A Moment of Inspiration

I was scrolling through Facebook over the weekend, desperate to avoid anything even vaguely school-related.  It was self-care, I told myself -- my distracting myself for hours on end was serving to improve my mental health.

It was bullshit, and I knew it.  Every moment I put off my grading, my work, I built up my anxiety, gave myself more to do the next time I actually sat down to work.

It was bullshit, and apparently the universe knew it too, because this was the quote that I found floating around Facebook this weekend:

I froze.

I needed a lot of people when I was younger.  I needed a more understanding mom.  I needed a braver, more vocal dad.  I needed an older brother who wasn't stoned all the time.  I needed a boyfriend who wasn't an asshole.  I needed a counselor who knew what they were doing.  I needed a religion teacher who wasn't a nun. I needed a history teacher who was open to differing ideas.  I needed a school that was more than just its Catholic roots.

I needed teachers who wanted to understand my life.

I needed someone to talk to, and I needed someone who wouldn't judge.

And now, in this semester from hell, I've neglected to be so many of those things for my students.

I can't be a mom or a dad, and I'm (thankfully) not a nun, nor am I yet (unfortunately) a counselor.  But I can be understanding, and vocal, and open to new ideas, and nonjudgmental, and I can be someone to talk to, and someone to listen.

I've forgotten all this in light of everything else.  Around the grading, the teaching, the daily grind of public speaking and time management and stress, I'm a teacher -- I am one of the people who knows my students the best, because I see them the most.  I see what they're thinking about through their writing, and I hear about their lives by walking around my room.

Teaching isn't just lesson plans and grading; teaching is preparing students for the future, and that includes giving them the chance to make mistakes and talk about complicated topics and grow and feel safe.

I know, to paraphrase Neil DeGrasse Tyson, that the universe doesn't care about me, that it's not following me around trying to point me in the right direction.  Nor do I subscribe to the belief that everything happens for a reason and I was meant to see this quote.

Through a happy coincidence, my stoner cousin from California posted something on Facebook, and I just happened to click the link to my one social media account in time to see it.

Through happier coincidence, I found something I desperately needed to remember.

I also ran across this:

It is so easy to see my struggles this semester as a failure.  It's so easy to see this moment of epiphany, where I realized what I've neglected for my students, as a failure.

But down that path lies madness.

I can't change that this semester has sucked, and I can't change that I let myself descend into a trap of self-pity and depression over what I can't or haven't accomplished.

But I can reframe this semester, and I choose to reframe it like this:  I know what doesn't work.  My 4th year might not be the best one, but it's not the one that will make me leave the profession either.  Instead, my 4th year is about learning what doesn't work, and learning how to avoid that to make my job, my life, better.

I have seven weeks left to change my semester, and I'm going to do it, if only I stop destroying myself over my failures.

I can be the person, the teacher, I needed when I was younger, and I will be.