Optimism & Pessimism In The Schools

Frank's voice is so quiet I barely hear it over the whir of the space heater trying to keep our cold classroom warm. This is how he speaks in class but when angry he screams the most awful and threatening things you can imagine. Even then it's tough to understand the words because he doesn't form them with the practice of someone who speaks regularly. His quiet voice leads me to believe he wasn't spoken to much as a child and his dangerous tantrums show me he has not known much love. I feel for him but know better than to get close. I've seen the danger of his eruptions and know there is little chance of changing the trajectory of his life.

At school I like to think I'm optimistic, pessimistic, and every shade between. I believe I can be kind to kids and help them become kind to themselves and others, but I don't think anything we do can overcome the harm that has come to them and continues to come, wrongs perpetrated by family and society. In school I move all along the continuum of optimism and pessimism depending on the moment. Frank is a kid unlikely to ever do well at school. I imagine that his chances out in the world are pretty slim too. Yet right now, speaking in a garbled whisper, he is calm and seems reachable except that he's lost in his phone. So it goes.

There is no making any kid do much of anything. I can request, cajole, or even threaten, but there's no guarantee that I will catch kids in a moment when they feel enough trust to follow me into darkness that has so often hurt them. I represent classes of people &mdash teachers, adults, even parents &mdash who have done them wrong, hurt them, made them feel unworthy. I represent people who should have been kind or even loving.

As I'm having these thoughts another kid, Mike, hands me a note saying that he wants me to be with him during a meeting about some legal matter because "you have been good to me and being around you makes me feel stronger." I'm touched but the idea of the meeting repulses me. I work for people who don't let me make such decisions. I write back to Mike that I'm honored and will write to my supervisor asking for guidance. I write that note in pessimism. I would rather not put myself in the crosshairs of management any more than I already have. Mike writes back, "I come to school mostly to be around you. You makes me a better man." I'm optimistic but not too optimistic. My effect on him is less than he thinks and any good we accomplish here can easily be erased. Still, the note helps me go on.

The accounting books on Mike and Frank are all red. They are owed so much more good than they have received and so much less trouble than they have been put through. My teaching amounts to pennies that leave the ledger still bleeding red.

Hours after I wrote the first paragraph about Frank he drew a giant penis on a board in the office, opened the defibrillator setting off an alarm, and ran at a social worker as if he might attack. He stormed out the front doors cursing everyone, swearing vengeance for what we aren't sure. Frank is too unstable for our meager skills and facilities. He needs special education but I'm pessimistic he will receive it. Instead, he comes here, whispering and muttering while lost in his phone until he loses control and storms out of the building. I'm pessimistic enough to believe he will hurt one of us, optimistic enough to hope it won't be me.

Balancing faith and hopelessness isn't reserved only for students. I vacillate between believing and doubting my abilities too. I used to go through a blues toward the end of each school year thinking of what I could have and should have done to make things better. This was back when I was green and long before I arrived at this school. These days I put my faith in surviving the day. I like to believe that I can leave the job behind after 2:45 but the last few weeks it has followed me into the darkness as I lie in bed waiting on sleep and gently pushing school thoughts away.

I'm less and less able to push aside thinking this is all for naught. I've taught for twenty-three years and need five to ten more before retirement. In the beginning of my career I soaked up my colleagues' wisdom while developing my craft. Now I just hope to maintain a balance between pessimism and optimism.

About Frank I'm largely pessimistic but feel absolved since he came to us with needs beyond what we can provide. I'm more optimistic about Mike who has enough skills to help himself and recognize we are trying to help.

I hear the echoes of Frank screaming curses and threats. I still hear Mike thanking me, calling me "my guy," and saying "see you tomorrow" as he got on the bus. I'm alone in my classroom with only the sound of the heater still trying to ward off the chill. I'm sure it all means something if only I can listen closely enough to hear.

Reading In The Schools

“Thus my efforts throughout this book to dissociate reading from academic life, not just because teachers and professors make reading so much more dutiful and good-for-you than it ought to be but also because the whole environment of school is simply alien to what longer form reading has been for almost all of its history.”

— Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures Of Reading In An Age Of Distraction,, 109

In the first class of the day I became anxious that management might look in the door and wonder what the hell I was doing.

The students sat, some on the heater, one on the floor, a few at desks. Each was reading a book for the most part. Occasionally one checked a phone but got back to reading pretty well given that I teach at-risk kids who have been bounced from their regular schools and most of whom come to me admitting that they hate to read.

I wasn't anxious the about the students. I worried management would take me to task.

I was sitting at a student desk, one leg crossed over the other, a book in hand, and had been reading for fifteen minutes, ever since I had helped Frank understand the word agape which had come up in his book. I had read ten pages of Alan Jacobs' The Pleasures Of Reading In An Age Of Distraction, looking up after each paragraph to scan for kids having or making trouble. There was none of that, so I had kept reading until anxiety interrupted me.

I haven't had the best relationship with management during my tenure. Imagining some manager looking in, I could hear them asking why wasn't I moving about the room checking in with kids. How could I know what they were doing if I wasn't teaching?

I almost wasn't teaching, but that was because I had set the structure of the class and was allowing them to learn. I got them into books today and over the last three months. Once they start reading, my job is to just keep things going. The only teaching left to do was to be a reader too.

It's a safe bet that management would see things in another way. That's the way it goes in schools. Management is paying me to do something and there I was looking like I was doing nothing much at all. Observing a class for a few minutes is no way to understand what is really going on. It takes understanding all that we have been doing in that classroom since September. The room full of silent readers doesn't just happen. Kids aren't wired for that. None of us are. It's a learned behavior, one that I've worked to help them learn, and from this they learn more than I could ever teach.

I tamped down the anxiety by remembering that I would hear the beeper on the outside door should any managers come by. Then I could get up and act like I was doing something management would appreciate. Or maybe I would stick to what I know is true and let the kids read. I scanned the room again, saw that everyone was still reading, and went back to my book. We all have so much left to learn and so little time to read.

Who's A Good Boy?

I'm in staff development today at school. The morning was about celebrating good things about school then placing kids in tiers of need (academic and behavioral). As such things go, it wasn't useless. This afternoon we attend training for active shootings.

It's sad that in the supposedly greatest nation we must prepare for school shootings because we can't get our heads out of our fat asses about guns. Maybe the red baseball hats act like barbs. Whatever. This is schooling in the United States.

Rather than fight this — I've foolishly fought the battle too many times — today I'm trying to breathe and keep to myself. This goes against my nature.

Leo Babauta wrote this week about training the mind as if it were a puppy. I'm not yet housebroken so it seems a reasonable approach. Begin small, focus on doing well, reward good behavior, don't punish, and keep at it. Today I've earned a coffee.

The real reward is getting a new job, but that's a big project. It's like training a guide dog compared with teaching a puppy to sit. Today I'm just learning to sit. It may lead to me guiding myself to some new adventure. I just need to keep asking this question: Who's a good boy? God, I hope it's me.

Mental Health Day

Teachers use "mental health day" mostly as euphemism, spoken furtively, apologetically, as if admitting an embarrassing weakness. I encourage colleagues to treat their mental health equally with their physical health. I tell them I see my therapist every other week and have for fourteen years.

That gives them pause. Mental health isn't all that much discussed round here.

My current mental health is shaky and I have trouble admitting it. I saw my therapist yesterday and she was concerned. I am too. It's almost more than I can stand to think of going to school. I don't know that I can take the abuses.

Yesterday no fewer than four kids told me to fuck off. One said I was a racist and that wasn't the most offensive thing he said. I am told to write these things up, but I flee the building as soon as contractually possible and had only a twenty minute break. There was no time for write-ups. There won't be time tomorrow either. Besides, experience shows that little good comes of the write-ups and they can make things worse.

I would take a mental health day but last year received a counseling memo saying I had taken too many days off. I'm allowed far more days by contract and all were approved, but the memo, which warned of possible further disciplinary action including dismissal, has had a chilling effect.

In the last year and a quarter my school and job have changed dramatically. Increasingly, I need mental health time, but worry about further disciplinary action and dismissal.

I don't want to crack up and go out on disability. I would rather be proactive and treat things before they get out of hand. I've seen one teacher break down. I don't want that to be me.

Mental health days aren't euphemisms. They are serious business. We teachers need to take our mental health seriously. Our students need healthy teachers. Our children need healthy parents. Our spouses need healthy spouses. And we deserve healthy lives earned by taking care of ourselves as outlined in our contracts.

Though I know I should stay home and rest, I'll be at school today, tomorrow, and next week. I'm not sure that's good for any of us.