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Fortitude

In Education, Journal, Patience, Work on November 21, 2009 at 8:07 pm

This was a rough week. I have one student who takes meds, but I think there are days where the effects wear off or when he doesn’t take them. It’s kind of disturbing to see the two sides of him: one where he attempts to model an idealistic vision of a ‘good boy’ (it is endearing but also kind of upsetting to see him try so hard to please me), and the other where he erupts into sadistic shrill curses and screams. This darker side of his two faces erupted after something had happened during lunch (a common occurrence with my students), and he began spewing angry verbal filth at me in the middle of a lesson. The guidance counselor couldn’t coax him out of class, and eventually he sat there drawing without saying anything, then finally gathered his things and walked out of class. I had to spend time that day and the next day discussing how to deal with anger and being upset.

What is interesting about this circumstance–and an innumerable number of similar occurrences–is that I constantly discover that I am learning the same things that my students are. It isn’t about multiplying decimals or writing complete sentences or Algonquian Native American wigwams; it’s about learning how to handle our frustration, deal with anger, mediate conflicts, and communicate what we feel in appropriate ways. These are the very areas that my students force me to struggle in. When they cuss me out to my face, when they turn around and have a discussion in the middle of my every sentence, when they are busier squirting glue onto their fingers instead of doing their math, when they fail to perform an activity I had planned, when they cry or yell or insult each other endlessly, when they hit one another . . . these are the times when I find myself struggling to force myself past the anger and hurt and upset and frustration and try to understand the root source of their problems. And most of the time, no, I am not the model of calm fortitude that I wish I could be. I end up yelling, bullying, forcing order and rigor upon their disorganized lives in every manner that I can. And part of this is necessary. Sometimes I have to yell in order to demonstrate that I care. Sometimes I have to be strict to give them the structure that they need. But sometimes, I know that I have failed them as a teacher, and I am yelling to obviate my wounded pride. I am yelling because I don’t fully understand their disabilities. I am yelling because I don’t fully understand their lives and their needs.

And this is what makes it hard. Not the hours of lesson planning every night and all weekend. Not the hours of meetings and paperwork and phone calls. Not the hours organizing bulletin boards and leveling books and creating SMART board presentations. It is the constant holes that are pricked in my self-esteem, the consistent reminders that I am frail human being with emotions and prejudices and self-induced blindness. The feeling and taste and texture of failure. Every single day. And this is the very experience that my students have endured since the beginning of their young lives.

The greatest struggle right now I have is trying to keep my energy levels up. I haven’t been able to run for a long time now, and my health is declining as a result. I’ve lost weight. I have strange growths in my neck. I’m developing asthma. So my focus, beyond simple survival–which is the mode I have been in–is to find a way to establish an exercise routine. And if I can keep myself healthy and keep myself positive, then I can keep myself calm and patient with my students.

The Battle of the Bereft

In Education, Journal, Poverty, Suffering, Thought Flows, Urbanism on November 13, 2009 at 9:29 pm

Last weekend a friend was visiting, and of course I began discussing my students, because what else do I have to talk about now? I talked about their problems, their behaviors, their tough home lives. So he challenged me to say what they were good at. And in that moment I realized just how bereft my understanding of them is. I couldn’t think of anything. Not one thing. I wanted to weep.

When the entire world tells you you are worthless, in what place do you claw to find succor?

I watch them clutch empty-hearted at the manufactured dreams of the complacent, and shit on the very fabric of their own existence.

Dreams of graduation into comfort seem to be the defining tunnel vision of my own survival. All I can envision are green trees, rolling hills, an empty swatch of air and bird ringed silence across my bedroom window. A river, somewhere, without the brown slogs of industry.

Already, I have abandoned them. To leave them to their trash strewn streets, the steps of apartment buildings that serve as the template for passing the time. To their endlessly working, endlessly shopping mothers, who give them whatever they want whenever they can.

In this ghetto of the soul, it’s all about power. You take it any way you can, you drag down those who might love you and beat them into submission.

This is the game we play, whether in the streets or in the classroom. Who is the powerful? Who is the one who will lead by the blood on his hands?

I am too battered right now to step away from the battle. I see only red before me. I am angry. I am filled with despair. And this is when I know that this is the only fight worth

losing.

With Struggle

In Education, Journal, Work on November 10, 2009 at 11:22 pm

I know that the wind has been knocked out of the sails of my blog posting. I’m finding it hard to justify setting aside time for self-exploration; much of my energy and thought and emotion, even when I’m sleeping, goes towards my students. I have dreams about them, and I lay awake thinking about them. It’s not like I want to.

I have a new student (I jinxed my luck in my last post), who I haven’t gotten a chance to get to know at all because he showed up yesterday, but there seems to be something going on in his home life that may make him a difficulty in class.

I made my first report cards this week, and I had my first parent-teacher conferences tonight, and two moms showed up. Which is one more than I expected.

I also broke up my first fight today. Fists and feet were flying. One part of me was angry for my student who began throwing the punches, but another part of me also recognized her need to stand up for herself. She has been getting picked on everyday, and she just couldn’t take it anymore.

So I am going to have to find a way to resolve the situation as a class. We will have to have a conversation about bullying and about the fight that happened.

I’ve realized that I can no longer ignore the way students in this class are treating each other in the cafeteria or in the schoolyard. Because they will bring it into class with them and then I spend the whole day trying to keep a lid on it.

So I have to teach them how to interact with each other. How to be friends. How to show kindness. Right now they think that picking on easy targets is “playing.”

So teaching is not only about meeting the standards. It’s about reaching your students where they need you in their lives. With material that will guide them and shape them. And that’s why I don’t have time to write much on my blog anymore. Every free second I have, even when I’m wasting it on Facebook or whatever, I always have it in the back of my mind that I should be writing lessons, planning units, writing goals, brainstorming activities. Many of my lessons at school just plain suck. I’m doing a lot of lecturing. I’m in survival mode as a teacher. But the faintest taste of success–knowing with certainty that I am making a difference in their lives, even when all that means is that I am keeping them in their seats–keeps me motivated to see it through. I’m not perfect, but lord knows neither are they. We give each other second and third and fourth and fifth chances.

Until one day, with hope, with struggle, we get it right.