Educational Rant- Tears

My job is hard.  I am sitting at my desk in tears.  And it is not the grading.  It is not an overwhelming lack of time to do the tasks that I have to do.  It is not the lesson planning or the lessons that flop.  It is not the holding of my bladder for 4 hours or the trying to eat while emailing parents and helping a kid understand what a verb is all at the same time.

The hard part is knowing my students.  When you work with kids every day you get to know them.  Or you should.  I see them 5 days a week.  I talk to them.  I learn who they are.  I see them happy one day and out of sorts the next.  One of the things I have learned over the years is that it matters to ask them how things are going.  But sometimes that can be the hardest part of my day.  I just asked a student why he did not do his assignment today.  This is a student who is usually active and cheerful in class or at the very least engaged had his head down and did nothing.  I knew something was wrong.  When I asked he told me his life sucked and he wanted to die.  Now, I hear this often from teens.  It seems to be the phrase of this generation.  But, I pressed further.  He said, look where we are, look at this school, this is what we do every day.

Now, many people might just think this is a kid complaining about school.  But the thing is, why should it suck?  Why should they have to come to a place every day that sucks for them?   I try to see their perspective.  Yeah,  they come to a school, they sit in rooms in desks.  They listen and do work.  But whatever they are doing lacks meaning to them.  And that is the key.  What they do every day does not feel meaningful.

I recently have discovered that in my life I need to have work that is meaningful, and yes, it took me forever to figure it out.  Maybe because I have always had meaningful work and when I no longer had it I realized it.  But, let’s apply this to school.  I have kids that are depressed.  They are functioning depressed people.  They show up, they do what needs to be done, but they have no passion for what they do.  And this depresses me.  Seeing my students feel that there is no value in their education for them.  Seeing kids show up and sit in my room knowing that they do not want to be there.  This depresses me.  Teaching kids to do a task that they find meaningless, this makes me sad.

But there is more.  As this boy is telling me how much life at school sucks and how everything in life sucks and how much they have to deal with, other students pipe in.  One, in particular, starts to tell me about homework and how much homework he has.  The bell rings, but he stays to talk for a minute.  I ask him how his parents feel about homework- is it too much, is it good for him?  He tells me he has no parents.   His mom died last year.  He lives with his brother.  He doesn’t talk about these things with his brother.  The thing is, he is such a good kid.  He seems so well-balanced on the outside, but what is happening inside?  He leaves the room to go home.  I put my head down and cry.  This is the 4th student this month that I have discovered that does not have a family- dead parents or parents in jail.  And I think how dark their world might be.  They come to a place they do not want to be every day.  They go home to a place that does not have the love and support they need to deal with the place they go to every day.  It breaks my heart.  I sometimes wish I didn’t get to know them and I just kept my distance.  But that is not the teacher I am.  I have to know them so I can teach them.  But in knowing them, it makes my job hard.  Because I have to get around all the issues they bring with them.  I have to find a way to make at least part of their day meaningful in some way.  I have to somehow communicate that someone cares and that even though they can’t see it now,  their lives have meaning.  I have to do this plus all the other shit  I have to do- grading, planning, meetings, etc.

My job is not just about teaching a subject.  It is teaching people.  And people that are making policy, need to remember that we teach kids, not subjects.

Somehow, someday I want to make education matter to those that it should matter the most- the kids I teach.  Someday I want to teach in a school where kids are excited to be there.  I want to teach in a system where students feel their lives have meaning.  I want to be working in a place where the students find their day fulfilling, no matter what they will go home to.  So, today I cried because my job is hard.  And I cried for the kids I teach and the day I will have tomorrow.