This week, like every week, was composed of good and bad. But I think (and perhaps this is the perspective I can only have on Sunday nights) that the thing is to choose to see the good. To choose to trust. To choose to have hope.
"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, 'I'll try again tomorrow.'" - Mary Anne Radmacher
If that is not the story of all life, it is at least the story of my life right now.
Yesterday (Saturday) was our second all-day TFA conference. The conferences are a combination of pep rally and professional development. After the August conference, I was annoyed I had lost a Saturday, but I felt refocused on why I was here, and like I had learned some valuable things. The conference yesterday just depressed me.
The first session I went to was about how to lead class discussions. And I thought, "I know how to do this. I know how to be a good teacher. I just can't manage kids." I know how it should look. I know what should be going on. I know what I would do in the ideal world. I just can't seem to make that happen. And I also know that this piles up to a bunch of useless excuses.
I went to a session on management, and basically came away with that I need to be more consistent, and I need to have teacher presence - but I don't know how to do that, or maybe I've just given up on it. And I know that in that I am failing children.
I think that I know how to be the teacher in a school like in that where I was a student. Or in such a culture. I don't know if I don't know how to be a good manager here, or it just hurts my soul too much (because it still feels mean to me). And I think part of me isn't 100% sure I have the authority to be bossing teenagers around.
So end of yesterday, I was pretty down. I felt like I was failing kids by failing to manage them, but that I didn't even really WANT to manage them. I just wanted it all to go away.
But this is where faith comes in.
I have faith that I am here for a reason.
I have faith that that reason is not to screw up children.
I have faith that God works everything for the good of those who know and love Him.
I have faith that my work is not in vain.
I have faith that I can keep getting a little better everyday.
I have faith that my God will sustain me day-to-day.
For as run-down as I have felt at the end of some days, when I am at my lowest, the next day is always a little bit better.
Like the day I gave half of my juniors detention for messing around and not working, and they threatened to complain to the principal (although I'm sure if you asked them, they'd rationalize their position a lot more). I cried that night. I cried the next morning in the car on the way to school. I was convinced I was going to walk into a class of hate. Yet it seemed like they'd forgotten.
Other moments of hope:
- The day before fall break, the young man whom I have given by far the most detentions to told me that English is his favorite class because we always do something fun.
- A sophomore knew what "acme" and "nadir" meant.
- In 10th grade we are reading A Midsummer Night's Dream. Tuesday I had the kids do some research about Shakespeare. Thursday we read the first scene with the mechanicals, and one of the laborers is protesting having to play a woman. "Who acted in plays in Shakespeare's time?" I asked the class. "Women!" most students called back. They actually learned something!
- A bunch of old ladies hugged me at church today.
- In 11th grade we read Hawthorne's short story "The Minister's Black Veil." I asked the students to come up with a modern parallel of when we judge someone by how they dress/groom. Students came up with things from burkas to haircuts.
"He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing." - Sherman Alexie
Here's to choosing hope -
Anneke
Anneke: I had lunch Saturday with some old colleagues from the public high school where I taught. As we shared stories and memories, we commented on how much time has passed--babies are now grown, our students now have teenagers of their own. Some kids who hated us in the moment have come back to say thanks. Some just grew up and went on with their lives, unwittingly proving to us that we had done our jobs well. (You know what else? Sometimes we didn't do everything right, and the students forgot about those mistakes.)
ReplyDeleteKids will play on your emotions. They will say cruel things. You're the adult, and your job is not to be popular; your job is to help them grow up. Often that means helping them make connections between their choices and the inevitable consequences of those choices. If you can give them the kind of consistency they don't get elsewhere, most of them will eventually come to realize that you have acted from love. They may not realize it right away, or this year. But time passes.
I'm glad you also have those bright moments when you get to recognize that you ARE doing it right...and when you get to enjoy being with your students. I wish you many more of those.
I think one of the hardest realizations is that you aren't in that classroom to be their friend, or even to be "liked" but to mentor them as a caring adult to become society's next caring adults who have knowledge and wisdom they would never have otherwise. It is hard brain-busting work and they don't like getting their brain muscles sore. Keep making them sore; eventually they get strong enough it doesn't hurt so much any more.
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