There is Something in Us That Loves Broken Things

I have always had a tendency to be too kind to people who don't deserve it because somehow I decided at one point in my life, the people who act as if they least deserve kindness are the ones who need it most.  I don't know how healthy an attitude this is to hold.  Unless you are a very strong person who has mastered the art of pure detachment, it can cause a lot of heartache.  You invest your energy in people who are emotional leeches.  They take and take, but never really give anything back.  They only give enough of themselves to make a person think that genuine feelings of affection and respect exist, but its not true. It's false progress, false feelings, utter manipulation on the part of one person towards another.  It's a method of stringing someone along someone who provides support and love without ever having to pay the piper--without ever having to be real and true and a supportive entity to the other person.

I think the people who are the most awful in situations like these are those that know exactly what they are doing.  The calculated manipulation to get exactly what they want from another person without having to return anything back is really kind of evil.  But, for the longest time, I was so blind to acknowledging that some people are inherently not good, that I mitigated everything they did by attributing their behaviors to other reasons--plausible, reasonable motivations for behavior that was incredibly damaging and shady.

I would like to think that I have a solid self-esteem.  I am intelligent, attractive, kind, and generous of spirit. Why would I invest time and energy into someone who didn't deserve my light?  Maybe it's a fixing complex.  I see someone so damaged that I feel as if I should try and at least help them to be happier more centered people. Maybe it is the desire to make someone who is so obviously in the dark understand  how wonderful life is--to see if from my perspective.  Maybe it's because they tell me I am important to them or that they love me and I take it to heart, knowing that when I love someone it isn't transient so their love shouldn't be conditional either.  I don't know.  What I do know is that a narcissist, a manipulative, awesomely selfish person will take those caring, generous qualities about me and use them to their maximum. They will drain me and regardless of how solid or detached I am, I will end up hurting.

This has been a reoccurring theme in my life.  Loving men and people who are incapable of loving back in the way I need.  I am tired of loving broken things and broken people.  It take s a massive toll on my personal energy and balance.  I deserve to be well loved.  I deserve to be respected.  I deserve to have someone ask me how my day went, and sincerely listen to my answer because I am important to them.  I deserve to be appreciated, desired, and more than any thing made to feel valued.

I know enough to understand that I do not need someone to complete me.  I understand myself enough to know I don't even want to have someone on a daily basis.  But I also recognize the need and desire in myself to have someone who wants to be in my life, who is unafraid to let me know that, and who take the time to appreciate everything that I do for them and give to them.  I just want to be respected.  To be valued.

I think I am going to have to be more judicious in the future of the people I allow in my life.  I am too old to keep trying to fix people.  I have so much to do and not enough time to do it in.  Repairing broken people or things cannot be a priority for me.  Fooling myself into thinking manipulation is care and love has no place either.  My priorities lie elsewhere and I am too damned important to too many other people that I cannot allow my spirit to be diminished by anyone or anything that doesn't value it. 

Opportunity Cost: Being Okay with Being Average

I had my official observation today as part of my evaluation of my ability to teach.  My lesson centered on defining opportunity cost and evaluating resource allocation with cost-benefit analyses.  I tried my best to follow the style and format mandated by the district and I think, for the most part, I did alright. Nevertheless, I can tell already what areas will be targeted for improvement and what areas will be listed as strengths.  If anything, I am pretty introspective about and fairly critical of the work I produce, and I constantly think about how I could be more efficient and more effective.  I am open to constructive criticism and consistently try to improve my performance in the class room.  However, I often struggle with trying to balance what my district views as a good teacher and what I believe is a good teacher. 

I know that I have a prodigious amount of knowledge regarding American history, government and economics.  Off the top of my head, I can answer almost any question about those subjects with depth, clarity, and detail.  Content knowledge is definitely one of my greatest strengths.  I am also strong in class room management and discipline.  My students are invariably well-behaved.  This too, is a strength. 

Likewise, I know my area of greatest weakness.  I am not well-versed on current pedagogy.  Most of what I do in regard to teaching methodology I learned in my education classes, from expert teachers I worked with, or I developed  through trial and error in the class room. I'll be the first to admit that I am not up-to-date on the most recent procedures and theories of classroom management or instruction.  I try to be the district's "good" teacher and if one were to ask me to detail a lesson plan with anticipatory sets, closures, overt and covert thinking, imbedded assessment, aligned with common core state standards while using positive behavioral intervention strategies, I could do that-- just probably not very well.  

I have my own ideas about methodology and procedure and they often don't follow current trends precisely.  The thing about being current on new theories and procedures is that, in my opinion, a lot of them are variations on old themes.  A lot of "new" ideas are just recycled old ideas in modern packaging.  If the old version and language works and has been proven effective, why take the time to master the new version?  To me, this is a monumental waste of time.  Time that could be spent in a more productive fashion.

Many of these theories also would work well in a perfect world with perfect students, but the neither the world nor children are perfect.  Especially when you teach in an alternative setting that serves  students who don't fit well into the normal structure of public education.  If fitting square pegs into round holes worked, my students wouldn't be attending my school.  So perfecting strategies meant for the masses wastes time as well.  I want to spend my time and energy on my students because they need it more than they need me to be expertly versed in pedagogical theory.

Because so many of my students have a history of some sort of trauma, it's imperative to create an environment that is welcoming, safe, and comfortable.  This takes time and energy to manifest well.  Another necessary aspect is building relationships with the students.  There must be a consistent interaction of respect and acknowledgment that makes the students feel worthy, valued, and recognized, especially if they are going to learn anything meaningful in my classes.  This also takes sustained conscious effort and time. In addition, students have to be given multiple opportunities for success, even the smallest of successes, so that they can change their personal narratives.  Most of my students struggle with negative ideas about their intelligence, their ability to learn, their social skills, and their capacity for adding value to the world around them.  Having real opportunities for success paired with authentic praise for that success can profoundly change how a child views him/herself and thus positively impact their learning ability.

I always keep in mind the idea so well-expressed by Maya Angelou with her quote, "At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel."  I want my students to feel as if they matter, as if what they choose to do matters to the world, as if they could do anything they want to and to do it well.  This all takes time, effort, and dedication.  All of which would be diminished if I had to direct my attention to acquiring and fully applying "new" pedagogical practices.

Therefore, I am perfectly okay with my lack of expertise on trendy methodology and theories.  I would much rather spend my time on what's really important for my students--teaching the whole person.  Teaching them to love themselves, to value themselves.  Teaching them to be resilient, confident, and sentient.  Teaching them that they are worthy and worthwhile to this world.  Teaching them ways that can help them develop into well-rounded, motivated, productive, and happy individuals.  I am okay with being average in pedagogical form and practice.  It is an opportunity cost I am willing to bear.  I'd much rather allocate my resources to my students' growth and well-being than to my evaluation.  At the end of the day, they are the most important things in education, and I am going to devote my resources, efforts, and time into helping them become the best versions of themselves they can possibly be.   

Las Vegas and the Fall of Rome

Last night I went to bed thinking a lot of things, especially about the massacre in Las Vegas that happened Sunday night.  Yet again, another mass shooting in the good ol' gun-loving US and yet again, the subsequent flurry of online "thoughts and prayers" for the victims.  Very shortly afterwards, almost immediately actually, the propaganda both for and against gun control legislation began.  I am well aware of the arguments, well aware of which side I am on and I am also very cognizant of how exhausted I am from having this same fight every few months.

I am definitely an advocate for responsible gun legislation.  I don't want to take away anyone's Second Amendment right to bear arms, but I want controls in place that regulate gun ownership.  The requirements for owning and operating a car, obtaining an abortion, or even applying for federal aid for college take more time, effort and regulation than gun ownership in the US.  We are, as a nation, currently armed, dangerous, and definitely on edge.  It's not a good combination for anyone living here.

Just in the last nine months alone, more than 11,500 Americans died due to guns.  That's more than 1000 a month dead because of lax gun regulation and the glorification of gun ownership in the US.  Some were accidents, some self-inflicted, some as the result of crime, and about 300 were due to mass shootings.  More than 2500 teenagers/young adults were killed by guns.  That figure is appalling. Why, as a people, are we okay with this level of loss of life?

I sincerely thought that after the 26 children and adults were killed at Newtown, Connecticut almost five years ago that Congress would begin the hard work of crafting sensible, meaningful public policy on gun ownership.  How could they not?  Babies were brutally gunned down in a safe space, kindergarten and first-grade classrooms.  We as a compassionate, sentient nation of people wouldn't stand for something like this to happen again.  But we did.  And we continued to stand for more mass shootings, more horrific deaths of innocent people in public places.  No where is safe anymore--not movie theaters, nightclubs, baseball games or concerts.  Every time this happens, people mourn and commiserate, send thoughts and prayers, argue for and against their side, and ultimately do nothing at all.  They purposely forget and willingly buy the bullshit propaganda of the NRA and the right who proclaim gun control legislation equates to gun confiscation.

The entire mess makes me angry and so very sad.  I am frustrated that we are like Nero and fiddling while Rome burns. Until people are willing to allow for compromise, until people are willing to listen to reason and see the bigger picture, nothing will continue to happen except more mass murder, more unnecessary, violent deaths of the innocent.

As I fell asleep, I was struck by an odd thought.  I wondered if, somewhere in the late 5th century, Romans realized that their civilization was rapidly coming to an end.  And, if so, were there people trying to halt the ending or were they self-medicated, blinded if you will, by propaganda of the times?  I also thought of how their incidents of violence, the disintegration of the ideals of a republic must have occurred more frequently.  A societal variation of compressed morbidity that occurs as people age. Illness after illness come closer and closer until a person dies.  I wondered if civilizations were like that as well.  Violent episode after episode occurring more frequently and with greater impact until a society expires.

America is in peril led by an incompetent narcissist who sees nothing and understands nothing unless it directly relates to himself.  We are experiencing greater division as a people, the like not seen since the Civil War.  We are weak and unwilling to change, hiding from the hard work that needs to be done to continue striving for the goals laid out in our preamble to the Constitution....establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, and promoting the general welfare.  From where I sit, we are in that period of compressed morbidity as a nation, and if we don't do something to stop its progression, the civilization that we know now won't be the same in the future.  As a matter of fact, it may not be here at all.

Potential and Nothing Random

Potential

You are a bell before it's been rung-

the note of a song before it's been sung,

the tick of a clock before it times true;

You are potential, opportunity new.

You are a thought, not yet spoken-

a heartfelt promise still unbroken,

the rays of the sun peeping awake;

You are potential which no one can fake.

You are the eyes that open at dawn-

holding the moment before it is gone,

the sole drop of rain before the downpour;

You are potential and so much more.

Nothing Random

There is a lifetime in minutes

that we parse from our days

to share with each other

With carefully crafted words

 there is nothing random 

in the way we speak, the things we say

It is a calculated distance,

this place we painstakingly leave

between us

We hide from complication,

refuse to be vulnerable and

control what we can

But then....

Pushed on a tide of patience

that pools then ripples, 

and breaks in wave upon wave

There is no space unfilled, 

no deliberate disconnect

Just energy and eyes 

An acknowledgment of kisses,

a recognition of the other and the us

that exists solely in stolen moments