"but whyyyy are you leaving, rachel?" they clung to my arms and waist. Goodbyes bring out sentimentality, and the children at both schools shed their disinterest in me that at first made me so distraught, but with which I'd grown comfortable. I have learned to accept that good teaching is a confrontation of my ego: when students are most engaged they are not smiling up at me to thank me. Sometimes, being a good teacher means not being needed, means being ignored.
But when I am leaving, I am no longer in the background of their child-centered life. Now it felt greedy to say: I am leaving now, I will no longer make this safe container. our classroom, our school. Now you must think about me as a person, not a quiet force, because I am going but your container remains.
I looked them in their eyes and cling their little bodies, frecked round faces, rosy cheeks, stretchy velor dresses, tight ponytails:
If I were just deciding whether or not to be your teacher, of course I would stay. But when I look at my whole life, all of the different options that are in both places right now, it feels right for me not to be here. I am excited to go, and I know that there are lots of people who will care for you here.
At one school this felt more true than the other, especially after the rudest girl in my class said, after I scolded her for maybe the 10th time that hour, "now don't you ruin your nice streak before you go!" ohh, that attitude in her that every teacher tries to break down. If I was the nice teacher, how are the others? She was the student that taught me to find it in myself to be authoritative and firm.
Another said "will our next art teacher be colorful, rachel?" and my heart cracks open. Just weeks earlier they were saying "why do you dress like that?" and I assumed I was being judged, 8 year olds thinking I'm uncool. Their sadness at me leaving restored my confidence that teaching is something that I am good at, and for my last few days I relished every moment like I wish I had all year. The timing made me ache so hard.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Parallel Path
Only in the relinquished expectations of I-am-leaving-soon, of course, I am able to relax in to where I am and see how this life right now might become a full one. I imagine the parallel path, where I was not choosing to leave in two weeks or even three months, and the steps I would take:
Were I not in half-detachment, I can only imagine the love I'd put in to the studio, the classroom at school I can almost call "mine" these days, by how others defer to my decisions there. They remark: we should find an intern to run the studio next year, a volunteer. It is really a full time job, and they say I do it well. I ache: if I cared to really do my best here, ot would be a beautiful place. An art studio where I have total control of the layout, and the students make whatever they please? I am satisfied with the place the the student's products, but just that. Leaving, I feel this confidence in my ability to do things I am proud of, and as I am commended and faired well at the school, my potential feels like a secret.
In parallel life I might apply to work there, part time. I might stay at my other school, or not.
The neighborhoods I'd live in. The friendships I'd pursue. The places I'd keep buying and finding my groceries, the dance class I'd keep taking, the drawings I'd make, the cafe's I'd try to show them at. This could be a life, here, but it is not the one I am choosing.
I opened all these doors, seven months ago I knew no one here, and now I am closing them. It feels unfull, these people who do not really know me yet, and who I do not know yet, but never will. Frustrations not worth resolving, tensions I fake my way through with pleasantries. I am escaping soon.
Sometimes it feels like a break up: the bad outweighs the good, here, and so it is not worth the effort to mend whats not right. I worry sometimes that I am running away, momentarily, but I know that the things this phase has brought up in me will not dissapear when I leave. That I don't have to stay here to confront them.
I have actually come to the period of conclusion, after so much waiting. boxes laying open in my room to be packed. Everyone I know knows I am going, they look at me and its the first thing they think. endless loops of 'so, soon, eh?" conversations, without meaning to we have all started to detach.
Were I not in half-detachment, I can only imagine the love I'd put in to the studio, the classroom at school I can almost call "mine" these days, by how others defer to my decisions there. They remark: we should find an intern to run the studio next year, a volunteer. It is really a full time job, and they say I do it well. I ache: if I cared to really do my best here, ot would be a beautiful place. An art studio where I have total control of the layout, and the students make whatever they please? I am satisfied with the place the the student's products, but just that. Leaving, I feel this confidence in my ability to do things I am proud of, and as I am commended and faired well at the school, my potential feels like a secret.
In parallel life I might apply to work there, part time. I might stay at my other school, or not.
The neighborhoods I'd live in. The friendships I'd pursue. The places I'd keep buying and finding my groceries, the dance class I'd keep taking, the drawings I'd make, the cafe's I'd try to show them at. This could be a life, here, but it is not the one I am choosing.
I opened all these doors, seven months ago I knew no one here, and now I am closing them. It feels unfull, these people who do not really know me yet, and who I do not know yet, but never will. Frustrations not worth resolving, tensions I fake my way through with pleasantries. I am escaping soon.
Sometimes it feels like a break up: the bad outweighs the good, here, and so it is not worth the effort to mend whats not right. I worry sometimes that I am running away, momentarily, but I know that the things this phase has brought up in me will not dissapear when I leave. That I don't have to stay here to confront them.
I have actually come to the period of conclusion, after so much waiting. boxes laying open in my room to be packed. Everyone I know knows I am going, they look at me and its the first thing they think. endless loops of 'so, soon, eh?" conversations, without meaning to we have all started to detach.
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