Saturday, July 28, 2012

Wonderland

    It's been a long year. Summer is halfway to its expiration date and I'm finally taking that first deep breath of summer air. It was about a year ago that my world was peeled away from me, leaving wounds that I was completely unprepared to heal. I had no idea that I would feel like my skin was cut away leaving me with nothing to protect myself. Certainly, I underestimated the impact it would have on me.
   As if closing a school wasn't the hardest thing in the world, I then got to rise up to the next challenge of moving into a "new school". In the beginning it was as if I was time warped back to my first year when I knew nothing. When did we eat lunch? How long is recess? You want to take my kids to do what? It was heart-wrenching and defeating before the start whistle even blew. Here I was a seasoned teacher, with no voice.
  Slowly I began to wonder is this the experience of most teachers? Do they go to work and do "what they are told", despite their better judgement? Do they not make a case for a better approach, for individuality, and for servicing all kids in some fashion? Have they been beat down so much, that they've given up? Maybe they have no idea what it could be like,to build up a community, together, with a staff. Have they dared to dream of what making a true impact feels like? It never occurred to me to ask the most important question, would they even want more if it meant that it would cost more? As the school year began to morph into an animal of frustration I let the distraction of my kids encompass me. I could make this work. Head down, eyes on the prize. I would make it work. You know the way you take the wrong key and try to shove it into the keyhole of your front door. You're so damn certain that its the right key that you just push and pack that thing like a Thanksgiving turkey. Never once looking down to see the key's unwavering commitment to a different keyhole.
     In the midst of my "making it work" I found myself consoling a teacher who would more than likely not be returning, due to us having to pack the rooms at a higher ratio. She's the most sunshiny person I've ever met. So much so that on occasion I preferred sunglasses in her presence. Unfortunately this afternoon, sun drops gave way to rain through her eyes. She was devastated at the thought of not returning. Three long years in this school, bonding with these teachers, kids, and community, gone. For a split second I felt the untimely burn of perspective singe my tongue as I tried not to say "try ten years". What I found myself doing instead was even more astounding. With the eloquence of debutant I found myself telling her not to build her life around a school. Do not move somewhere and bond with people so much that it squelches your ability to move on. Run away from making an impact so great that it feeds your soul and you are hungry for more. The words continued to fall from my mouth like confetti before I could catch them. By all means do not give yourself to your students and a school in such entirety that without them you'll lose your way. In essence I whispered to her that she should never become me. Even now, as I write these words, it ignites a fire so deep that words seem to diminish the burn. How could we, as educators, parents, citizens, even human beings ever let this happen? How could we, the populace, allow for a system to get so derailed that the pillars of that system no longer wish to bare the weight? Somehow we have allowed money and politics to move to the forefront of what drives our decisions in education. As a result we are taking some of the most powerful members of a community, its educators, and we are disenfranchising them. We are removing them from from the humanity of teaching. So much, so that as educators we now advise each other not to connect, not to get attached, because it only ends in hurt. Fear the connections made in the craft of teaching . Create and connect with caution because someday you will be reminded that although no one on earth disputes the impact a teacher makes in the life of a child, they will fail to acknowledge necessity of that impact. Therefore, they will fail to make it the highest priority and you will pay the price. Maybe you won't lose your school, maybe just your class. In time as the mandates and criticism increase, the pay and reward decreases. Its not in our nature to rise up, but eventually we will crumble from the weight. I had built my life around a community and a school that no longer existed. Without it, for so many painful months, I was lost in the labyrinth navigating my way through the year.
   I'd like to say that in that moment I knew it was time to try to move on, but that's not true. In that moment I realized that this change, this loss was one that I would feel for many years. I knew that, because in part, the wound remained so sensitive that it was easily reopened. The more that life went on, the more it stung to be reminded of what was lost. In that conversation the most important lesson was unearthed. I also realized that a large part of my pain was from the fact that I had made every effort to not be me. Its a scary thing when hiding becomes the secret lover of healing. All year I hid. I hid from the staff, the families, I hid from my family. In seeing that for the first time my path for healing was illuminated. The first step was to come out from the shadows. My first step was to share. For me that meant returning to the outspoken passionate person I was before the closure. For the people I work with, it means they are either going to love me or not, but they will hear from me.
      By the time I packed my room, the keys flew from me. I parachuted to the car and left that Wonderland, knowing I would have to come back. I would have to return to a land of opposites, where nothing is what it seems. I will have to return to the Queen of Hearts. This time, I'm ready for it.