I am using this blog as a tool to communicate with those of you I left, but it has also turned into a way for me to get some things out, i.e. my rage at Home Depot (which I am still mad at). Tonight, as I sit here and think about my lesson plans for this next week I have some mixed feelings. Most of you know that there is a large percentage of teacher burn out and that 6 out of 10 teachers leave the profession in or after their first year. Yes, we are overworked and underpaid. Yes the first year is unbelievably hard and yes, it is the hardest job you will ever have. I firmly believe that and if you don't believe me - ask. Ask anyone one who has ever spent time with a child and had no idea if they had a home or watched two children beat each other to a bloody pulp over nothing. Or anyone who has wondered if the circles are indicators of sleeplessness and for how long, or if he really fell off his bike and broke his arm.
I think I have become jaded, or at least very aware of the reality in which I live. My situation is not unique to Kalamazoo, Michigan or to Yuma, Arizona. It is not unique to L.A. or New York. Not anymore. It used to be. It used to be that the big cities, the urban areas had the problems, the poverty, the abuse. It's not true. It is everywhere. Every child is at risk in every school in every town, village, city, or metropolis. Did you know that the average age of a homeless person in this country is 10 years old.
Tonight I was thinking, what will it be like in 20 years. It is this bad now, what will I be saying after 10 years of teaching, or thirty? At first I wanted to believe that I was isolated. That I had chosen a school where every student was at risk for being recruited into a gang. That I had chosen a particularly "hard" school. But I am not special, I didn't pick one because it wouldn't have mattered where I had gone. Is there hope?
I don't know how to answer that, some days I would say yes, some days no. Today I will say that because I believe in a good God. A God that has a plan so much better than anything I could dream, a plan so perfect that only the creator could have designed it, yes there is hope and sadness. There is anger and desperation and tears. But there is still hope.
This week one of my students was talking to the officer at our school and was asked, where do you want to be in 10 years? He didn't seem to understand what was being asked so the officer said, "what do you want to have or be doing 10 years from now?" He eventually came up with a nice car. The next question was how are you going to get it, you going to sell dope? The answer was, "if I have to." He is 13 years old and the only thing he wants out of life is to have a nice car and he will do anything to get it. He doesn't have a dream of being a doctor or police officer, he doesn't even want to travel around the world.
I was digging around the other day trying to find some old poetry I had written to use as examples with my class and I found a paper I had written in 7th grade about wanting to be a teacher when I grew up. It was my dream and now that it is realized I am proud. Proud that I followed my heart and can do the job I have always wanted. Now I have to learn how to listen to my students, who I have grown to love, tell me that they don't have hopes and dreams for the future. They know their reality. They know their limits. 13 years of their life has taken away their ability to want more for themselves than their parents. Their ability to imagine something and make it happen. When did that happen? When did we start telling kids that reality is stronger than dreams. That fear is stronger than hope.
Tonight, I sit here thinking through my lesson plans and wondering if it makes a difference whether I teach them to read or just sit there and stare at them. Don't worry, I will continue to teach them to read despite their efforts to not learn. And above all I will not lose hope because I still believe that reality is NOT stronger than the dream and that fear will NOT win over hope. I have hope and because I have hope they will see. They will see my hope and maybe just maybe they will start to believe in themselves.