i'm out of routine, but just thought i would check in. this week has been rough in the sense that i had these projects to do, and things to take care of at work. i put aside all of my routines to finish those things...
the end of the year always brings some strange feelings. actually, most of the time, i am completely incapable of feeling much of anything. i am numb and dead inside. there's very little sadness. if anything, there is anger. and i move or act, not out of real feeling or sympathy or compassion or whatever, but because my brain says it is the appropriate or opportune thing to do. it sounds cold, it is cold, but i'm being real.
the fact that people are leaving my school, for some of them, yes, i do feel sad. i did enjoy seeing them and working with them. but for some, my feelings were either absent or ambiguous...
i suppose i should explain a bit. i'm not exactly sure how it happened, but a cloud, a pall, fell over my relationship with my own grade level. i sometimes associate it with the introduction of one particular teacher, whom i tend to have a difficult time with, but it's probably more than that. about three years ago now, i had a particular student who had been placed in inclusion, probably inappropriately. let's just say that it wasn't working out for that student to be in the gen ed class. although i was a co-teacher, i felt i had to devote more and more time to that student in other settings, even though i continued to try to have the student transition into the gen ed setting. in any case, and this is my suspicion, i think my withdrawal from the gen-ed setting was a matter of complaint for the gen ed teacher. that's my guess, anyway. the fact that she was pregnant later in the year didn't help matters...
in any case, things got really awful towards the end of the year. i felt that the entire grade level (all women) were allied against me. and i didn't feel like i had the recourse to ask what was going on, or why they were angry and not communicating with me. i tried to be helpful when i could, especially for my pregnant co-teacher, but i kind of got the cold shoulder (i.e., no response). i think i kind of withdrew by the end of the year. i did voice my situation to my vice principal, but she didn't seem particularly sympathetic, and in any case, didn't do anything to resolve my concerns.
i honestly thought about transferring schools at that point. i mean, i love my kids, i love working with the kids... it's sometimes the teachers that i have a hard time with. but ultimately i stayed, maybe out of complacency, maybe out of a sense that i had SOME ties at the school worth keeping.
anyway, things didn't get much better the next year, or this year, for that matter. let me tell you, that about four or five years ago, i was definitely a part of the team for the fifth graders. i and my ea. but now, i felt that they made a point to exclude me. they didn't communicate important stuff to me. sometimes when i required information to complete paperwork, they wouldn't respond.
in fact, that was the big problem towards the end of last year. when i requested some important info for one of my students, info that i needed to enter on essentially legal documents, then i didn't get a reply. let me tell you, for myself, if i had neglected to reply to some messages in a timely manner, i would catch some heavy flak. but i didn't get a reply after two days. and i needed that info to complete the document. so i complained. i complained to that teacher, and i complained to my principal and vice principal... and i got that one teacher really mad. but i felt justified in complaining, because i wasn't getting a response to my request...
in any case, the end result of that was that i got into trouble. at the end of the year, the principal, vice principal, that teacher, and the head of my department all teamed up on me, and essentially told me it was my fault, and that i shouldn't have been so impolite in the way i had responded. they said that i should have given sufficient time for the gen ed teacher to respond. i made some arguments that i would've been fine if the gen ed teacher had told me she needed more time or something, but she didn't respond period. and keep in mind that this was occurring over a background of silence on other things anyway.
that meeting also infuriated me, but as is the case with me, i just kind of said okay, and stomached it. in any case, it was too late to do a transfer at that point, and i was condemned to stay for another year.
to be honest, things weren't all that bad this year... i at least interacted with the teachers, did some of their science lessons for them, and stuff like that. and one of the grade level teachers helped me out a bit with my robotics team, which, frankly, no one in my school really gives a crap about (at least no one is willing to really help me out... after a few years of requests... let me tell you that i am the ONLY school that has a SINGLE coach leading a group of kids. most schools have TEAMS of people to work with their students. i guess i shouldn't be complaining, but yes, i am complaining, because i have asked for help many times. it always makes me think there is something wrong with me, that no one wants to assist me... my school always talks about teamwork and shit, but it's only teamwork with certain people or certain interests... but again, what i do, which included not only robotics, but science fair, and history day, well, i guess those aren't particularly important enough. usually they don't even want to mention what i do. or they don't give me time, like fucking five minutes, to announce something or request something... so there's my little rant about that. yes, to be honest, i guess i am bitter.)
anyway, to go back to this year. something kind of snapped in me this week. i just realized that there were so many negative feelings towards my grade level that i just didn't want to attend the farewell thing at all. i am not one to pretend any feelings. in fact, i have a hard time emoting period (maybe because it's buried under a lot of unresolved anger). so i just decided not to go. i mean, i do what's requested of me, i made posters for some of the departing people. but to physically be there, and say stuff that i don't really mean in my heart- well, it was just too much for me.
the thing is that i've felt less and less connected to the community of the school as time has passed. after all, i'm not a squeaky wheel. i run in silence. and i always return to the kids, the kids, the kids. the noisy people somehow convince the others. so i know that most of the school is kind of allied against me. they think all the less of me. so when i relate to others at work, i keep it on a certain level, where i will help them all i can, but i won't share my feelings with them. i'm just a nothing to most people there anyway. and my admin could care less. i dimly suspect that they would want me to leave, if they could, to get someone more effusive. and compliant.
whew. so i guess i do have a lot of bitterness and anger in me. i actually do wish people well. i wish the best for my former co-teacher. but i feel like- i don't know, it's the same with my brother- i feel like i've been unfairly rejected, but there's no way to change things. i have no voice to express my anger, my rage. i remember trying to express my feelings and how my brother would just turn to fox news or the sports. "huh, you say anything?" same with my grade level. and maybe i wouldn't want to say anything anyway, because- again, like my brother- they would pooh-pooh my feelings, and make like it was all such a little thing. and now, voila, it's all better. they would make it better, and not even apologize for anything. that's kind of how that meeting with my principal and that teacher went- where we kind of rushed through, and then my principal said, "well, i'm glad that's resolved."
i guess i kind of feel helpless, because i have no one at school to confide in. whereas they have their whole fucking team, their network of gossip and shit. i have to say, i am so used to that world. i grew up in that world, through middle school, high school, even college. i have always been an outsider. whether it's my awkwardness or my ignorance or whatever, i have never fit in. and i have always been the victim of that kind of exclusion. so what they are doing is nothing new. what i find hilarious is how they lecture kids for this sort of thing, when they do it on the daily themselves. that's why i say FUCK any sort of institutionalized groupings. anything like that. because it is all about bands of cowards hanging together.
i suppose the only thing i really worry about is that i have so internalized the anger and hurt and rage that i cease to feel. i used to believe that i was a naturally empathic and compassionate person. but now i'm realizing that i have so much anger in me that i can't feel for others, or feel much of anything for that matter. that's why i need to return to something. i need to meditate, return to gardening, anything, to release this anger, and to care about people, about my children, again. that's where the teaching is. not in any of this bullshit with other teachers.
i'm sorry, but at this point in the game, that's where my heart is.
*****
it's ironic, but earlier today, i was feeling- i don't know, anxious, sad. and it has been kind of rare for me to feel much of anything. when i get this feeling, it is something visceral, tangible. i actually feel it physically. as though i am this hollow drum with the skin held tight, vibrating at the slightest disturbance... and i felt that this was what i needed to write, or to do art, or to emote in any real sense of the word... and that much of what i had been doing up until now has been simply mechanical, because i had lost the capacity to feel. most of what i feel is this ineffable sadness. like i could almost break down and cry if i let myself. i know, it's weird. but that, i think, is my heart. i have a deep sadness in myself. not sadness necessary for myself, but simply a generalized sadness at the ephemeral nature of life, that everything that we love must change and die. it is generally a gentle thing. but like the sweet note of a violin, it can carry a world of emotion...
i was thinking that if i could return to that feeling, to always keep it raw and naked, that i would be able to write, or whatever. that i would have something to say.
that's what i intended to talk about when i decided to write this blog post... but then, in talking about this past week, i guess i started to feel sorry for myself, and wanted to complain about my situation. oh well. i guess it has been on my mind. in fact, maybe it was part of what broke through my shell... this realization of that inner turmoil, that anger within me...
but whatever. i will try to keep that flame, that feeling of something within me, going.
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