I know, teachers aren't supposed to think like that. If you think that's bad, you should hear the thoughts in my head when one of my students told me I need to dye my hair today; this color doesn't work for me. Homonal little angel.
You know what, though. I haven't quit. I'm miserable
in a lot of ways, and this is stressing me to the max,
but I'm sticking with it even when it's far from
perfect.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Sunday, November 05, 2006
when ure hero falls
Posted in dedication to two boys who I teach (middle school English/Reading). Names changed & details altered...you know, just in case.
Juan has a sibling who was shot and killed several years ago in a gang related incident. He works a night job to help his mother with the bills. Half-awake, he sits in my class scribbling precocious lines of poetry onto my assignments (which he sometimes finishes). Clearly an old soul, murky from the hazy confusion of adolesence along with the oppression of poverty and it's angry mirror of violence. He wants nothing to do with gangs or violence, he tells me on one of the mornings that he has wondered into my classroom before school. It has hurt his family enough. He just got off of work. He says he's tired, he will try to pay attention.
The other boy, Miguel (a gang member; a kid who has been in a lot of trouble), tells me with heavy eyes that his father has begun drinking again after two years of sobriety. It is my planning period. I don't know where he is supposed to be, but he is not there. His mind is at home anyways. His eye is on the bottle that has stolen his dad away. His body is in my classroom, looking for an answer that I've been looking for for years. I share an anecdote about my own trip down this road, and I think back to my grade school counselor, Mrs. Johnson. When I was young, she shared with me a version a piece of her life story that was similar to mine; in a breath she handed to me my discarded, crumpled potential -wrapped carefully in a tiny box, tied with strings of hope. She was my proof that it was possible to make it through something through which I didn't feel I had the strength to withstand. By virtue of existence, she was the hope that remained in my Pandora's box. "God must be preparing you to help another child through this," she said.
I grasped the box of my fragile potential with knuckles whiter than winter; I tucked it deep in my soul. Sometimes I forgot it was there. And, sometimes I forget it is there. And sometimes it sings the songs it knew all along. The songs that all of our souls have always known. I believe life is about clearing a way to our souls, which have always known "the answers"...Clearing the distractions of life...the crippling oppression of poverty, the paralyzing oppression of wealth.
I do not know if I will make a difference as a teacher, but I know that the difference is already in me. At times, I am blinded by the endless distraction of beauracracy and expectations I do not know how to meet. Overall, it gives me clarity...Not clarity in my own life, but a clearer picture of the world as it really is. At night, I drive home to my comfortable, if not fancy neighborhood where most people pretend that poverty does not exist. It would be comforting to believe that, but in the morning I go back to the school that is 95% poor and minority, tucked away between used car lots and gang signs painted on overpasses. This is reality.
As for middle school...I never thought I would teach middle school; it was the worst time of my life. Adolesence in itself is pandora's box. By definition, it is a time of trauma. Add poverty. Add violence. May my kids recognize the elusive hope that hides in the corner; some never find it. Pandora found it. Mrs. Johnson found it, and she showed it to me.
I believe that Tupac found it, be it with slippery fingers. He wrote about it time and again.
Tupac wrote this poem after his seemingly untouchable mother became addicted to cocaine. She was/is an activist for social justice, a vigilante. A liver of life who gave up on living for a while.
When Ure Hero Falls
4 My Hero (My Mother)
by Tupac Shakur
When your hero falls from grace
all fairy tales R uncovered
myths exposed and pain magnified
the greatest pain discovered
u taught me 2 be strong
but I'm confused 2 c u so weak
u said never 2 give up
and it hurts 2 c u welcome defeat
when ure Hero falls so do the stars
and so does the perception of tomorrow
without my Hero there is only
me alone 2 deal with my sorrow.
your Heart ceases 2 work
and your soul is not happy at all
what R u expected 2 do
when ure only Hero falls
Juan has a sibling who was shot and killed several years ago in a gang related incident. He works a night job to help his mother with the bills. Half-awake, he sits in my class scribbling precocious lines of poetry onto my assignments (which he sometimes finishes). Clearly an old soul, murky from the hazy confusion of adolesence along with the oppression of poverty and it's angry mirror of violence. He wants nothing to do with gangs or violence, he tells me on one of the mornings that he has wondered into my classroom before school. It has hurt his family enough. He just got off of work. He says he's tired, he will try to pay attention.
The other boy, Miguel (a gang member; a kid who has been in a lot of trouble), tells me with heavy eyes that his father has begun drinking again after two years of sobriety. It is my planning period. I don't know where he is supposed to be, but he is not there. His mind is at home anyways. His eye is on the bottle that has stolen his dad away. His body is in my classroom, looking for an answer that I've been looking for for years. I share an anecdote about my own trip down this road, and I think back to my grade school counselor, Mrs. Johnson. When I was young, she shared with me a version a piece of her life story that was similar to mine; in a breath she handed to me my discarded, crumpled potential -wrapped carefully in a tiny box, tied with strings of hope. She was my proof that it was possible to make it through something through which I didn't feel I had the strength to withstand. By virtue of existence, she was the hope that remained in my Pandora's box. "God must be preparing you to help another child through this," she said.
I grasped the box of my fragile potential with knuckles whiter than winter; I tucked it deep in my soul. Sometimes I forgot it was there. And, sometimes I forget it is there. And sometimes it sings the songs it knew all along. The songs that all of our souls have always known. I believe life is about clearing a way to our souls, which have always known "the answers"...Clearing the distractions of life...the crippling oppression of poverty, the paralyzing oppression of wealth.
I do not know if I will make a difference as a teacher, but I know that the difference is already in me. At times, I am blinded by the endless distraction of beauracracy and expectations I do not know how to meet. Overall, it gives me clarity...Not clarity in my own life, but a clearer picture of the world as it really is. At night, I drive home to my comfortable, if not fancy neighborhood where most people pretend that poverty does not exist. It would be comforting to believe that, but in the morning I go back to the school that is 95% poor and minority, tucked away between used car lots and gang signs painted on overpasses. This is reality.
As for middle school...I never thought I would teach middle school; it was the worst time of my life. Adolesence in itself is pandora's box. By definition, it is a time of trauma. Add poverty. Add violence. May my kids recognize the elusive hope that hides in the corner; some never find it. Pandora found it. Mrs. Johnson found it, and she showed it to me.
I believe that Tupac found it, be it with slippery fingers. He wrote about it time and again.
Tupac wrote this poem after his seemingly untouchable mother became addicted to cocaine. She was/is an activist for social justice, a vigilante. A liver of life who gave up on living for a while.
When Ure Hero Falls
4 My Hero (My Mother)
by Tupac Shakur
When your hero falls from grace
all fairy tales R uncovered
myths exposed and pain magnified
the greatest pain discovered
u taught me 2 be strong
but I'm confused 2 c u so weak
u said never 2 give up
and it hurts 2 c u welcome defeat
when ure Hero falls so do the stars
and so does the perception of tomorrow
without my Hero there is only
me alone 2 deal with my sorrow.
your Heart ceases 2 work
and your soul is not happy at all
what R u expected 2 do
when ure only Hero falls
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