The Starting Line

Sorry it's been so long between posts; I got sidetracked in the rush leading up to finals, plain and simple. I'll follow up later in the week when I have a bit more time, but here's a quick reflection:

When I was really struggling, back in March, I spoke to a friend of mine about how to get back on course before all was lost. Nobody joins up to be a mediocre teacher, and I was really failing at my job. He mentioned that I had 90 days or so (fewer really, with weekends and finals and such) to change the trajectory of this episode of my students' lives. It went unsaid that it would be the defining struggle of my first year, and rightly so.

He said that as teachers, we must carry with us the ghosts of the students we leave behind; whether it is because of our own shortcomings or the vague cruelties of circumstances outside our control, our students' failures are our burden. To be a teacher here is to be haunted by the prospect of squandered lives and the honest shame of promises left unfulfilled. I am no exception.

I consider myself lucky in that I turned things around. I never looked back after that conversation and then went out and saved my Chemistry class. The ghosts are still here though; I lost a student at the beginning of the year and I saw a memorial to him at the riverfront just two weekends back. We are the ones who will remember him, and you can't really turn that kind of memory off.

It's finally about time to get back to work. Thanks for the comments (I was so pumped; thanks for reading and staying involved! Dried mangoes are not human skin!) and stay well until next time.

The Thermos

**Just a heads up: this is a long entry.

I have had a love-hate relationship relationship with my thermos. One day it saves me from getting a cold, the next my students' worksheets are Lipton-colored. (Note: I'm still working on this professionalism thing.) Today, our relationship was definitely in the former camp.

After a 10-hour track meet in cold rain, with no tent for our team (we also have no blocks, batons, spikes, hurdles, or coolers for water, but that's another story), I came down with a wicked cough that has left me sounding like I'm on the grizzled side of young adulthood. Upon waking this morning, I hit a melodious, sandpaper-y note that almost made me believe in the bogeyman again. Alas, finals season is upon us, so into school we go...

Students who haven't shown up for weeks (or months) are coming to my class frightened of my final. They know that they don't stand a chance unless they study, but I'm pretty worried that it is too late for them. I can only guide them so much in the last week before the exam, but they will need to master multiple units in that time. I can snark all I want about a cold, but these students are coming face-to-face with a profound, if not profoundly scary realization: they straight up might not be able to cut it.

I take responsibility for the shortcomings of my classroom and my instruction, yet the sad truth is that for too many students, so much of the final outcome is outside of my control. What does it say when you can't succeed at the only thing that society expects to do as a youth? How can you even take the expectation seriously when you can't stand society for what it has done to you, or what it has failed to do, or in the tragic case of one student today, who it has failed to protect? I owe it to some of these students to lay down the full weight of their failures, so that they might be stronger for it (I hope) and with a do-over, learn to succeed. Right?

They never warn you about that kind of responsibility in college, or how it simply cannot be deferred, no matter how unpalatable the consequences. Welcome to the movement.

Which One Isn't Like The Others?

A smörgåsbord of quotes; which one wasn't spoken by my students? [note: non-essential details have been changed to protect the identities of the speakers.]

1. "Yeah, they said my hands were lethal weapons. I mean, I boxed in elementary school."
2. "I'm going home right after this so I can watch Law and Order!"
3. "Yo, Capricorns for life."
4. "I get it now! Thanks Mr. K!"

Please don't say "4".

In Which Mr. K Buys His Class Band-Aids

We now have band-aids, which is better than taping cuts closed (we don't exactly have a nurse most days) and infinitely less awesome than supergluing them closed. Regrettably, it never came to that.

A student's comment on my sandwich: "You eat some weird stuff, Mr. K. But I guess no one asks you for food, if that's what you were looking for."

My students also don't appreciate when I eat dried mango. As one explained to me: I was hella sure you were eating human skin. I might not have corrected this student the first time around. Strangely enough, this concern has been echoed by my colleagues, a plurality of whom assume I snack on humans.

Bonus Points: Last Friday, I handed out flowers to the young mothers who are taking Chemistry this year (raising a kid and doing Chemistry at the same time - kudos) which led me to realize just how many girls are mothers or expecting soon at my school. Yikes. After seeing it everyday for months, I simply started to look past it. Nothing however beats my male students faking pregnancies to get carnations, not a trace of shame in their eyes, with the intent to mack on the ladies.

Also, I had the opportunity to write a 4 foot by 3 foot "hall pass" during 7th period on Friday. My student (such a good kid) felt like the king of the world and wouldn't stop bragging about it. Promptly thereafter, an announcement was made by the administration admonishing teachers for sending students out "without hall passes" and I was spoken to after school let out. To paraphrase John Paul Jones, I have not yet begun to make pathetically small, undeniably cute gestures of rebellion.

The Unquiet Darkness

I'm writing this post at near midnight, which is madness for a school night. I'm just frustrated - the classes are going okay, but the rest of the madness is too much sometimes. It's like there is some sort of terrible, cosmic compromise that is hammered out in a back room and I get to see it at the end of the day, with 10 minutes to read over the fine print and the knowledge that it will be enforced whether I sign off on it or not. Sometimes you have to tell yourself that you can have some agency in the chaos, even if eludes you at the moment. At first intention, then enlightenment. And maybe then I can get some rest.