Skip to main content

Those Who Can't Do

I taught for twelve years and now I am taking a break. I had a baby. Teaching full time and raising this baby feel incompatible. One or the other could get done. I did one for so long I may as well try the other. Also I wanted this baby, and waited for this baby.
So,
So.
Twelve years is a long time and I want to spend some time and space reflecting on those years. They made up the bulk of my adult life. Most pieces of what transpired don't fit into any easy narrative structure, but that is how my mind is wired to process information. Life is narrative, in my mind I am the hero of that narrative, or at least the main character. I want to sort out what 25 to 36 was for, whys and hows, so I can put this time to some sort of rest. I have a new season to begin and there is finally some space for me to consider all of what passed.
Let's begin.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Ruination Day!

On top of being Good Friday this is the day Abraham Lincoln was shot, the Titanic struck an ice berg and one of the worst storms in the dust bowl hit. Gillian Welch wrote about it . For various reasons this has been the year I have needed the Resurrection to be real, which means I also need Death to be real. One with out the other is cheating. Today is the Day of Death. I used to wear black every Good Friday from my Holy roller days in college to my moody contemplative days during my 20s. I made Holy Week play lists and contemplated the crucifixion. The one Holy Week practice I have maintained is reading T.S. Eliot's "The Four Quartets" every Easter season. This year I have found an extra measure of comfort in it as I have read it as a love letter to suffering. Everything is transient. Nothing really sticks around and to get better first we must get worse. I attended a funeral of a respected spiritual leader recently and the man who gave the homily read from The D...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shirt

I was going to write chronologically. Forget that. Memory is not chronological and to make it so would require me getting paid to do this. Also today I put on a shirt that is a loaded gun of memories about one student in particular. When he was placed I was told he was a major behavior. He didn't like female teachers, in part due to his own mother's erratic behavior. In fourth grade he practically lived in the office. I had a strategy with kids like this that worked about half the time, give them space. I figured if a student was having a hard time in me class it was my responsibility. With potentially explosive students I would make it my goal to be as non-reactive as possible. Sometimes this worked, but took so much emotional energy I ended up being super reactive with other students in the class. I would learn later how to be a non-reactive teacher in general, but this year was really a teaching class for me. This child taught me the most. I will call him Frank for the...
1 comment
Read more