Layers

I'm fearful of my inability to be scared passionate about working long, feverish nights. Who am I to belong in this group of relentless pursuers in education when I refuse to work another five hours when I get home? After two years of hardship, emotional staleness and crisp moments of joy, I don't want it. I want me. I want my own life.

All of this is said with immense and painful care for my current students.

Then I check my email. Filled with several former students writing about their hardships. They are the same hardships of the past two years. Friends overdosing on drugs, a former student killing someone, gangs, depression, hopelessness. Same cycle. Nothing new. Except that I love these students and miss them. Me sacrificing all of my time for them, hasn't impacted much directly.

Let me clarify. I can look back and pinpoint meaningful interactions with students that have set up our current relationships. I can recall most of the moments that developed rapport. It wasn't a lesson plan. It wasn't coming home to grade and go to bed.

My instruction only bettered itself through reflection, perhaps during a drive home, a journal entry before bed, a blog entry. I improve through grad classes. I improve by jumping into professional development opportunities. I improve by watching others teach. Not manipulating Microsoft Word to make my ideas look better. Not going to lie. I sometimes create lesson plans before school for that current day, not the ideal. But not that big of a deal. At least not to me. I feel comfortable that I can figure out my day in enough of a structure that makes sense for learning. Sometimes this fails me, but I almost think I'd fail more in other ways by being a perfectionist and workaholic.

These past students and their emails have taught me better. I cannot carry other people's weight. Tonight I come home knowing the horrible stories of my current students. I call them my darlings, babies, sweethearts, and hons all day long. At night, I think of them in flashes. I wonder if Kevin went to bed or if he spent his night out on the street being tempted by things so outside of his Eagle Scout character. I constantly pick on him during class (clearly in the most ridiculously, silly way that it cannot be miscommunicated as cruelty) just to keep him awake and checked in. I wonder if the depth of the gang symbol found on a notebook of another particular student. I wonder all kinds of things. Yet I don't carry these thoughts for long.

I don't grade. I hardly lesson plan...at night.

And I don't feel like I care less or teach less skillfully because I choose to not stress myself out. I'm watching all of these new friends give everything to a profession, a job. I don't want that.

Yet I feel this guilty nag saying, look - your roommate has worked the entire time she's been home! Why aren't you doing anything? Don't you care?