Risk of Disappointment

So today wasn't really a red-letter day in the wonderful world of student teaching. I had a kid sit right in front of me, like smack dab in front of where I was standing while everyone was taking their test, I had a kid sit right in front of me and sleep through his test. I don't even want to grade it, I'm so frustrated right now. He even told me that he'd come before school today to get some help on it and I got myself to school early today, I'm talking like an hour and fifteen minutes before school starts, fully forty-five minutes before I'm required by the school to be there, and he never showed. So he waltzes into class and sits down and sleeps through his test right in front of where I'm working out the rest of the stuff they're going to learn today.

And I was so disappointed.

I really thought I was getting through here- he was asking for help in class, he was understanding explanations, he did his homework and turned it in, even when the rest of the class didn't, he was staying awake the majority of the time. And then today rolls around and he sits there and sleeps. I woke him up twice and he never wrote another number on his paper. What did I do? I put effort into this kid, you know, I tried. And it just broke my heart. So this is what disappointment feels like. I must have never been let down before.

You know, teaching three preps is hard. There's so much stuff you have to get ready. And I'm still learning how to teach and how to best interact with students. I need to be allowed to make those mistakes, to learn from what I'm doing wrong, or not exactly right. Students aren't like physics problems or math problems. They're these living breathing opportunities for education or misdirection, and if you mess up, you don't just crumple up a sheet of paper and start over. You have to correct and guide and hope that the opportunity doesn't turn the wrong way again. Physics problems stay put on the paper and in the book. Students do anything but that.

Add all of that onto the things I already do and having to take the PRAXIS (someone teach me biology before Saturday!) and going to the ACC tournament (OK, that's not really a stresser, that's kinda one of the best things that's happened in my life ever... the frequency of the best things occurring in my life ever has been increasing as of late and I'm not really sure what to do with that) and Europe and working and you know, eating and stuff like that that apparently you have to do, and I just crashed this afternoon. I also said those immortal words: "I can't do this."

And I can't. This is so much and I'm cracking. I clench my jaw and I take criticism worse than usual and I wake up with headaches and all I want to do is come back home and sleep. Of course, it's been this bad before, but that's when I dropped from a physics BS to a physics BA. There's nowhere to go from here. And of course I can't quit. Quitting is forever unacceptable.

Which is why I don't let my students quit. I'm going to make this kid stay awake in class on Monday when I'm back He is going to come afterschool for tutoring, so help me. He is going to learn the material and he is going to do wonderfully on this next test. And even with the risk of being disappointed again hanging over my head, I'm going to make sure that my other students think in class. They're going to fill in steps that they think they can't. They're going to learn to reason the right way to figure out these problems. I'm going to push them forward because I know they can do it. These are difficult goals, but not insurmountable. I know they can learn to reason, to think, to solve problems, to make their individual worlds better places.I know they can.

Don't you tell me they can't.

Ash Wednesday Eve-Eve

I'm sure none of you ever get lost in the same place twice like I do, but, imagine for a second what it's like to be going in the wrong direction down a road, say, in Durham at around 9 o'clock at night. You've been down this wrong road before but you can't remember if you turned at the end of the road and found your way back or if you missed a turn a while ago. It's all really hazy because you found your way back only through the grace of God and some conveniently connecting streets. It was also dark the last time. It's an odd feeling, knowing you're wrong, being totally convinced that you're headed in the wrong direction and yet completely unsure as to whether you should keep pushing forward or turn completely around.

And I know that you all know that you should turn around. You know the way behind you. Maybe you can find the (unlabeled, I might add) street that you were supposed to turn on, the place that you've been trying to get to all along. You should just go back to somewhere where the directions still make sense and then see that place where you have to follow every step more carefully. Your internal sense of direction tells you that where you want to be is behind you, but, you know, when you don't have a GPS, map or co-pilot to confirm your suspicions, it's easy to hope that there's just a turn in the road somewhere that brings you back to where you're supposed to be, another miracle, maybe, that will lead you out of the intimidating side neighborhoods of night and on to the place where you're welcomed because you're expected.

Awkwardly enough, I get the same feeling when I think about teaching for the rest of my life that I do when I'm lost down a road I've been down before. It's like I know that I'm wrong but I'm hoping that it'll turn out to be right, or there'll be a sign or something. And I keep on getting all this encouraging feedback and then I think I'll feel like I'm quitting on something if I don't keep this up and that I'll be disappointing people who've been so supportive of me through everything and it's not fair because I do what I'm supposed to do, you know, and I can convince myself at least three ways from Sunday that I'm supposed to be teaching but I keep hearing this voice in the back of my head that doesn't want me to stay where I am because it knows that I'm lost, lost, lost.

You know, I found myself one Lent a couple years ago. Maybe if I lose the bits of me that I've picked up that don't help, maybe if I come back to where I've wanted to be with the good things I've gained, maybe I'll find myself again. Can't hurt to try.

I'd apologize for spending all my time writing about my future, but it is, you know, kinda my future. Funny how we all had this figured out two years ago.

Doubtful

*Disclaimer: This is not something that has anything to do with anything that's happened this weekend. My last home game was as wonderful as life can get, and you may not ruin that memory by associating this with that. That being said, this is something that has boiled up to the surface and must be let out if I am to enjoy anything. And I think sometimes we need to hear this. But...

Hey, you don't get to tell anyone this, OK?

Mostly because I'm afraid they already know.

I can't stand myself. I'm so needy, you know, I just need attention all the time, and I need affirmation all the time and I need someone to tell me that I'm beautiful and wonderful and that I can do good things in the world around me. I have to hear that and I will go off into a thousand little fits until someone feels bad enough for me to tell me that I'm lying to myself.

And I know I am. I am fully aware of the abilities I've been given and the chances I have and I know of the good that's already come from them. I know that I'm doing a pretty great job as a teacher and that reasonably I have to learn. That's why you student teach- so you can learn how to be a teacher better. I am also aware that I am a decent musician. If I'd practice the amount that others practice, I'd be better. I've got some kind of talent. I know this. I also know that I'm smart and that I'm pretty and have wonderful eyes and hair and voice and that I'm a good and giving friend. I can enumerate these things all day long because I have heard them from other people and when I'm being honest with myself, I can see how far I've come and how proud I can be to be me.

But you know, pretty little smart perfect girls don't get attention. We get set aside in the porcelain doll case to be admired when visitors come over or the at the family reunion, but you don't love a porcelain doll. They might break. You set them away, where they're safe, where no one can hug them or take them away to new, dangerous places, where no one can use them or play games with them or love them. You shut them out from everything that could possibly bring them to life, from any chance of bringing a little bit of character to their perfectly made figures. And of course they sit there smiling patiently so that you walk by them every day and you, even the people who set them up on a pedestal as a model of perfect, even you forget that they are there.

So those of us who desperately want a soul, those of us who want to live and breathe and do something, we jump off the shelf, we break something, whether it's our parents expectations or our safe goals for ourselves, and we become someone, someone with a personality, someone with a story to tell, someone who can interest people who will never stop to look at that case. We adopt things, we make up lies, we change our clothes, we do things that we're not supposed to do so you'll effing look in our direction just once, so you'll smile at us for a change, so you'll know that we aren't silent, that we have a voice behind those perfect little lips, that we have a brain and more importantly, that we have a heart that bleeds just like yours, just like the rest of you people who weren't set away in the first place.

You don't give us any battles to fight. You don't give us the opportunity to grow. So maybe we go through twelve, thirteen, sixteen years of school and do what we're told. We walk across our stages and land our jobs and do what we're supposed to. Maybe we'll get lucky and you'll marry us off and then we can just be exactly what our husband expects of us. All the while that soul is shrinking and that heart is getting closer to the day when it stops its beating without ever having known what it's like to pound.

But, God, we want to live. So we make our own battles. We fight against ourselves, against the voices in our heads that tell us that we can be better, we can be perfect. We pick something ridiculous to try to achieve, some goal that makes no sense but will challenge us, will push us, will actually make us use our minds, to the point where we want to throw it all in but through stubbornness persist. We compete. We put ourselves out there. And the minute someone pays us attention, that person gets our affection, our attention, our praise and our focus. This whole process plays out better for some than for others, and you're left wondering what went wrong.

Me, nothing goes wrong for me. Everything is always in the cards. I'm never hurt, never crushed, never ruined, never broken. I'm never on my knees before God asking Him to make things better, I'm stranding in front of Him with my hands on my hips demanding to know why He doesn't work more strongly in someone else's life. Why do you waste all Your blessings on me, when there are so many people with so much less? I'll be fine. Take a day off from providing for me and go bring peace to a country, light to life, food to a table, joy to a home. I'm already damn perfect, ain't no reason to waste your time on a life that can't get any better.

I'm not worth Your time anyway.

And I'm so afraid that everyone sees that, that everyone knows that I think that there's not really any intrinsic value to my life. I scared you all know how deep the self-doubt runs, how entrenched the opposing force is, the internal conflict monger who has to stay around just to give my brain something to do, something to fight against, something to fight for. I'm frightened you'll all know how much I crave your attention and affirmation and that you'll know that it's all wasted on someone who made up these problems in her own head. I'm terrified that you'll move on to someone whose problems are real, whose needs are physically apparent, and whose life hasn't been exorbitantly blessed by the One who gives all things and leaves us to find affection among His fallen creation.

No, and I know that you all think I'm beautiful and wonderful. I know that you all think I am worth so much, and I understand the thanks I should be giving for my blessings. And I am thankful, for every one of you and for all the glorious things I've been allowed to have in my life. I just… you know… there are days when I can't see that. And I know I'm not alone (Please, tell me I'm not alone) in being so unsure of myself, in wanting to work hard and let people see my struggles so they'll applaud me and take me out of the case and let me be someone new. I wish I could step away from this cycle, but it's so comfortable. I need something new. I need a change. I need a new set of things I'm supposed to be, a new set of goals to try for. I need something completely different in my life, away from school and all the things I've had so far.

I don’t know where to stop, you know? I don't know where to set back and think, "This is who I'm going to be." 

I guess I'll learn.