Similarities and Differences

Mission

Wednesday, August 30

On Wednesdays, the students come in an hour later because the teachers have meetings. I kind of like meetings because I don't have to talk the whole time. I talk all day, and sometimes I just wanna listen. I enjoy learning other perspectives. I have so much to learn, I've realized since I've gotten here, and that's been humbling to say the least.

Today we talked about why we do what we do as teachers, which is what I needed today because I honestly thought these suburban people were just a bunch of stuck up people. No, I was wrong.

People aren't fake up here. They're just real people. I feel so bad for making them out to be these horrible people in previous entries. I had such a sheltered view of the world as I was from a crazy small town. I mean, yes, I went to college, and yes, I was deployed, and I gained preception from that, but this move has been the most insightful.

I thought people who had more money were ignorant. Some of them are, yes, but a lot of them are not. I know a lot of ignorant people who don't have money. I also thought everyone who lived in the suburbs was a white rich person. Not even close to true. We have ranges of all different types of people here. Sure, some do have a lot of money, but some don't.

This morning, one of my co-workers, Keegan Abbot, the history teacher on our team said something very interesting. He said, "We need to make it clear to our kids that we love them dearly, therefore we won't always be nice to them."

Brett Money, the older, uptight math teacher, laughed out loud. "I agree, but how do you think we should do that?"

Keegan smiled a little. "I think that we need to follow through with our threats. I know Steven has talked about this before, but Steven, doesn't it work?"

"Yeah, it does, and I think it really shows them how to live, as well."

Ariel Kanani, the science teacher, looked at us through her teal glasses, thinking about what we were saying. "Well, I don't think that giving detention for one missing assignment is the way to go about things because mistakes do happen, and in real life, if you miss a deadline, a lot of times there is a remedy."

"Right, but missing a deadline makes your life harder, so why would we want to teach our students to allow that in their own lives? We teach because we want these kids to have a better life, right? I'm not teaching just to teach English. I mean, English is important, but my main goal is to teach kids how to live their lives in a positive way." I paused. "I think this school, and a lot of schools probably, struggles with getting past the academic status."

"Why do you you think that?" Ariel asked.

"Because I think schools get so focused on being the best at everything when it comes to academics and sports, but we don't really take into the account the stuff that really matters, like how we're treating each student," I told her.

"Just out curiosity, what was the main mission of your school in Alabama?" Brett asked.

I laughed a little, even though there was little humor. "Um, well, survival."

"What do you mean?" Keegan asked.

"I mean, we had fights break out right and left. In the five years I taught there, we had two suicides in our school, and four deaths total." I sighed, staring down. That's one of those things that you try to put in your Do Not Open file in your mind. Hate thinking or talking about that.

"Wow," Ariel said, "that's not fun. How did you guys get through that?"

I shook my head, shrugging. "I don't know, after the third time, you get kind of sick of it. They always made the teachers personally announce the news or what happened to our first hour, and I had one girl who was the best friend of one of our students who committed suicide, and watching her burst into tears was probably the hardest moment of teaching I had ever had. I just prayed."

Keegan wasn't smiling when I said that. And he always smiles. "I think our mission to prevent that from happening as best as we can, and show them their lives are worth living."

"Amen to that," Ariel said.

Brett looked at all of us. "I like that the way you young people think."

We won Brett over. Yay.

I love my coworkers.