Forgive but don’t forget, girl keep yo' head up

A month in and I could not have been placed in a better environment! I absolutely love Vincent Gray even more than I can express with carefully-chosen blog words. I love the staff and the way the care about each of the students individually, in school and outside of school. I love the students. I love having conversations with them, joking with them, being there to teach and help them, and pissing them off with my rules and classwork. Sometimes I seriously get an almost overwhelming euphoric rush when I think about where I am for this year. It is so perfect for me. My students don't believe me when I tell them that I wanted to come to East St. Louis and that Vincent Gray, the small last-chance alternative school on State Street, was my top choice as a placement. They refuse to believe that I passed up places in California or New York or Chicago, or even St. Louis itself to work with, as they so eloquently put it, “the fucked up ghetto kids.” Sometimes they ask me if I hate any of them. I don't know if they believe me or not when I say that I don't and never will. I am actually surprised by how much I have grown to care about them in such a short time. But even though I love them, and want nothing less than their complete success and happiness, there are still times when I want to grab some of them by their dreads and gangsta bling, shake them around and scream, “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE, WHY AREN'T YOU EVEN TRYING!?!?!?” There are days I have wanted to throw their cell phones away, tape their mouths shut, tie them to a desk until they finish their assignments, and make them say five respectful, positive things for every disrespectful, negative comment that exits their gold-encrusted mouths. I want to yell till I am blue that “little” is not spelled “lil,” “that” is not spelled “dat,” and if you are going to use the phrase “she was sexy and ready for something nasty” as an example sentence, don't write it like this: “she wuz sXy an readdy for sum naszty.”

Worst of all, there are days when I notice a flicker of doubt in myself. It isn't full-on doubt, of course, but it is something. Sometimes I look at certain students and I can't comprehend how they are going to get out of here. I can't see at all how they will ever graduate. They skip class, miss assignments, can barely write, get in fights... It is just so overwhelming to think of the changes that they will have to make in their lives if they want to move on from this. I look at Travion, one of the older students, who can barely write yet wants to be a nurse. I believe this is possible with everything in me, but sometimes I feel little sinister voices asking me how plausible it really is, and I terrify myself that such a thought would even blink across my mind. But I can't deny that it is sometimes there. And I hate that.

I also hate when the students bring out the ugly in me. There are certain students who, no matter what mood I am in, can transform me a little. Make me a little less confident and more likely to stoop lower than I should as a teacher. Somehow, all of these students are grouped into classes together for the last few hours of my day, and some afternoons they suck every ounce of emotional energy and positive thinking out of me. I find myself being slightly sarcastic, which I can't STAND. I become visibly frustrated, which really only provokes the students, and I have trouble caring if they pass or not. It is awful. What I hate the most in myself is when I start thinking that I am better than them. When they are refusing to work because “they ain' kids an' no one can make them do nothin'” and directly disrespecting me in ways I am not used to, I think to myself about how much more mature I am, how I managed to get myself through school and several jobs without trouble, how I understand how this world functions much better than my students. I am afraid sometimes this holier-than-thou thinking shows through in my attitude and the things I say when I have reached my limit. I hate it. I really disgust myself when I let myself sink there. But there are days I feel pushed there, and I know I have to learn how to cope. I struggle with a lot of things in the classroom, and I need to figure out the best way to handle them, and I think if I keep following the examples of other Vincent Gray teachers I admire and challenge myself to be positive, then I will get there. I have to be able to forgive myself when I disappoint myself. I have had a difficult time being okay when I know I did something wrong, but I am getting better. I have to, or I will never be able to grow in the way that I want to this year. I do get frustrated. So extremely frustrated. And sometimes I do feel hurt. But I wouldn't trade that hurt and frustration in for anything that would make me grow less. I suppose it is a sort of miniscule semblance of how mountaineers feel when they climb a W17 grade mountain.

Like I said, I truly do love all my students and I pray every day for them. Even Terrence, who looks me in the eyes tauntingly and tells me that what I am teaching is “fucking weak-ass shit,” even Alexis who screams at me every day that she is sick of school, even Rob who purposefully won't pay attention to anything I say, even Eric who loudly states how much he hates my grammar class every two seconds, even Tiffany who tells me I should be scared. I learned the first few days that I am nothing special. Every teacher gets that treatment, some far worse than me, and I am sure they find ways to move past it. I am going to as well. I want the best for all of the students, and I want it so badly. I know I am only a small factor in their lives, but I need to remind myself that no matter how small, I am still a factor, and I need to keep myself at the level that they deserve a teacher to be.

__________

"He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom, and he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

"When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God."

-Charles L. Allen

"I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete.

It's so fuckin' heroic."

-George Carlin