"Those kids are so lucky to have you." The least favorite comment I get from people at home, or from wankers in manhattan. I kind of like because it lets you know who is a closet racist or classist, who harbors some sort of class stratification system, who thinks that the mere presence of a Harvard educated person will make "those kids" learn more. Its actually kind of fun to feed into people like this, I could see there being a borat spinoff who gets people to call the kids all sorts of things, but thats not good for anybody.
The reason why I hate it the most is because I kind of believe. It allows me to be complacent and occasionally forget how important my job is. The job of a teacher at any school is to be prepared and ready to help kids learn, model a good society in the classroom and maybe relate to the kids. Sometimes I can slack and just give a half ass job and its fine. No one cares, no one is going to observe, no one is holding me to a high standard but me. And if I do what I plan on doing, which is leave after a few years, it won't matter at all how good I do. The fact that I did it means I should impress a few people, even if they are the people who would tuck their purses or change their sidewalks if they saw me walking towards them on an unfamiliar sidewalk.
The point isn't to just be here, the point is to be here and be great. The point is to embody the way that education is to be done. The point here is to reach a level of efficiency and productivity that I would have had to become a better person than I was before I came. and Ultimately the goal is to become the teacher that none of these students would have had, and the only teacher that could have helped them reach they're highest levels.
The challege is daunting, and it has weighed heavily on me lately. I have moments of complete loss of abilty. Moments where I give up when a kid cuts my class, days where I walk into class with no lesson plan and put some stupid math on the board to kill time, and mornings where I sit fully dressed, staring into space wondering if I can do this. Teaching requires an organization that I don't have. It is dominated by people who look nothing like me. It places a responsibilty on those in the front that I feel uncomfortable with, and have persistent trouble embracing. (Its still weird that kids are too nervous to tell me they smoke weed, and even more weird for me to have feign concern or admonishment).
But it is possible. I have always felt that my spirituality, my proof of something greater, stems from the dreams that are put in my head. If it was put in my head as something for me to do, then it must have been for a reason. It must have been able to be done. Even though every part of me says it can't be done, even if I wind up in the mental hospital in pursuit of it, even if I fail again and again and again. It is possible. I just need to push it out.
The last rep of the work out. The last page of the last paper of your semester. Cleaning out your last college apartment. Moving on from the girl you've loved. It makes perfect sense, you can see it, you understand why it can, should, and will be done. The only difference between possibility and failure is your will. The strength of your character. Competitiveness, resolve, stupidity, whatever it takes but some part of your brain needs to shift from just visualizing to actualizing. Some part needs to stop seeing what the change should be in the world but being the change.
1 comment:
a thought: maybe when they say 'they're lucky to have you' they mean they're lucky to have you, not the various credentials, categories, or labels you could ascribe yourself if you so chose.
i don't think those kids are lucky to have a black teacher with a graduate degree from harvard. i think they're lucky to have a man who believes in the mission he has chosen, a man who has been through the emotional gauntlet of paralyzing self-doubt and silent terror that you put yourself through everyday almost entirely for their thankless benefit. that's why I think they're lucky to have you.
even though i've never said it.
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