Perspective: a Synonym for Point of View

My class has needed so much more than I have been able to give so far this year. They are so far behind it hurts, and I have been so unable to instill the 11 year old mind with a sense of urgency that it hurts worse. My classroom has been full of fights, failed tests, insults, and ignored assignments. It has been hostile (a vocab word for my class) more often than not. I have never faced this much active apathy and aggression.

I was emptied so deeply by weeks of struggle I took Friday off. The struggle was winning a slow but definite fight; it was like watching a glacier slowly carve away the hope in my chest and the bounce in my step. So I took Friday off to get some work done, get some perspective, and maybe find a blow drier or blow torch to fight this glacier with. I had a great, productive weekend, working hard surrounded with love and inspiration, and then Monday morning I came in to school and the news that while I was gone the experienced 5th grade lab teacher was unable to control my class and even the principal seemed to only stalemate them in a 2 hour stare off. This broke me on my return. I don't know how to face this. But the hopelessness was also validated by the failure of others and made me feel like I was doing as well as anyone else in the area could be doing. This perspective was helpful to my ego, but also depressing. It hardly inspired me, rather coated my gut like motor oil with a killing sense that this is the battle that hasn't been won. This is the achievement gap. If a little hard work could fix it, it wouldn't exist.

Then today I had a parent conference. And as I stared into the tired eyes of this single working mother of four and she told me in a slow voice that dragged itself blearily out of her throat: she is doing "the best she knows how" on her kids, and it has not gone great. I could see in her eyes that she had been over stretched for 18 years and was trudging forward with hardly a hint of hope, but with an inspiring sense of obligation and in this tired voice came a new perspective for me.

Even the worst year lasts only a year, and these kids are living in houses that give them everything they have. Who am I not to do the same? Parents, like teachers, are only as good as they know how to be. Teachers, though, get to take weekends and evenings and recharge with those they Love. So, broken or not, winning or not, it is time to force joy until it is real. (Which might be like squeezing a rock until orange juice comes out... but when I figure that out, it sounds like one hell of a party trick (and adds a whole new meaning to a screwdriver on the rocks...))(sorry).

If I am modeling to the kids what life is like; if I am an example of what life can be: young, employed in the job of my choice, and chasing dreams; if choice makes me seem tired and miserable- how am I supposed to get my kids to follow this piper's song of "work hard, get smart"?

I don't have answers yet, but I do have a warning: Watch out, this change is coming like a glacier. When we are done we will have moved mountains. And, I can't care if I only move the first hill in the range for each kid. That is one less hill for them to climb on their own

Final Question: How does one become a permanent place of solace to kids who need it, but who don't realize they do?

Answer: Slowly- I am doing the best I can. Come back at 7:15 tomorrow morning for tutorials and we will try again. This time slightly better.