Just One of Those Days

I’ve gone through the fire and I’ve been through the flood.
I’ve been broken into pieces seen lightning flashing from above.
But through it all I remember that He loves me and He cares.
And He’ll never put more on me than I can bear.
-Kirk Franklin “More Than I Can Bear”

Greetings folks. It’s not often that I start my weekly post with a gospel song. It’s not that I don’t know any or that I’m not a religious man, but that more often than not, my posts tend to be clearly on the other side of the tracks from religion. However, when writing this week’s post I felt compelled to share a little gospel to get this one out.

I love my job and many of the people that I work. There are some people I wish would get lost at sea (or find a new career) but for the most part I’m good. Yet and still my job can be trying. Educating America’s youth is a challenge. Some of them come from broken homes. Some of them don’t even eat very much outside of the 2 meals they get at school. Some of them are forced to shoulder a greater load of the household responsibilities than many of us can imagine. I once had a student who told me she had to work to pay half of the rent. When I was in high school I worked to have money for senior activities. Add that to the growing emphasis on standardized testing, the unrest that lies in the educational system, and turmoil that is our political and economic world and you have a recipe for disaster. Yet through it all, teachers are asked, no demanded, to put on a happy face, accept their meager wages, be happy they have a job and teach children who often times don’t want to be taught and don’t have adults in their lives outside of school to drive the importance of education. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.

This foray into the educational realm has been an eye opening experience and as I’ve said before, I’ll say it again, hats off to all the individuals who are truly teachers/educators; those individuals who went to school for this; those people who interned in college at a school and still wanted to do this; those people who go to school every day happy, proud to be a teacher, despite the many reasons not to be.

Public school teachers are tasked with teaching more than just their assigned subject. They are tasked with teaching good hygiene, with being good role models, with being a good listener, with being a counselor, and a support system. I’ve been in MDCPS for a little over a year and I have just about as many stories as I had when I worked for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

This week has been particularly hard for me as I learned one of my student’s moms passed away and another was forcibly removed from the school and transferred to a school in Georgia. What saddened me about the latter situation is that when she came to say goodbye on Monday, tears in her eyes and puffy cheeks, I wasn’t there. I was home sick. Despite my good reason for not being in school to console her and hear the bad news in person, I still felt some type of way. I felt as if her mom had taken her not just away from the school and the community but from me as well. I preach to my magnet students that we’re a family and to come to me when they can’t go anywhere else. When one of my students, leaned on my advice for them to come to me, I wasn’t there.

My concern for the young man who lost his mother is profound as well. I and my mother share a very close relationship and while I’ve seen a lot of death in my life and have learned to take it in stride, the death of a parent, especially a mother, isn’t one that goes away. I’m concerned how he’ll respond, if he’ll be focused, what do I say, what do I do, do I bring it up or let him come to me, do I tell someone? I’m concerned that he’s hurting, I know he’s hurting and I have no idea how to fix it.

It’s only Tuesday and I’m already looking forward to the weekend. Add that to the daily drama of working in a place where it seems like every gain we make, there’s an attempt to erase it and the gains made before it. Combine that with the chaos that is my personal life and you have a recipe for a strong drink (no chaser).

I love my job, my students and (some of) my co-workers. However, at times, the lack of the secretary they promised, or the commitment to the program they sure me they had that seems to be missing, the absence of ample support, the students, the administration, me and life can be a bit much to handle all at once.

At times I listen to the above frame play in my head and I smile, put on a brave face, my cape and try to save the world. Other times I hear the refrain and I want to throw my iPod at the wall. I’m only human and at times admittedly I’m at a lost for what to do next; what to say; and where to turn, and I hate it. I hate not knowing. I hate not having the answer. I hate looking in the eyes of my students and wondering “how the hell am I going to do it today?” Admittedly, those really hard days are few and far between. However, this year they’ve been a lot more frequent than they were last year and it’s not a good look. So I’m torn between waiting to see if my shoulders are broad enough and strong enough to handle the load, or cutting my losses and going the other way. I’m torn between my sanity, peace of mind and sticking it out for a group of students, whom I didn’t father, but whom I care for almost the same.

In the mean time, and in between time, I’m going to try to stick it out, weather the storm, and play the hand that I’ve been dealt. Until next time, Stay Up and Be Blessed!