seeking inspiration

The last two speakers I've seen on campus, Bill Ayres and Cornel West, both spoke in part about how defeated Dr. King was in the months before his assassination. His approval rate, they both cited, was as low as George W. Bush's was when he left office last year, largely due to his stance on the Vietnam War (anti-). The way West put it, (from my notes, so not completely verbatim,) "King knew that historically Black people were born amidst a stream of urine and feces, born amidst some serious funk. We were born in the funk of James Brown, George Clinton, and Lil Wayne. That there was slavery in that funk, and Jim Crow, and dilapidated housing, and despicable school systems, and love, and hope, and dignity. He knew that Black people would never be able to find their dignity in that funk if mainstream society insisted on deodorizing and denying the funk. He knew that his funk would be deodorized by mainstream society which doesn't want to deal with the nightside." The public misconception, West explained, about what exactly King's dream was, really got to him.

I try to remember this at times like yesterday, when in the hallway during a passing period, I took a post-it off a student's back that said, "I'm gay really gay." And one of my students who is homeless showed up for the fourth time this semester on Tuesday, promised he'd be back, and wasn't for the rest of the week. And this week when I was told that two of my students have dropped out. And when I had to deal with the return from suspension of a student who stole my wallet. And when a student in my AP prep class made fun of his brother in our co-taught class and who has a learning disablity for being "dumb." And when I had to call a parent every night to tell her that her son, who plagiarized a paper he recently turned in, was repeatedly lying to her about giving me a revised essay. It really sucks. And it's really hard not to feel ineffective.

I voiced this concern to one of the experienced teachers in the building, who compassionately told me that I was wrong, and that I was making a difference. When I talked about it with my boss, and he asked me what I was going to do about it. I really appreciated that I was able to have an honest conversation with him about it; it was definitely more productive than just acting like my inadequacies as an educator are non-existent.

Sydney, my good friend and colleague, asked me the other day if I thought that we, as teachers, would ever not have to constantly remind students that homophobic, racist, sexist, classist, etc.-ist, remarks are not allowed in our classrooms. Probably not. I went into teaching knowing that I'd probably never achieve this. I certainly didn't plan to save the world. And that's all good to know in theory. I guess I just wish I had the humility to know it in practice, and to not feel so depressingly defeated when all of my work towards that goal is not successful. It would certainly make it a lot easier to not want to cry through my lunch hour.