This is a rant about my students. Maybe it is about being a teacher; this identity I still feel unable to fully take on as my own. This is a rant about what my life has become, and the way stress can change forms drastically without ever abating at all. The way weaknesses and insecurities you believed were conquered and in the past resurface with a vengeance that feels like assault. This is a rant about how much I still have to learn.
This month has been extremely challenging for me. My teaching schedule changes every month at my current job, and the rapid turnaround time is brutal. At first, I found it exciting to plan and implement 5 new classes every single month- now I find it exhausting. I feel so worn down and on edge that I am seriously considering taking a whole month off. My body is revolting too- as my muscles tighten up into little balls of fire and my head aches ferociously at the end of every day. Each hour is a carefully coordinated performance and the combination of performance anxiety, show mishaps, and on-stage catastrophes combine to make me feel like a deranged clown most of the time. I am forgetting my lines, missing my cues, and dropping my partner every step of the way. Very few days feel satisfying to me lately, and even less feel rewarding.
I started teaching because I thought I could be creative, and I thought I was good at motivating and inspiring students to learn. I thought I was good at making boring stuff fun, and at recognizing where empathy and compassion were needed. I thought I was good at building relationships with my students, and earning their respect. I thought I was good at teaching them to respect themselves.
Today, I don’t think any of these things are true. I hope I change my mind later. Hope is the mainstay of perseverance. I’ve been in this job 8 months now, and normally I would be looking forward to moving on soon. I would be planning my next destination, pouring my energy and enthusiasm into pulling things together for the move. I would be happy because I would normally be in motion. I am always happiest in motion. In fact, I’m almost never NOT in motion. For seven years, I am always either settling in or setting off. What lies between? I don’t even know.
What lies between right now is despair, self-doubt, and frustration. What lies between is violent thoughts and deep depression. What lies between is doubt, doubt, doubt. I can’t find my footing in this strange space between: the purgatory of staying put.
I don’t think I’m a very good teacher today, because I’m tired of teaching. I am tired of my students. I am tired of their whining, of their endless complaints, of their laziness and their smug little faces- so obstinate in their desire to do anything BUT think. So busy thinking of all the reasons they hate what I’m doing that they don’t have any power left to think about what I’m saying.
My tactic lately is to ask them what they think I could be doing better, and then ask them to do exactly that. This is what my student accused me of today: asking the question “so you think you can do better?” It’s true, I guess. But why is it bad?
Right now, it seems to me that the whole world is hell bent on pointing fingers and condemning others, yet no one has the courage to look for a solution. There are so many things to learn! There are so many problems to solve! There is so much pain to understand and assuage! There is a whole world of suffering begging to be aided by compassion. Yet there seems to be no time and no desire to stop the madness of blame and simply try to understand. Simply try to help. Simply try to offer a little compassion and step out of our trenches long enough to see the beauty of this winter day. There is beauty still! And it is not because someone manufactured it perfectly. The beauty is in the contrast, in the different perspectives. The most beautiful thing is the moment someone says “Look at it this way” and you turn your head or squint your eyes until something commonplace becomes… fucking beautiful. Shockingly beautiful. And then you sit in silence with that beauty and after awhile you maybe, maybe think to turn to that giver of this beautiful thing and say something incredibly beautiful:
“Thank you.”
No one has said thank you to me for a long time now, and no one seems to want what I can give. With all my being, I want to move on, but that is not the lesson of my life right now. That was a lesson of my life. I know how to move on better than most people. I know how to offer compassion in the face of suffering. I know how to let down my defenses and offer help. What I don’t know is how to do any of these things for my own tired, downtrodden soul. I don’t know how to offer myself compassion in a time of suffering. I don’t know how to stay put and stay sane. This IS the lesson of my life right now. But this is a lesson that seems to have no teacher, and which I am baffled at how to learn.
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