Santosha - Contentment

 

We are officially more than halfway through yoga teacher training (YTT). In case you cannot tell, it takes me longer than everyone else to adequately process all the teachings. Ergo, after everyone else writes a 5-minute reflection, I sit in my backyard or classroom and pound out blog posts for 90 minutes.

This past week, we explored the niyama of santosha, or contentment. I have been struggling with contentment.

I recently finished reading Sapiens, which was phenomenal. Harari takes us all the way from the Cognitive Revolution — when homo sapiens developed myths, legends, and ideas that they collectively agreed to live by — through the Agricultural Revolution, and up through the Scientific Revolution  Not many books genuinely combine physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, sociology, history, and psychology. 

One part I particularly liked was the explanation of biochemistry and happiness in chapter 19. Here’s an excerpt:

“On a scale from one to ten, some people are born with a cheerful biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between levels six and ten, stabilising with time at eight. Such a person is quite happy even if she lives in an alienating big city, loses all her money in a stock-exchange crash and is diagnosed with diabetes. 

Other people are cursed with a gloomy biochemistry that swings between three and seven and stabilises at five. Such an unhappy person remains depressed even if she enjoys the support of a tight-knit community, wins millions in the lottery and is as healthy as an Olympic athlete. 

Indeed, even if our gloomy friend wins $50,000,000 in the morning, discovers the cure for both AIDS and cancer by noon, makes peace between Israelis and Palestinians that afternoon, and then in the evening reunites with her long-lost child who disappeared years ago - she would still be incapable of experiencing anything beyond level seven happiness. 

Her brain is simply not built for exhilaration, come what may.”

That may seem crazy depressing and damning to some people, but I found it insanely comforting. I’ve always felt rather guilty for not being more “fun” and “cheerful” and “positive!!!!” The world (and certainly the dating world) demands energy, enthusiasm, and zest. But according to Harari, maybe I’m just not quite built that way.

So, knowing that I'm never going to be swinging from the rafters with joy, how do I practice santosha, particularly when my mind tells me I'll be really happy if I got a new teaching position?

Here is a timeline of events of my recent experiences:

11.19.21 Receive a recruitment video from a former principal for her current district, PSD. They have 3 high school English openings. 

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!

3.08.22  Fail to receive an appointment for any of the HS English openings, despite knowing 2 administrators. 

Devastated.

3.29.22. Reach out to the person who recruited me and ask if the middle schools in PSD are done hiring. She says no, she must have missed my applications and she and her boss will immediately look for them.

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!

4.01.22. Find out from the Assistant Superintendent of HR that I did not pass the basic screening test to teach middle school in PSD, only high school. Even though there was an administrator that asked to interview me for 6 open positions, it was denied because I didn't pass the screening test. 

Devastated.

4.02.22 Make it to the final round for 8th grade English in KSD, highly reputable district without a scripted curriculum. 

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!

4.04.22 Have to teach a live lesson to real students, as well as to teachers and administrators pretending to be students. Almost throw up. Students choose the other teacher to be their new teacher. 

SERIOUSLY?

4.22.22 Interview at a high school in my current district. New principal about my age. Single woman I've always jived with. The interview goes GREAT, and she ends it by saying, "Awesome. I will definitely be in touch!!!" 90% certain I will be getting a job offer.

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!

5.2.22  Zoom interview that lasts 27 minutes with a high school in PKW. Sense a total lack of interest.

Devastated.

5.3.22 Make it to the final round of 8th grade English/Social Studies at the other middle school in the highly reputable KSD. Feel really good about it. Still middle school, but it's 8th grade so I'm not going any younger and it's more money.

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!

5.5.22 Notified that KSD decided on the other candidate because it was going to end up being a straight Social Studies position. If only I were certified in SS. Oh wait. I am. They just didn't pick me.

5.5.22  A few hours later, receive an automated email informing me that I was also passed over for the high school position I was 90% sure I'd gotten, with the new younger principal. This is the 9th high school position I've been rejected from in my own district.

Devastated.

5.10.22  Invited to participate in interviews with WGSD. Would literally be a $20,000 raise.

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!

5.11.22  Receive job offer from PKW. Finally, finally, finally get to teach high school English! They want me to teach Advanced English II! 

YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!

5.12.22 Take whole day off to wait by the phone for the contract to come through from PKW Human Resources. Do tons of homework so I know what to expect and how to counter. Instead, receive an email from the principal who offered me the position. Internal personnel shifts mean that the offer has to be rescinded. 

Completely. Devastated.

5.13.22  WGSD reaches out to me for 3rd and final interview: invitation to create lesson and teach it to their students live, while being observed. The position is for 7th grade.

I turned it down. 

Devastated.

I know it was a $20K raise. I just couldn't.  And maybe you'll think this was self-sabotage at its finest, so I'm going to write my reasoning down here, for when I forget:

* 7th grade is the worst of all the grades to teach. According to 2 principals I interviewed in the past week, they have none of the sweetness of 6th graders and none of the glimmerings of maturity of 8th graders. Unless you just really love teaching middle school, 7th grade is not a good year to teach.

* I am not cut out for teaching young kids. This should be obvious from the fact that while I got a perfect score on the high school English teaching exam, I missed 47 points on the middle school English teaching exam. It should also be obvious from the fact that I was approved for PSD interviews at the high school level but failed the screening exam for middle school interviews, despite having taught middle school for the past 15 years.

* I do not want to go from one scripted curriculum to another one. What I want is autonomy. WGSD uses the Reader-Writer Workshop Model, which is a vast system of books telling you how to teach writing. Part of my interview included affirming that I was willing to teach this style and to collaborate closely with the other 7th grade English teachers so that we are all teaching the same thing. I'm so tired of being told how and what to teach! And this would be mandated teaching, but in a lower grade! That leads us to...

* I would be moving in the opposite direction of what I want. Losing the offer in PKW showed me how much I want high school. When I set out to become a teacher, it was with the intention to teach older kids. At least when I'm teaching 8th grade, I can make a case for knowing what students should be coming into high school with, as well as where their specific learning gaps are. I can also say differentiating includes knowing the HS learning standards so that I can challenge my gifted and advanced students with the HS requirements. If I can't convince a HS principal to take a chance on me now, how on earth would I convince him or her if I were teaching insane 12-year-olds!?

* 25% of the teachers in that WGSD middle school are 1st and 2nd-year teachers. That kind of turnover is extraordinarily high. The former principal blamed it on traditionalists retiring and teachers leaving education altogether, but those things should hold true in other districts, too. At my school, the number is 7% and at KSD middle, that number is 9% A district that pays as much as WGSD should not have a hard time securing or keeping seasoned teachers. Something's not right.

* The distance was twice what I'm driving now. Sure, it was only an additional $600 a year for gas as a tradeoff for a huge raise. But the commute across 3 highways without any accidents, snow, ice, sleet, or rain was annoying. I get really mad when stuck in the car, and on those highways, I would have been stuck in the car a lot because drivers in this city are nuts. Given that I would be driving all that distance to teach a grade level I didn't even want felt futile.

* I could still get a HS job if I held off on signing a contract. The major hiring for most districts takes place in March and April. However, since so many teachers are jumping ship right now, there's a solid chance that more will decide they can't hack another year right at the eleventh hour. If that happens and I haven't signed a middle school contract elsewhere, I could still apply.

* I lacked the mental and emotional reserves to apply at that time. This spring has been fkking brutal. Lemon's dad was arrested and sent to prison; then he made bail and was released. That roller coaster on top of all the highs and lows from these interviews -- and believe me, I didn't even post them all -- has ravaged me. I did not have the emotional reserves to create a lesson and put on another dog-and-pony show for someone else's students when they weren't even close to the age group I wanted to teach. 

* There are some things more important than money. PKW rescinded their job offer, and I was more devastated than I have been in a very long time. I assumed I had done something egregious or that someone had blackballed me because I pissed them off once, or... I don't even know what. When this happened, I felt like I could not breathe: this thing I'd been trying for for years had just slipped out of my fingers.

That was when my principal dropped everything and raced to my house with a bottle of wine. She sat there forever and let me cry. And then the next night when I was too upset to pull myself through yoga training, she told me to come over to her house for dinner. And then Monday, she showed up at school with a brand new weed wacker that her husband had bought, put together, and charged for me.

I don't know why all this has happened. It feels enormously unfair. 

I'm disappointed in myself for turning down a high-paying job. 

I'm proud of myself for turning down something I knew in my heart I wasn't cut out for. 

I'm frustrated with myself for assuming I did something to bring all this on myself.

But in the midst of so much sadness, there are moments of grace, and sometimes they look like a glass of wine and a weed wacker. 

It's extremely hard, when I've worked for so long to pull myself up by the bootstraps, to acknowledge that I may never get what I want. This entire year I've been rewriting resumes, researching salary schedules, answering essay questions, taking Teacher Insight Surveys, prepping for interviews, planning mini-lessons, assembling portfolios, practicing interview skills, meeting with job coaches, and putting myself out there. And it might just not be enough. 

One of my goals in yoga is to learn more balance; yet the wild swings between elation and devastation I've experienced this spring make me feel anything but. So as regards santosha, what I wrestle with is the tension between living in contentment and striving relentlessly toward what I want. Especially when I know I may not ever achieve it.