Party Mix and Politics

I liken the teaching staff at a school to a bag of GORP:  chunks of very different snacks, all of which affect your body in different ways (proteins and wheat and chocolate goodness) and, separately, have flavor explosions in your mouth that are delightful.  They never mix and become one, sometimes the combinations can be satisfying, but still the peanut and the raisin are alone in their journey to the pit of your belly.  

I am not sure what influenced this particular metaphor, it is rather ridiculous, as am I right now.  I have just been reflecting on the differences between me and some of my colleagues.

Today I took part in a conversation, rather was on the receiving end of one, where a friend and colleague was discussing his feelings of going on to a PhD program.  He wants to start a writing program for underprivileged children who wish to work hard modeled after a rather successful author's writing workshop and centers in other cities.  This idea, these types of ideas, are amazing and promising when put into action.  My frustrations came from the realization that his ideas are rarely acted upon.  He allows the "system" and the "administration" become excuses for why he should not dream or do.  

He reminds me of a friend who is a Libertarian, which I personally think is crap (it's my blog, I can say it).

To me the idea of being a part of a party that is anti-big government in a country that is run by big government is synonymous with giving up.  

It as if I, as a public school teacher, were to say, "the system is far too flawed, I can't do anything" rather than doing what I am doing:  making changes, in one of the countries most flawed systems, from the inside.  To surrender to the powers that be, the powers that know nothing of classroom life, would bear no fruit, would win no small victories.  I choose the small ones, politically and in my daily life.  We have to work in the systems that exist, because they aren't changing...only shifting...very slowly.

Back to my colleague.  This colleague says daily, "I don't feel like teaching today."  This colleague thinks highly of only his advanced placement students and these thoughts are represented daily in the language he uses regarding his regular level kids.  This colleague cannot make a change because he will not allow for one in his life.  

He, quite frankly, has given up.

In this conversation, when I could get a word in, I would say things like, "Well, you shouldn't allow the way the administration feels to determine your classroom activities or your personal philosophies...look at "A" and me.  We are doing whatever the hell we want in our classrooms and it is working and it is, well, very different, but no one (knock on wood) has given us grief about it. We are pushing brand new ways of thinking and blowing kids minds with HUGE questions every day.  Do you think the administration has any clue what we are talking about in here? Do you think that stops us?  No."  These statements were met with, "Yeah, but..."  

Don't gimme that cynicism! I am fighting my own demons every day!  I frown at the state that the world is in, but I smile and cry too because good things are happening and I am making some of them happen.  The world is a pretty place littered with a little bit of ugly and bad, not the other way around.  

A very dear person to me told me recently that a person has to make her own happiness.  It's true in all that we do.  Everything.  

No matter how much we love something, it can be hard.  I think you just have to be a fighter.  

Tonight my heart has a lot of sadness in it and sometimes I want to cross to the other side where things are half empty and people are never good, but I can't.  No one has ever changed the world by saying, "No we can't."  

  

I have written something and it's my blog and I put things I write on here.  It follows this posting.

Cheers to a life worth living!

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Réquiem ætérnam:
Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen.
                                                                                                         -Eternal Rest

"Vigil for the Departed"

Let us attend to the soul of the lost:

An altar littered with mementos of a sunbeam gone too soon:
Poems that speak of truth in a heartnest,
Banjos that once tweetled tin can tunes,
Trifles, like confetti dreams, that fell from planes,
A handmade honeypot, drained of it's sweetness.

The tenor bell tolls:

Hyssop in mason jars bow as St. Martha sings of hope.
Cor mundum crea in me…
Forgive me father for rainy days and dreamcharms.
Forgive me father for uniting passion and reason.
Blot out my iniquity and make me pure.

Rest is given to the souls of the faithful:

As perpetual light radiates St. Joseph's
hope of a pilgrimage is laid to rest,
lamp lighting and Sweetgrass fantasies drift heavenward.
Thou preparest a table for me,
I shall break bread in the solitude of my healing.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive…
Forever and ever.

Amen.