealistic. A policy and or procedure that works for an English teacher will not necessarily work for the PE teacher; hence, I refer back to the lesson plan form. On the other hand, because of the few non-SUPER TEACHERS, administrators tend to assume that the parent couldn't possibly be lying when they say that the teacher has not contacted them instead of asking the teacher or referring to one of the many forms of documentation required and then SUPER TEACHERS get hate mail that because of who they are internalize and redouble their efforts when in a perfect world, the hate mail would not have been sent and SUPER TEACHER would not have taken any kryptonite.
A coworker told me I needed thicker skin, my mother suggested hormones, and my kids just assumed the crazy was showing more then usual, but I kept going back to that lack of joy. What was it exactly that made me so angry? Was it the kids, the non-SUPER TEACHERS or the administrators, or was it something else?
The underlying problem as we most often discover and as I finally did, was that it's all of it and yet, none of it. Did I want to rip a non-SUPER TEACHER's head off when I discovered that he was deleting print jobs as they came in, well, I think anybody would. Is that a problem only I suffer from,? Absolutely not. Every office, retail store, restaurant and school has the "holier than thou" jerk face that thinks their work is more important than every one else. Hopefully, it's not your boss. I am grateful that he is not mine. I am grateful that I have four walls, 30 mostly working calculators, heat and air, well sometimes and usually enough desks for everyone. I am grateful that I drive well maintained roads that are land mine free and I am grateful that I am able to deliver my children including my daughter to school safely. I recently saw an article that showed classrooms around the world, sometimes, just spaces in a park when weather permitted. The kids were there and a lone teacher stood. I do not face those conditions. I get angry about technology breaking down when at least I have it. I get angry about a lot, the hate I see every day when I turn on the news from both the left and the right, and I can not get started about the hate I see on social media, where there is not even the pretense of factual guidance. Both sides so convinced they are right and everybody has an opinion, but then, I remember I am grateful that we are allowed to have an opinion.
I have been told more than once by more than one person that my anger is unjustified. That my anger at the injustices, the non-SUPER TEACHERS, the administrators, the Facebook trollers and photoshop liars is unjustified, and maybe they are right but maybe they are not. I don't want to stay dry eyed when I see children in pain. I don't want to not want a better system for our children to learn in and I don't want the hate in this world to win, so I won't! Says the two year old throwing the temper tantrum inside of me. I mean full out tantrum, legs kicking, face red, tears flowing. I am right, they are wrong and dang it, I am becoming what I protest against. Deep breath in. Sigh it out.
I imagine at some point in every one's life as they've grown, they came to a point in their professional or personal lives where a compromise was made. When we are teenagers and young 20s, we call it selling out. It's all or nothing, everything is so very black and white. As I rapidly approach 40, I faced my compromise and the two year old threw a fit, the 20 something screamed, "Sell out". The mother, the teacher and the woman; however, found peace. Thankfully. Now, as the passion returns, the hormones kick in and the skin thickens, with luck, the crazy will decrease and if I am careful and focus on what I can control, on what I can give and keep reminding my self that I am loved and that I love, the joy will return. I have seen glimpses. I am hopeful, I am grateful and I am determined that next time I see my mentor she will see the joy from me and not anger or sadness or the worst of all, bitterness.
The bitterness that was taking hold is what finally held the anger at bay, what finally had me pick up the 2 year old and soothe her, what allowed the 20 something to agree to the compromise. All of me has seen what bitterness does, what it eats away in the heart and the mind and none of me, none of me wanted that ugliness to cloud any of my decisions, so as Thanksgiving approaches, I have the greatest of joys, hope and gratitude!
So here'
s to compromises for the soul Harry and of course to southern cooking at Thanksgiving with all the trimmings!
With love from East Texas
