Quality people

I have to say that the best part of this job - for all of its frustrations - is the people I work with.

It is kind of a lesson in cream rising to the top, within any particular situation. Because my administration, I think, are really some of the most quality people in the building and some of the most quality people I've met in my life.

This work is really hard. And anyone who sticks with it for that long has a lot of respect from me.

But it really nice to have people in positions of authority and even colleagues who I can talk with, openly, who listen and have constructive advice to offer, generally, and who are not so stuck on themselves and self-preservation that they become more of a burden than they do a help, as my administration, and too many teachers were, last year, for me. I've made my own mistakes as a teacher to be responsible for. But working with people who are always dragging you down and making life hell is really the worst thing for a person to experience on a job.

And the strongest quality about this school is the quality of the people I work with. It's one if not the least threatening environment I've ever work in, so I can talk with colleagues and administrators and they are generally people who care more about kids and the work than most teachers and administrators I've work with, up to this point.

I'm frustrated. Because I feel like I'm offering help to kids that don't want the help much of the time. They need it. But they don't want it, often. And it gets tiring dealing with the defenses of teachers as well as kids for why kids are behaving so poorly rather than just saying, "Who knows all the reasons these kids act so badly. We care about them. And we are sticking by them despite all of that because we care. And someone has to teach them to behave better, or else there really is very little hope for these kids. And if they were my kid, I would want them to have teachers who cared that much, no matter what explanation we could come up with for their behavior."

But there is a part of me who also misses, badly, the experience of succeeding and achieving on my own merits and not having it dependent on the efforts of those who are least prepared to achieve, who have contempt for that kind of achievement, often, as much as resisting it, who often have few intentions of really turning that around because life doesn't seem so bad as a badass or because school or growing up just isn't that important to them, and whom everyone around them seems more committed to defending their behavior than correcting it or working to improve their behavior.

There is a part of me who misses working for excellence and having it recognized. Where caring is seen as a strength (although, the truth is that caring seems to always be taken as weakness, no matter where you are, when everyone is rationalizing what shitheads they are). I miss achieving excellence on my own merits, or even failing on my own merits, but having any recognition, awards, or other reinforcements being based on my own abilities and not on the vagaries of the behavior of others that I have very little if any control over.

Special education feels, often, like one long catch-22, where everything I do, because it never gets us to a goal that is always elusive is never, ever good enough. And that wears on my heart, after awhile. If I didn't care about the kids so much, I wouldn't put up with any of it, is the truth. The behavior from the kids, the behavior of parents, the half-ass reasoning and commitment of too many teachers, the abuse from administrators that I dealt with last year, and all of the bullshit I have experienced in this career.

That's why I'm always thinking about other options.

I want to love this job like my last relationship where I never thought about anything else because I loved that relationship that much. I want to either love my job, that much, to be rewarded, in lieu of loving a job that much, or know that I am doing something that really matters that much.

Right now, I'm not getting enough indication that this work really matters that much to anyone, really. Certainly not to the kids, most of whom would love to see me quit, at this point, I'm sure, since I guess I have something of a reputation as the tough teacher in the cluster. And many of the teachers would write me off as yet one more reason that there isn't much hope with these kids anyway. I know that all of the teachers and administrators at this job care more than most teachers or administrators I've encountered, because they treat me and everyone more decent than any crew of teachers or administrators I have ever worked with.

But it is discouraging that so many of these same people seem to act like they really don't think this work matters.

Because, after awhile, when most people you are working with think that your work doesn't really matter, maybe it really doesn't. If it doesn't matter to the people who are doing the work - either kids or adults - maybe it really doesn't. Maybe I need to let people live their lives day-to-day and stop getting in the way of that and go live a life that has integrity but which is less frustrating, with more rewards, and less dependent on the vagaries of the behavior of others.

Investment has a calling for me, for that reason. Once you get your head around it, Warren Buffet's $62 billion is not too much of a mystery. It's just investing with intelligence and integrity. That's why Benjamin Graham called his book the Intelligent Investor. And Buffet can live his life working with one partner, his best friend, who he trusts, make a shitload of money, and be dependent on only those businesses and partners he trusts. He can give his money to good causes. But he is not dependent on his charity work to achieve important things in the world.

And if this work really doesn't matter that much, maybe that would be a better route for me.

That and some writing.

I don't know. I'll keep chewing on it.