Assignment 6

Not feeling any of these from details from these chapters? Go back to the work we did about “boxing” in our identity and classifications. This one is great to use for conflict and that micro vs macro essential question.

Creative Writing 6 - My Example

The Things I Carry

I.

I loved my time at King. I’ve never worked harder or been more stressed. 5 hours of sleep was a blessing and a rare occurrence. Students challenged me. Situations frustrated me. My positive memories have plenty of counteracting lows to be sure.

The worst was with my other cooperating teacher. Mr. Fitzpatrick was affectionately called Fitz by most of his students. He coached football at the school. He was expecting his first baby at the end of the year. I can still remember a pregnant 16-year-old breaking down beyond words when she came for make-up work at the end of the day on a Friday. Before she drifted in through the door, Fitz and I had been taking in a quiet moment after dismissal to recount the crazy week and make jokes to lighten our load.

Tamira had proven to be one of the most concerned and considerate students in the class. She cared about her grades. She respected her peers and teachers. She spoke often of trying to get ahead now with the baby approaching. She was trying to explain to us that she had missed class after being shoved to the ground on her bulging belly, handcuffed, and detained the entire school day for some truancy mix-up that was from two years ago - that is the pace of the system in Philly.

She couldn’t make it past this. Her words became babble. Soon the rambling was replaced with tears. Fitz hugged her. Embraced her. No words, just humanity for a shitty situation. What else could he do? Pitying a person can never help them. Understanding is the least we should always offer. I’ll never forget that moment and I know it’s not something any words can do justice to here. More than anything else it was our frustration over our own sense of powerlessness in that moment that defines it. My cooperating teacher and I didn’t talk about it afterwards because there was nothing to say beyond cursing and disbelief. That powerlessness, I have learned, is a part of the job in teaching and Philly. You carry emptiness with you out of necessity.

II.

Teaching is not the kind of job that you leave at work. It follows you to the car and resonates during your entire drive. This life is full of ghosts. You take it home with you, literally the work of course, but it’s far more than that. Even when you don’t realize you’re thinking about it, your subconscious is working through the thick of it. You worry about your kids. You’re full of hope. And you constantly feel the gravity of the pressure to get this right because it matters.

You want to reach them. You want to reach all of them, and even though you know you’ll never reach all of them, you still strive to. Everyday. Single. Day. I

I’m proud to be in the trenches of a Philadelphia school. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be proud of where and how I teach and that’s something I carry quietly with me everywhere I go. I make a difference. I find what I do fulfilling and worthwhile. The problem is not everyone else does.

Fran told me once, that she thought I had come into education during the “dark ages”. I’ve always felt I’m a realistic optimist (though I like Jon Stewart and his “angry optimist” description even better). Getting my start in teaching at King the year before it was converted into a Renaissance school has exposed me to some of the despair and darkness in my profession right now. As I’ve continued on these last ten years I’ve watched as teaching has been attacked and frayed at all of its corners. Now I’ve watched Betsy Devos come to a house fire swinging a bucket of gasoline glibly.

I can only continue working and hope that the cycle rotates and we get back to some enlightened thinking and positive support. In the meantime, I’m here with my students. If I carry emptiness in one pocket, there is always fire in the other.

III.

There’s passion of course. There’s love for the subject, and creativity, and the challenges, and the students, and understanding the bullshit and unfairness they’ve stuck on us. But that’s not what this story is really about. That is the fire you must carry.

This story is about the pressure to maintain balance and the fear of what happens if you fail. Because if you fail, you’re failing people. People that you love and care about. People that you spend more time with over the course of a year (or a few years) than their own parents and your own wife and kid.

The fairness manifests itself in finding the balance between always caring but never being consumed. It is a tightrope walk, blindfolded, with fears whispering in your ears about falling. Holding emptiness and carrying fire without letting either one devour you. Managing to have room to exist between those two. That is what teaching is for me. An exercise in eternal optimism and the most important of grinds.