Hypocritical I ... and Good Luck Crickets

I feel I might owe it to anyone who actually reads this to blog once again, almost as a self-response, to what I had written previously. It was an incredibly rough week and, debatably, even rougher weekend. Instead of hitting my head against the wall, I blogged. Less painful, but I don’t hate *#&$!@% Mississippi or *#&$!@% kids … I just find frequent occasion as of late to hate how it is here, and how they act ... and how, at times, I respond. Right - the behaviors, not the individuals.

I feel as if I am more than partly to blame. I expected this endeavor to be far easier than it has been. I expected to be welcomed by a community starving for outside assitance ... instead, I am looked at as an uninvited outsider, not to be trusted, by many and still others act as if they are offended by my mere presence before ever having taken the time to get to know me. And I was also naively confident in my teaching abilities/general social skills. I had a significant amount of previous teaching experience, and had worked for years at an intensive treatment facility with some of the more difficult children in the northeast – and loved both employments. Almost. See, I have a terrible memory, and the memories I do choose to retain are terribly selective. I didn’t love both of those jobs all of the time, and only now, removed and in a different, difficult (to say the least) situation, can reflect and say that they were positive experiences overall. Relativity, of course, can fool us all when our eyes are only pointed in one direction or focused on one problem. Now, that pseudo-confidence seems to have been replaced with ever-present disappointment and frustration.

So … the good, the bad, and the ugly. It can’t really get worse. It can’t. If I write it and say it enough, maybe I’ll begin to believe it. As I previously wrote, it isn’t the children at all. They’re kids. They’re human. I was a punk too, more often than not, and miserable to some of my teachers. I remember one, in particular. A first-year teacher handed over to us our sophomore year, I believe, to teach the honors English class – and we tormented the poor guy, day in and day out. Why? Because we could.

We are all learning as we go, us and them, and have to make mistakes in order to do that. The expectations we sometimes place upon teachers, parents and students - or ourselves - are extraordinary and often unrealistic. I do it myself, to myself and to others. Everyday I screw up in some way, small or large, in front of a very critical audience. When I am angry, disappointed and frustrated, it’s generally at myself … that I’m failing over and over again. But I can’t be hypocritical, because in the face of constant failure – a life many of my kids are more than accustomed to, for many in this demographic are perpetually suffering from the mistakes of others and from no direct result of their own actions – I’m always encouraging them to keep their heads up and do their best, even if their best never seems to be good enough, and am perpetually espousing the power of positive thinking … then turning around to self-indulgently bitch in private about my 'problems'.



So, it’s simple, just as I spend half of my day tugging chins upward and attempting to pull a smile out of the girl who just realized the fifteen year-old father of her child is sleeping with someone else and could care less about her, trying to get a grin from the kid who’s father beat him this morning or mother left them last night, encouraging the guy who is failing my class because he can hardly read while I’m asking him to do so for 50 minutes everyday, or spending my entire planning period with the child that is pissed off at the world for being born into such a seemingly hopeless predicament yet cannot verbalize this frustration and instead lashes out at the very people he needs for support and guidance and is about to throw it all away … In the same way I ask them to, for their own good, I need to keep my eyes ahead of me, not at an unrealistically, or even hopelessly, distant horizon and not down at the dirty, cockroach and cricket strewn halls of my daily existence, and must force myself to wake up every morning with the firm conviction that nothing is impossible if I have faith. Call it what you want … faith in myself and in others, faith in reaping the benefits of hard work, or faith in the distant, intangible force that miraculously put life upon this planet and keeps it going despite our disrespect.

I can’t change others, I can only change myself. If I lead by example, maybe they will desire to change themselves as well. Right now, I am not doing that. For a while, I stopped caring – it was a battle for my survival (in my mind) and all I could concentrate on was making it through another day in one piece. Release some pressure, let off some steam. Last time I blogged, I didn’t want a pep talk – this time, I’m giving myself one. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted, teaching in the Delta, and only because it is so worthwhile am I being so hard on myself. I need to shave. I need to shower. I need a mantra.

Our school cannot be conquered in one day, nor the Delta in two years.

Thunder is currently shaking our house and a brilliant lightening storm is threatening to cut off electricity as heavy southern raindrops pound down upon the hard-earth outside. I needed this more than the crops, and am about to join my three house-mates in the front lawn to hoot and holler out this past week, this past month, and let the warm rain wash away any negativity I've allowed to accumulate. It might be ingrained in some who you would expect more from, or those that have been here for any prolonged period of time, and, even if they inadvertently lash out and blame me, I can’t blame them for it. It's the bitterness one gets when they've become jaded with their situation. It sucks, but it isn’t my fault and to some degree, neither is it theirs.

I'm playing pick-up tomorrow with a few guys I teach, and hope I can back up the trash I've been talking.

It can only get better ....

I haven’t gone for a run in a while. Think now is as good a time as any.