Reflections at the End of the 9th Year Teaching

 I write a reflection every May so that I can commemorate the happenings of the school year and take my mental temperature. As I look back at the last several years of Teaching Reflections, it strikes me that I’m not very good at my job. I think a large part of any job is the ability to read people. I apparently suck at that. This has been confirmed by the fact that all the interviews I thought I knocked out of the ballpark resulted in form letters stating that I wasn’t the right fit, while all the interviews I RUINED resulted in keen interest and/or job offers. This means that while I do have a “gut instinct,” it is invariably wrong.

It occurred to me that maybe I could still harness my instincts to an effective purpose by just doing the opposite of whatever comes naturally! But that’s actually a lot harder than it sounds. For one thing, teachers make over 3,000 significant decisions every day. That’s a lot of instincts to monitor while you’re also trying to, you know, breathe and function like a normal human being. But for another thing, it’s hard to learn to trust your own instincts when you’re always telling yourself to do the opposite of what they say.

When my coworkers first met me, they were horrified by my inability to filter out the Things That Must Not Be Said. These included statements like, “Seneca, do black people get bitten by mosquitos? Someone told me they don’t” and “LaP, you really need to start wearing sunblock. You have new wrinkles all over your forehead.”

I know it seems like any grown woman should know instinctively to just NOT SAY ALL THE THINGS, but, for a variety of reasons, I do not.  And this highlights for you the chasm between that which is expected and that which I do.

You can’t afford to be like that in Education. Everyone’s child is a precious snowflake and there are too many other battles to fight to also be fighting internal ones because you’re afraid of always saying and doing the wrong thing. Here, I will recount my track record:

Year One: I call a kid “One-Eye” because he makes a big deal out of only having one eye! So. Inappropriate.

Year Two: Every day, I receive a call from the president of the school board, who wants to know why her gifted son has a C (because he’s lazy AF). After many days, I ask point-blank if she wants me to make the C an A. Oops. I didn’t realize you never ask those questions out loud.

Year Three: I co-teach in 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grades. The 7^th grade teacher asks me to leave after only a few weeks. I last in 8^th grade til the very end of the year, when the teacher insists that I never step foot inside his classroom again. I still don’t know what happened, though I’ve tried to apologize several times over the years.

Year Four: In a small group discussion, I ask a trainer, “What do you do when a kid calls you a f***ing bitch?” I later overhear the trainer explain to the union president that I have no business being a teacher.

Year Five: I get so annoyed with a student leaving her crap in my room every day that I throw it all in the recycling bin. She tells her mom. I have to spend half an hour inside the recycling bin digging through Kleenex and banana peels looking for a history workbook so I don’t get written up.

Year Six: Thinking I’m doing a lot of good in the world, I watch Freedom Writers and then urge my students to write their stories. After 5 of them admit to being molested and/or raped, I am written up because the whole district could be sued.

Year Seven: I tell my favorite student he looks like a monkey when he covers his whole face with his hands (he has extremely long arms and big hands). Horrified, the other teachers tell me to never refer to my students as monkeys unless I want to be written up as a racist bigot. I wonder how I could have been so stupid.

Year Eight: The counselor, school nurse, and assistant principal are requested to talk to a student about her overpowering body odor but none of them seem concerned. After having a visceral reaction, I panic. (I got sensory migraines and had a windowless room). I email the nurse saying, “This kid REEKS! Please tell me you can smell this and do something!” The principal prints off my email and writes me up. It is inappropriate to use such derogatory language.

Year Nine: I announce my disgust with a superintendent who refuses to let me miss one (useless) professional development day to fly back FROM PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT in another city. It turns out I announced my disgust to her protégé.

As you can see, I have a terrible track record in education. I might have some transferable skills, but unfortunately, my complete lack of awareness and propriety would follow me wherever I went. If the truth be told, I stay where I am because it’s a place that’s so f****d up already, I’m just one more plot point. No one has time to worry much about me when they’re busy with auto theft and gang rape and bomb threats.

Anywhere else, I’m afraid I’d be fired. And I guess that’s my takeaway from this year. Yes, I’m unhappy. But it’s an unhappy bed that I’ve made for myself and now I have to lie in it.

The Art of Ghosting - a parody

The Art of “Ghosting” Isn’t Hard To Master

The art of ghosting isn’t hard to master

So many ties seem filled with the intent

Of being lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose someone every day. Accept the murmur

Of “I’m busy” or “I’ll call you.”

The art of ghosting isn’t hard to master.

Then practice ghosting farther, ghosting faster:

Let friendships fall away, dates, and who it was you might

have liked. None of these will bring disaster.

My college roommate ghosted once. And look!

My grandmother said she cared and went.

The art of ghosting isn’t hard to master.

I lost two loves. And vaster,

A simple home, a Spaniel, and our children.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

Even now, being ghosted in my 30’s,

I shan’t have lost. It’s obvious, the art

Of ghosting isn’t hard to master

Though it may look (admit it!) like disaster.

Gigi

Gigi moved away this morning.  For the last 4 years, she's lived in the apartment above mine, on the 3rd floor. It took us a few years to become pals because I tend to stick to myself, but she later told me that she had asked God to let me be her friend.

I've never really been someone's answer to prayer before.

Gigi and I joined the world of online dating together, and had a great time drinking wine and writing strongly worded letters to the customer service people at eharmony. We liked comparing dating horror stories ("He was intellectually disabled!" and "I think he may still be married!") and giving each other advice ("Give it another chance" and "Bye, Felicia!").

But mostly, we liked just being pals... going to the Zoo and on our long, 8-mile walks through Clayton, trying to force our cats to be best friends even though they clearly despised each other. I think Gigi was the answer to my prayers, too, because I desperately needed a friend. It comforted me a lot to be able to run upstairs in my pajamas when I was really depressed and know that I had someone to talk to.

Then Gigi met a guy, which I know is the whole point of online dating. And she fell in love. And she followed her heart 900 miles away, which is a very brave thing to do. Only, now the third floor apartment is empty. It feels just like another hole in my heart. I come home and there's no one there to sit with in my pajamas. There's no "thump" of soft cat feet jumping off the bed. There's just nothing and it feels like a metaphor for my life.

I'm not doing so great. This is the lowest I've been in a really long time, only now, there's no one to help me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Brave.

Timidity is not an attractive trait. I acknowledge that, but it doesn't make me any bolder. I am a cowardly woman... I balk at change the way my cat balks at being put into a carrier to go to the vet: there are claw marks everywhere and we're both growling by the end. Any change I've experienced in life has been both preceded and followed by massive anxiety attacks, which has led me to the following conclusion: I only change when it becomes more painful and debilitating to stay where I am than to hurl myself into the unknown.

This summer, I am supposed to go to Europe for 6 weeks. The whole thing is planned out: 3 weeks at L'abri, a retreat where I would study and ask questions and try to find God; and then a few weeks traveling through western Europe on holiday. I should be very happy about it all, but I'm not. I don't really know why. Perhaps it's because at the end of the 6 weeks I'll have to come back here and return to a job I loathe and a life I'm lonely in.

Europe is kind of a crap-shoot for me: I felt a huge sense of oppression when I was in Athens, like there was something evil lurking about. In Dublin, I was my best self. Kusadasai made little impression at all. But during these trips, I wondered if I was traveling because that's what people DO? Or was it because I genuinely wanted to go places?

Last year I started exploring international education. Everyone swears by it and how it will change your life. I wanted my life changed. I've interviewed at probably 15 different international schools since then... and for each one, I've immediately thought of reasons I couldn't go. At the top school in Istanbul, where I would have been living in a gated community and teaching the highest echelons of students, I reasoned that it was too dangerous. At a school in Aruba, I said the pay cut was too drastic. At a school in Mexico City, I said too many foreigners disappear. In the Bahamas, I just didn't feel "right." Portugal, the tax rate was too high. Morocco, I worried I wasn't "spiritual" enough. The Honduras wouldn't let me bring Mocha. And on and on it went.

When it really came down to it, there were only about 5 countries I was willing to give up my whole life to enter; and these were all in western Europe. The international coordinator assigned to work with me was frustrated by this. EVERYONE wants to go to western Europe, those schools receive hundreds of applications per day. You need to broaden your horizons!! What about Qatar? The United Arab Emirates? Or China, perhaps?

I was resolute. I'm not packing up my Pottery Barn life to move to effing Qatar. No thank you! It's England or bust. She sighed. I was a lost cause. She quit contacting me.

And then, on about my 50th international application, I got a bite. A school in Trieste, Italy, looked at a picture I emailed and offered me an interview. It was supposed to last 40 minutes but we Skyped for twice that. Then they sent me the salary: 9 years teaching and a Master's+ will net me 22,000E. WHAAAA?!?!?!? My salary in Hazelwood has already been frozen so many times that I'm making $7,000 less than I should be. And now I'm supposed to alter my living habits to survive on 22,000E?????

My friend Michelle, who just took a cushy job in China (where they actually pay the teachers) said this: "Teachers go to Asia and the Middle East for the salary. They go to Europe for the experience."

That's true. In Trieste, new teacher orientation week includes a trip to a 300-year-old vineyard for a wine-tasting. You can take an overnight train south and have breakfast in Rome. Venice is a mere 70 miles away. Or, for 100E you can hop over to the Greek islands.

Andrea says that if anyone in the world can survive on 22,000E it's me. I think that's probably true. I'm pretty good at doing what needs to be done to make things work financially. I could sell everything I own (except my books, of course) and use the savings to offset minuscule wages. But then what? I get to Italy and have a nervous breakdown because I've sold my adorable Pottery Barn life and am surrounded by someone else's junk in a town that time forgot?

One thing seems certain: I cannot stay where I am. I hate who I am becoming there. I remember my 3rd year in the district, I was so happy and bouncy on the first day of school. There was a decrepit old teacher with a limp standing in the hallway and as I zoomed past her she said, "Well. Another day in this hell-hole." I remember feeling quite disdainful of her, but now I get it. I am miserable here. My building has had 11 principals in 6 years. Our standardized scores have dropped below those of Riverview Gardens and Normandy. Two assistant superintendents have resigned in the wake of massive budget cuts that call into question district spending habits. The last 2 superintendents were fired. And the current one was in the news recently for making racist statements about parents. On top of all of this, our salaries are frozen and we receive no administrative support. I'm not teaching anymore. I'm babysitting, and my attitude has become so cynical and resentful that I can't keep it hidden.

I believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that I will not be returning next year. I have had a psychotic break with reality, apparently. The question is, am I brave enough to leap into the unknown?