Cleaning Out

I keep blowing my nose. Wet, snotty, and gross, I go through two and three tissues at a time. My wife says I'm getting the cold out of me, purging myself of the virus. I'm not so sure, but the alternative is to sniff or let it drip, so I blow my nose and blow my nose hoping she is right. I have to clean it out of me one way or another.

In my classroom I saw a stack of folders and paper on one shelf, more piled atop the filing cabinet, and still more near my desk. I picked up the first stack and began filing. Half of it went into the recycling bin (which I'm pretty sure gets dumped into the garbage, but what can you do?). I did that stack, the one on the filing cabinet, and the one near my desk. I pulled old files out of the filing cabinet and cleared two shelves behind my desk. The recycling bin is chock full as is the garbage can. The room is a little bit cleaned out.

My plan at the end of June was to simply walk away from the classroom. I don't have much there anyway. All my things fit in my messenger bag. I'll wipe the computer drive, close blinds, lock the door, and leave the keys. Stuff on the wall will stay. The books will remain shelved in the classroom library. Student computers will lie dormant. Old textbooks, unused in my nine years there, will continue to gather dust. My standing desk will remain up on cinder blocks. I didn't think I would clean out much of anything.

Today I did more cleaning out than expected and it felt good. I got rid of things written by students no longer attending the program. I purged ancient curricula and threw away the three-ring binders in which they have slumbered for a decade. And that was that. There isn't much else to clean out. I still have forty days of work there that I'll ride out like the cold lodged in my nose and lungs. Time is the only thing that will make it better, but every so often it makes sense to clean things out, blow my nose, and try to breathe more clearly. That way I walk out of this place at the end rather than running or, heaven forbid, striking a match and setting the bridge on fire.

Already I'm kind of walking away and where I'm going is becoming clearer with every bit of cleaning I do inside and out.

Let Go

There are things beyond my control. One is that of the four kids in my alternative school class, none were able to keep their heads off the desks and eyes open. All four passed out. This sort of thing can drive me crazy.

After all, I'm the teacher and supposed to get them learning, doing something. I tried, but they were just unwilling and one even began to get angry. None of us need that. I backed off. I let go.

It's the first day after break and none of them made it wholly back to school. So it goes. I had plans for today and was actually excited about them. That we didn't do them is disappointing and would have been infuriating if I hung onto the story I had in mind as to how class would proceed.

Instead, I let it go and I'm content.

For years I tried to let go of the frustration at this job. I did pretty well and got through years which could have been unbearable. For that relief I'm grateful and today, for one hour, it was better to let go than go into frustration.

What else can I let go so that I focus on what matters and where I can make a difference?

Brief Thoughts About School Trips

We took students to the Chinese buffet for lunch. Just a few of them because that's all who brought signed permission slips and were willing to go. We invited every kid in the program (a pretty small number, ours being an alternative school for at-risk kids) and were prepared to take all of them.

Shouldn't such a trip be a reward?, you ask.

First, they had to come up with the money. It was too much hassle to have the school pay (though my supervisor tried her best, bless her). If kids have to pay, that's no reward.

More important, rewards are a stupid educational ideas. Here's how to tell: they are done all the time and accepted as a matter of course. Anything at school that is just the way you do it is probably wrong. Also, consider the kid barred from going. It's a punishment and if you're into that, fine, but I'm into teaching and learning. The "bad" kid is taught that she/he sucks and thus learns to be worse in order to reciprocate.

Exasperated, you say, so it's a participation trophy!

If the trip was a reward and we then let every kid go, it's a participation trophy and bad lesson. If instead this is something to which every student is invited because there is a lot to learn from it, then it's just like a class, only tastier. We invited kids, set up a structure for participating, and let them learn from the experience.

Yeah, what did they learn from eating at a Chinese buffet?

• Swearing in public is a mark of bad manners, disrespect, and idiocy.
• Take small portions and go back for more.
• Saying please and thank you makes everything better.
• Try new things and talk about them.
• Not everyone likes the same things.
• We like each other.
• There's more to learning than four core subjects.
• Learning is better when it's not graded.
• Teachers do their best work when they seem like they're doing none at all.
• Eating too much is uncomfortable but unavoidable at a buffet.
• There's always room for sugary coffee drinks.

One kid learned that "bring a signed permission slip or you won't go" means just that. He wanted us to call Mom for permission. I said no and when he asked why I told him tennis is best played with a net.

To recap: school trips are good, rewards suck, and remember your signed permission slip if you want to eat at the buffet. Class dismissed.

Teacher Sadness

How do you know you're done with a job?

I've been a teacher my whole adult life. Even my summer jobs have been about teaching. But I'm done. Here's how I can tell: I wrote this note to a kid (I didn't give it to him). It captures where I'm at with this job, the sadness it engenders.

Frank,

I worry that the sum total of your life will be framed within the narrow confines of an iPhone. To live virtually, through a phone, is no life at all.

How is a phone different from the book I'm trying to get you to read? Why is a book so good and a phone so bad? I'm glad I asked.

Phones are all about now and me. They are self-centered, ego-driven, isolating things. People argue that phones connect people, but I don't buy it.

Books are about forever and everyone including me. Books help us to make connections inside ourselves and with others near and far. Those connections last and build things. Plus you never have to charge a book or upgrade its operating system. It's a hell of a deal.

I wish texting had another name. Text is a sacred word. Books are texts. The Torah, The Quran, and The Bible are texts. Letters written to someone you love are texts. Writing is text and it is the top of the pyramid.

Texting, on the other hand, is brief snippets of conversation that are less substantial than the wind and more polluted. I wonder if there have been one hundred texts in the course of history worth saving. If there have been a dozen, that's a miracle.

I encourage you to set the phone aside and get into something more substantial like your book or even just the real world.

But here’s the thing: You and I both know you won’t. That makes me sad.

I signed off feeling there's little I can do for students so lost to headphones, screens, and a virtual world that leaves them anxious, angry, and isolated.

In the last half dozen years I've become less effective at reaching kids. This year it has made me so sad I can't go on. This job is pretty much killing my spirit.

There may be other teaching in my future, different kinds of teaching, but I don't know. I hope that whoever follows me in this job will be able to do it the way I used to, to make a difference, and keep themselves on an even keel, sailing off into the sunset. Me, I'm tacking in another direction.