Some personal stuff...

Is it a common feeling that who you really are is something that you stow safely in a box someplace to remove only when, rarely, the smoke clears, and then you open it up and realize that the thing inside is senseless and trivial and selfish, childish and wild?

When I first came here I was wildly optimistic, ready for the experience and sure I could handle anything and change everything, for someone, at least. Of course I am completely scornful now of my ridiculous heroic notions, partly because they proved so ineffective and partly because of the uninformed arrogance they were rooted in. More than that, though, is that bit by bit I have packed up all those parts of me, and what is left, what I show my kids everyday, is something I don't recognize and am a little ashamed to have allowed to take over. The thing is, the other stuff wasn't working. Something is missing from my teaching, now, though; the creativity and excitement I had over the summer for inventing new activities, getting kids to figure things out, trying to inspire or make the day a tiny bit more fun- that stuff is less, by a lot. I am counting the days and its not fair to anyone, especially my kids. I know there has to be a way to embrace this, to do your best and work through it and not loose the excitement that I allowed to dissolve a long time ago. I am upset with my kids, even if they don't deserve it, and I am upset with myself. I think I really do pack away all the good stuff, like I am afraid of burning out all the stardust when I start finding out that it doesn't have the power I thought it did, and I am packing it away to save it and hoping it to fix it when I finally re-open the box. A friend told me that he believed it is "needy to expect them to love you back" (the kids). Of course that's true. I think when I am counting the days, I mean that I am selfishly not really looking full-force at the present, but rather waiting for days when I can open the box, brush off the dust, and have faith in my old nonsense again, even if it is powerless outside of a tiny little circle, even if it cannot fix the world as I once foolishly thought it could. One of the most difficult things to learn here, I think, was that the things I have faith in (mainly beauty, love, magic) are not the cure for everything. I guess I am just not willing or able to relinquish them, though. I believe too strongly that you should never stop being fierce about the few things that feel exactly right, even if everyone else things they are completely foolish, foolish as that notion may be. You can begin to see things more realistically, though; you don't loose anything, just grow deeper. Anyway, I find myself seeking out bits of company and warmth and sweetness when I should be more focused.....suppose I should get on that... hope everyone's great...see you guys soon.

Teacher Corps-? What I have found (and only what I have found):

Experience dictates, to a greater extent than I ever realized before this program, how we handle ourselves, conduct our business, negotiate professional relationships, navigate personal relationships, uphold our integrity, maintain and loose the sanctity of personal space, and hold together the pieces of our hearts when we are under pressure from every angle.

I cannot imagine another experience through which a person learn as much as one does in teacher corps in so short a time. Maybe Peace Corps.

It brings out parts of you that you've never seen, turns you into a fierce version of yourself that you don't recognize, tattered at the edges and concentrated at the core into stronger stuff than you knew you contained. The intensity of the failure is completely destructive if you are afraid of failure- and who isn't?

You make inexcusable mistakes. And you have no choice but to forgive yourself, eventually, or give up and fail completely. You learn, though, that you are stronger than you every guessed, that you have been given everything that others have been denied ( and not to say it's right), that you have to find what you are made of and use it to fight if you want to do what you believe it good; there is no limit to how hard you are willing to push for this. And you fail at it. Over, and over, and over, and over.

Teacher corps shows you that life is unfair, even if you knew before. Mostly, your students will not want your help and they will need it desperately. Mostly, your administrators will criticize every move you make when you are already criticizing your own every move.

Your successes will be sweet moments of joy that you tuck away and protect and cling to ferociously. They will increase over time.

If I can survive teacher corps despite all my mistakes, if I can teach my kids something, if they learn how to learn or write or want to learn or believe in something worth fighting for...I think it will be worth it. I have not once truly wanted to walk away.

Other parts of the experience (besides the overwhelming parts that are the kids, the other teachers, the Delta if you live there, the culture, the poverty, the cruelty of circumstance, the horrible, horrible waste of brilliant potential):

The kids, the kids, the kids.

Your peers. They will blow you away.

Your classes (and professors): There are some classes you take for Teacher Corps you will, really, really, get you thinking. They show the depth of the problem and set your mind spinning away and ways to fix it, and probably leave you angry. Anger’s good, here, it gives you one more thing to fight with.

Athletics: I have never cared so much about a darn football or basketball game. I didn’t even care this much about my own crew races in high school.

Beauty and pain: You’ll see.