The weight, the rhythm

1. The weight:
I saw the movie "Precious" tonight. First of all, it was wonderful and you should see it too. One word came to my mind at the end of this movie: heavy. If you watch the trailer it's fairly clear that this word describes the movie itself. Beyond the subject matter, however, was the sense of weight I was left with at the very end. In the closing scene, we witness an incredible monologue confession from Precious' mother, who abused and allowed her to be abused throughout her childhood. The movie closes with a scene of Precious, 17 years old, HIV positive, and on her own having left her abusive mother, walking down the street with her two children ("given" as it's put in the movie, to her by her own father). I'm left asking myself, how in the world is this girl going to make it? And yet we know she will...and that she's so far better off than she was when we met her. This, believe it or not, is one of the most hopeful scenes in the movie.

I guess my real point is that seeing the contrast between her mother's hopeless defeat and Precious' incredible strength left me feeling the intense weight of the work we (as teachers) do with our students. If the situations some of our students face (and I'm not trying to generalize...some do, some don't) at home are half as bleak as Precious', no wonder it's a battle in the classroom. Why are these cycles so hard to break? Because they are deep. But throughout the movie you see Precious' sense of self worth and empowerment develop through her ability to read, write, and express herself. Most importantly, her growth enables her to create hopes and aspirations for her future. At this point, what more effective tool are we, as a society, providing to break the cycle of poverty than an empowering education? And let me tell you, as a teacher in an inner city school, that charge is f-cking (yes, it's warranted here) heavy. And mostly, right now at least, in a good way. Suffice it to say I left feeling sobered but inspired.

2. The rhythm:
Today I remembered (or re-discovered) something I already knew. And that something has to do with the concept of rhythm and flow. In the past two or three weeks I started to feel like my kids and I had lost each other's rhythm...like we were really flowing for a while at the start of the year and all of a sudden I found myself pulling in one direction with all of them pulling in another and I just couldn't figure out why. I think ultimately, it came from my different reactions to the same situations we've been dealing with in the first few months. Only now there's an element of "Hey, it's the 56th day of school. Why am I still saying this?" Let's face it, that's annoying.

(As a side note, Mom and Dad, I cannot tell you how many times I've thought of you as I have to repeat myself for the fourteenth time. I've actually used the phrase, "don't just say OK, do it!" on a number of occasions and feel a pang of guilt each time. I think I get it now.)

So anyways, today was the first full day in those two weeks where I felt like we found our groove again. But it really didn't have anything to do with them, I sort of just decided I wasn't going to get mad today. It's so interesting...I think whether I leave feeling like I had a "good day" at work actually has less to do with what individual kids did or didn't do and more to do with how I reacted to it all day long. If I got upset and frustrated and ended up yelling, it just feels like a bad day at the end. If, on the other hand, I "managed" the situation instead of just reacting to it, I could have A. completely ignoring our math lesson, I. calling people "dumb dumb" all day, and N. kicking other kids in the shins and still walk away feeling like "hey, that wasn't so bad." At least in some situations, it's only as bad as you make it (What? That doesn't sound like fun to you?)

October blues...

I don't know what it is...the weather getting colder, the fact that it's been 9 weeks with no substantial break, or maybe the impending holidays, but the last few weeks have been hard. I've heard that October is a tough month for many teachers (I didn't have a chance to experience the difference last year...they were all tough months). Kids are getting on each others' nerves, kids are getting on my nerves, and I'm pretty sure I'm rounding out the triangle (can I say that?) by getting on their nerves too. On top of it all, I feel like all of a sudden I'm lost in my plans, in the curriculum, and in the vision that seemed so clear at the start of the year. What happened to those routines and structures we set up? Why are they fading away now? Why is this starting to feel eerily "last year"-esque?

And what in the world do I do to turn it back around?

Here's hoping we can leave the October blues in October...