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.