Dreaming of a life I love...

I just got back from a special education district inservice...it was relaxing...to be in a classroom situation, again...to talk with other people dealing with similar challenges as me...to be raising other teachers' expectations with examples of where doing so improves situations...

But the general attitude I've gotten from district folks whenever I've pointed to real limitations on all kinds of great aspirations...not set-in-stone limitations...just more realism in how quickly and how ambitiously different stuff can get achieved...

Is, "too fuckin' bad...do it...or else"...

And the more I get that attitude...

The less inspired and motivated I am to do the work...

It's so fuckin' stupid, really...

And a lot of my solace is found in the same solace that my teachers had with me, as a kid...

Which is...maybe I can learn from what I hate about how my superiors handle things...to improve the way I handle things with my kids...

And maybe they can learn to do it better than me and the rest of their parents and their teachers and administrators and district administrators and politicians and everyone whose decisions impact their lives...

You know what I really dread?...

Is having all the bullshit that goes with this job...and any job, really...

Have me just as frustrated and as lacking in inspiration...that many of the veteran teachers I learn from and look to as mentors and seek guidance from...

The more long-term quasi or not-so-quasi burnout that they experience...

My frustration, yesterday, was that some veteran teachers left me hanging in a discussion with our district supervisor about paperwork...I raised the issue...and even though all of them fret about the issue to me, privately...not one of them talked about it publicly with me...making me look like the first year teacher who just can't hack it...

I felt really betrayed by the whole ordeal...including by some teachers that I really respect and look up to...

And it was just one more in a long line of instances...where I step up to take some big responsibility on my shoulders...

Only to look beside me to find older, more experienced colleagues shirking responsibility that they can get off their plate...leaving more for me to burden...

Things are getting better, I think...

Teachers are engaging in more constructive venting, these days...they're easing up on the kids, which I think is good...though today I was not easing up on kids, since my first and second hours were hell on wheels, this morning...and I just didn't have the patience to deal with them, this morning, or the two hours afterwards...

And what really frustrates me about this whole situation...

Is that if some of unnecessary burdens...the more arbitrary district requirements...the federal regulations...the state mandates...

If some of the more unnecessary burdens were lifted...

I would feel so much more inspired to do a far better job...

And I was feeling more inspired, at the beginning of my school year, before I had hit my head against those same arbitrary requirements...

It's so goddamn stupid...the whole goddamn thing...it's counterproductive...it undermines everyone's efforts...and...in my case...it undermines the efforts of someone who is seriously ambitious in his efforts...in ways that most teachers never are in their wildest dreams, frankly, just considering the scope of my outlook in my work...

It's just so goddamn stupid...

It makes me want to go somewhere where there is more freedom to do good work...

But other than a more laid back university situation (I'm thinking like a Wichita State)...and like Abraham Maslow (who taught at Brooklyn College most of his career) let the chips fall where they may around my ideas...

Where would I go?...

Wichita State is also the last place I went to school that had a serious appreciation for intellectual diversity...meaning that the political science department had conservatives and liberals who peacefully co-existed under the same roof...though a university with active intellectual engagement of different perspectives (like a Harvard or a Stanford) would be more ideal, obviously...

As long as I can care, first, for my primary responsibility...

Being a decent human being...a loving husband...and a really strong father...

I would also like to teach, at some point, after this stint in special education...where the kids need more persuasion, daily and constantly, to care about school...

To work with students who are more internally motivated...without being obnoxious...and with some sense of balance and priorities in their lives:):):)...to care about school...and education...and all the values that come with that:):)...

I would prefer a public university...just because I also very much value a diversity of students and faculty and staff from different backgrounds...and not just overachievers in a more isolated setting, as is often the case, more, with Ivy League schools, I think...

What I'd like...

Is to work somewhere...and live somewhere...and spend time somewhere...

Where my natural enthusiasm...curiosity...interest...commitment...and love for life...and for studying...and for teaching...and for education...

Are supported...

Rather than undermined...

By the arbitrary requirements of people...

Who clearly care far less about education...and people...and living a good life...

Than I do...

I'm going home for Valentine's Day:):):)...I'm having a beer:):):)...I'm working on some paperwork and some IEP's:):):)...

And I'm enjoying the freedom of home:):):)...

Have a nice Valentine's, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Facing ourselves...or not...

I think I'm finally beginning to understand hypocrisy and adulthood...
We had a really great trip to watch the play, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, today...it's a great story...and a great play...about the insanity of witchhunts in Puritan colonial America...and it was a really great opportunity to hang out with the kids in a more unstructured setting...

Many of the kids are really beginning to respond to me...even as I have many situations, still, where I'm not connecting with kids like I want to and I don't why, always...much of it is likely a quite reasonable suspicion of adults and authority figures on kids' parts that I not only shared, as a kid and even as an adult, still...but which I totally understand given how arbitrary many adults -- who are very much in good faith -- can be with kids...

And I guess I'm just understanding it all better, now, from so many different angles...

Adults want kids to not only grow up...but to not always be pushing their buttons and the envelopes of their more limited patience, in the moment...which leads to all kinds of reactions to kids and their behavior that is often both in kids' best interests...but also a way for adults to deal with their feelings, in the moment, as well...

And adults...live kids...like all people...are not perfect...

And they're doing their best given limited understanding...

Just like kids...

Just like everyone...

It's why our focus should be on ways of dealing with behavior that deal with immediate issues and dangers...but are not damaging, long term, to anyone...not only because it gives people time to understand, better, their mistakes...

But because it creates room for everyone to understand the overall context for why authority relationships are not functioning adequately...

Why does terrorism tend to spring, more often and more dangerously, out of more authoritarian cultures?...in all likelihood as both a reaction to authority...but also as an angry and unreasoned means of trying to enforcing moral or political or whatever codes or rules or norms or agendas that terrorists see as being handled incopetently by authoritarian regimes within their culture...

Or...as in the case of Chechen rebels...as a means of fighting for self-determination from what they believe and often is -- in the case of Russia -- the overbearing hand of more autocratic government...trying to solve problems, ineffectively and often oblivious to their ineffectiveness so stuck are they are poor assumptions about reality, with force...that would be better handled with more thought than with more force...

I'm beginning to see the really tricky issue with authority, though...

You have authority figures that need space to act adequately to deal with immediate situations and to maintain some order with limited understandings of reality and limited emotional resources...patience, namely...and a cool enough head...and some confidence and trust that their efforts will not be blithely ignored by those they are excercising authority with...

On the other hand...you have citizens...or students...or what have you...also with limited understandings of reality...and limited emotional resources...namely, patience...who are subject to that authority...

And the latter are suspicious, for good reason, of the former, because the former has the power to limit their freedom...a power that those without authority don't really have over people with authority, except in really bureaucratic, passive-aggressive kinds of ways...

When...really...what people need...in addition to a larger perspective on life...and more patience, as a consequence...

Is communication lines...and relationships...to vent their frustrations...openly and honestly...with each other...

Our team at school is getting better at that...and are getting stronger, together, as a consequence...

We do have a math team lead who is given to a lot of hyperbole, which is not constructive...

But we're all getting better...

And the reason for using the least possible necessary force...or the least possible necessary aggression...

Is that force shuts down communication...sometimes...temporarily...sometimes more long term...

In the case of my mom and her dad...it was more permanent...though that was a relationship that was both of their responsibilities...

There are so many places in my life where lack of communication is the first most fundamental issue around why there is still lingering frustrations between me and someone else...

And many of those situations are either compounded because of that person is or has been an authority figure in my life...

Or compounded by authority issues, generally...

Do you realize how much communication and understanding overwrought authority reaps in our lives?...

A lot...on so many issues I can hardly even count them...

In fact...if I were to name the number one reason why many areas of life where there is not enough understanding lack it...it would be because of overwrought authority creating a lot of secrecy and repression of honest communication and feedback...and an awful lot of confusion, as a consequence...

That is definitely the case between kids and adults, I think...and teachers and students, generally...

My professors often had no clue what I was up to, in my program...in great part, because I did not feel comfortable approaching them about much of my work...

But also because of lack of patience for a more long term and engaged conversation...that would have led to more openness and communication and understanding...

It's so frustrating to me...that after millenia of progress from more openness and freedom and understanding and empathy and communication and sharing of one another...

That people would perpetually resist progress in that direction...

All to satisfy more foolish fears...borne of ignorance...more than of reason...

Ignorance that would be better alleviated by more openness and freedom and communication and understanding and exchange...than by trying to beat the shit out of problems...which is a perpetually popular and perpetually stupid solution:):):)LOL:):):)...

In fact...what really frustrates me...

Is that we are perpetually looking to authority to solve our problems...

And never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever...

...satisfied with the solutions they deliver up...

...or with whomever we elect or authorize or have to live with to exercise that authority...

It's insanely dysfunctional...

And we've got to face it if we're actually going to make some real, substantial progress on it...

Which progress would seriously open up so many million opportunities that I'm sure none of us are completely aware of, now...

But which we perpetually stand in the way of...stubbornly standing by solutions and decisions and choices and policies...that clearly don't work...to anyone with open eyes...

Government is, as a general rule, rather than the exception, stuck in this situation, right now...

And we can deny it...or face it...

Ultimately...those are our only two choices with something as serious with this problem...

I would definitely recommend facing it, for those still not convinced of the need to do so...

But I'm understanding, today, better, the real trick of making the transition from a world obsessed with rules...

To a world based, more...on conscience...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I never understood the depths of cowardice...

...until I worked among my elders...

I could have hardly fathomed the levels of denial...and pride...and ego...and conceit...and arrogance...

In the human condition...

Until I worked among average people...

I have decided that if things should not work out at this teaching situation...

Then I'm going to get a lucrative job...I'm keeping my mouth shut...and I'm going to be a recluse, like Mr. Salinger (who I understand so much better, now, I think)...

I'm so dissappointed with the human condition that I can hardly articulate it...

I just know that there is literally, without a shadow of a doubt, no way that they are getting anywhere with the prevailing philosophy of forced progress...

It cannot happen...

It is not possible...

And it offends the dignity of people everywhere...

And leaves them all in the same place that they are, today...

Which is completely lacking in responsible for their lives...

I'm just wondering how long it will take people...before a few of them...a few of us...

Have the balls to admit that to themselves and to others...

Because if they don't...if we don't...

We are going literally nowhere fast...

And that is a guarantee...

This political moment...is one of such total and utter failure...in it's ability to achieve its goals...

Through the foolish, stupid, cowardly and ultimately doomed philosophy of forced progress...

That the one silver lining in this generally grey raincloud...

Is that everything that people are trying to achieve with this foolish little philosophy...

Is and will continue to be persistently undermined by it...

Until we choose something different...

Leaving people with the difficult choice...

Between their goals...

And their pride...

Something tells me that pride has to eventually give on that one...

But if I get suckered again...

I'm quitting...for good...

Until someone else antes up...

Pride...or an honest assessment of reality?...

It is the perpetual test that humanity faces...in every generation...

We will pass this test, eventually...

The question...is how long we have to fuck it up...before we face up to our failures...

Have a good week, everyone...

Love,
Ben