Time for the biennial update!

I'm at the beginning of my second year in a wonderful charter school (which is hilarious if you scroll down 3 or 4 posts to my anti-charter screed).  It's been an amazing experience overall, and it has completely flipped my opinion about public vs. charter.  New stance: charters that do it well are the way to go.  Bad charters are just as bad as bad public school, and Lord knows there are lots of bad charters.  But I'm really fortunate to work for a very thoughtful, supportive, well-planned-out school.  It's in the South Bronx, but I'm not exaggerating when I say I would actually send my own child there.

The craziest thing about my school is definitely the kids' home lives.  Last year wasn't quite as intense, but this year most of my kids live in housing projects, and the ones who don't live in pretty terrible apartments and neighborhoods anyway.  I don't think I have a single two-parent family (although lots of moms with boyfriends).  Many of the parents are great, hard-working, and do everything they can to provide the best life possible for their kids.  But then many of them are just hot messes.  We do home visits at the start of the year, and a lot of my kids live in places I couldn't stand to be in for more than a few minutes.  That sounds really snobby, but I swear it's not a project thing.  A few of the kids in projects have lovely families and lovely homes (once you get out of the hallways, yikes!)  It's a chaos thing instead.  Some of the families have a lot of kids, no boundaries, and limited hygiene.  It's intense.  It makes me feel really anxious to be in homes like that, where there are multiple babies crying, and it's dark and dingy and scary.  Home visits are a pain in the ass, but also wonderful because it forces me to develop a degree of empathy and understanding I wouldn't otherwise have.

 I don't mean to be so judgmental.  I think it must be so overwhelming to face the challenges that poverty presents.  There are so many things I take for granted, like having enough money for food and transportation.  It just makes me so sad when things happen like a student has a horrible stomach ache because all she had for breakfast was soda, or one of my students never does her homework and her mom can't support her because she's illiterate.  It's pretty amazing that most of these kids come to school excited about learning.  It actually blows me away.  In a twisted way, maybe this will be an advantage later in life?  If they do make it to college and end up getting white collar jobs, all the adversity they faced as children will make everything feel so cushy later on!

My mom called today to tell me she has breast cancer.  Nothing in my life has ever mattered more than this matters.  It makes every thought I've ever had, every feeling I've ever felt, seem pale and empty.

 

Several of my students have trouble regulating their emotions, and sometimes they have unbelievable screaming tantrums.  Their feelings are so strong and beyond their control that they overpower them.  They scream--contrary to all logic and reason--until they're completely exhausted.  I feel like I'm having that kind of tantrum inside.  I'm shaking and I can't breathe and my feelings are totally out of my control.  But I can't scream, either.  Maybe that would feel better?  I don't know, is it possible to have an internal tantrum and be numb at the same time?  This isn't a great analogy.  

I'm so so scared.  I love my mom and I don't want to lose her and there is no scarier word in the English language than cancer.  

Life, you really suck sometimes.  In a dark way though, I have to appreciate your irony.  I had a good day at work, and when I went to the store to buy groceries, everything I wanted was on sale.  I guess I brought this on myself, because I was thinking about how this was really my day.  So there you go.  I am a devout pessimist: I staunchly believe that nothing can go well without paying for it later.  Maybe I've accrued too much happiness and good luck this year. 

It's crazy to think that everything else on Earth is happening in exactly the same way that it was happening an hour ago for everyone but me.  How can that be, when I feel like I'm breathing water all of a sudden?