Lessons Learned and Mistakes Made #8: True Inspiration, Why I Keep Going, and How to Say Goodbye

When I was in college, I had a column in our campus newspaper that ran every week (it didn't hurt that I had a three-semester tenure as editor of said paper).  It was very much a weekly essay that was mostly observational, sometimes humorous, and occasionally dealt with current events or popular culture; and even though it's been nearly thirteen years since I graduated I'm still proud of that column.  Granted, most of what I wrote flirted with decency at best (and some was absolutely terrible) and I'm sure that the actual writing was less impressive than the fact that I never missed a deadline for three-and-a-half years.

Anyway, when I began my last semester of college, I realized that in a few months I would be writing my last column, and I wound up doing something that in the history of writing that column I had never done: I wrote it in advance.  One night in January, I got an idea of what I wanted to write about, typed it out, saved it, printed it, and put that copy in a drawer in my desk until the third week in April rolled around and my final deadline approached.  The result, after some editing and a paragraph of thanking friends, faculty, and readers, was 1,000 words about how people who write about what college life is like have no idea what the hell they're talking about.

It took a while for my roommates to realize that I was making fun of myself.

Now, I'm not going to write about how I don't know what I'm talking about.  After all, I think it is very well established after nearly five years and 400 posts that I don't know what I am talking about.  I am as clueless and curious as I was when I first started teaching and when I first started writing about teaching.  Actually, what I feel like doing is a little of what I did thirteen years ago this April and that's turn things on their head and on myself a little bit.

I have explained in at least two separate posts what this blog's title meant.  It was a response to every time I walked out of PD or a meeting or read an article or blog post or comment or message board where someone was head-over-heels inspired by what they'd just seen or couldn't stop gushing about how their students' (well, as they put it their "kids'") smiling faces that were always full of wonderment made their lives better every day and wondered what the hell I was doing wrong.  Was I the only person who thought all that had happened was sunshine being blown up his ass?  Was I the only person who'd ever been called a name by a student?  Was the I the only person who had a parent say that "a lot of parents" had been saying critical things about me?  Was I the only person who didn't think they had darling little faces full of wonderment and wanted to talk about it?

So I started posting here.  I knew what I was doing--I had been blogging in a different capacity for years--but at the same time didn't.  I didn't know from an edublog or teacher blog or whatever you'd like to call it. I simply wanted to post stuff and speak my mind.  The attitude came later, especially after Clay Burrell read a post of mine regarding not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance and seemed to appreciate my candor so much that he made me a sometimes contributor to his education blog at Change.org.  At times I was definitely more obnoxious than anything but I always felt I was sticking true to the idea that I didn't want to spout mindless drivel.

Last week, I was in the midst of the latest overflowing pile of work (which is still pretty huge, mind you) and had one of those moments that I think everyone has.  When essay #48 passed my eyes and I marked the umpteenth spelling mistake, I wondered why the hell I even make the effort if this is the return.  Then I got even more annoyed because I have yet to plan the next unit and can't think of what exactly to do.

Maybe I was truly ... wait for it ... unispired!

God, that was terrible.

Anyway, when you have a block like that, you really can spiral down the existential dilemma hole, especially when it's after 8:00 and all you really want to do is sit back and watch the DVD in the red Netflix envelope that you have been neglecting since it arrive two weeks earlier.  It just doesn't make any sense.  Why keep doing this for this little, when you're told by anonymous and not-so-anonymous people that you are the reason why the country is getting worse?  Am I really, as I always have vehemently denied, a martyr?  What was the whole point of it?

Then, thumpthumpthump ... and behind me a light goes on, there's some noise, the flush of a toilet, the running of the sink and I look down the hallways to see my four-year-old son headed back to his room.  He glances at me and I get up so I can tuck him back in and tell him goodnight for the third time since I read him his bedtime story and said goodnight the first time.  As I walk out of his room, I think for a moment about being a role model and an example.  Someone to look up to.

It is hard not to be constantly worried that you suck at being a father, the same way it's hard not to be constantly worried that you suck at being a teacher.  The two are not one in the same, of course.  I care infinitely more about my little guy than I do the 90-120 or so students I teach.  That sounds selfish, I know, but it helps me put things into perspective.  It helps me realize that all I really have to do is go into work and do my thing; if they don't respond well, I make a change.  If they do, then I keep going.  It's just that simple.  I don't have to worry about whether or not I'm changing lives for the better or worse.  I don't have to worry about whether or not every moment of every period fills them with insight and wonderment.  And especially don't have to worry about whether or not they like me.  Listening to the theme to the 1960s Batman TV show and "Surfin' Bird" in the car, making Curious George talk to Mickey Mouse, making Spider-Man and Superman punch a three-headed sea monster ... that's way more important than whether or not I am contributing to the downfall of society by prepping for a standardized test.

Because at the end of the day, at the end of the year, they may not remember everything we did or everything I told them.  And years from now, I may not even remember all of their names.  And you know what?  It's okay.

The pressure we put on ourselves to constantly be beacons of light in lives that we somehow perceive as lacking is ridiculous, and we should not need to self-flagellate in order to prove we're somehow worthy of the position we've obtained as professionals.  Teaching is just my job.  It's a job I love and will strive to do better every day, but it's just a job.

A quick thanks to anyone who's ever stumbled across this blog, read a post, followed, subscribed, commented, and conversed.  I wish you all the best and I hope you'll follow as I move on.