Rethinking Perceptions

Monday morning I awoke with a pit in my stomach. I hadn't slept well at all the night before. You see, as a public school teacher I am a part of a union and our contract negotiations haven't been going well. Monday morning began the first day of a strike called by our association Tuesday of last week. I'd never done this before.

Driving to the district school where I was scheduled to picket, all sorts of thoughts ran through my mind. We were told that a group of counter-demonstrators were going to be protesting against us across the street. I envisioned rotten tomatoes flying in our general direction, but when I arrived on location, I found it to be a completely different experience.

Parents of children we taught in school had made us all sorts of snacks to get us through the long day ahead. There was even a group of parents and students who made signs and cheered for us. I can't describe how valued that made me feel! People drove by honking and giving us the thumbs up sign. Occasionally, we received other signs as well. It's interesting to see that when you find yourself in a situation like that how vulnerable you feel. There I was with a sign walking alongside a busy street. I felt like a sitting duck.

As a teacher who is dedicated to his students, I really struggled with the concept of a strike. I thought about what it would do to the parents who now had to make other arrangements for their children. I don't want my students to be out of school. I want to be able to teach them and help them grow into the men and women that they were born to be. But, as I considered the issue before me carefully, I came to the conclusion that I had an opportunity to teach them a powerful lesson indeed, by example. There are times in one's life that require you to stand up for yourself and for what you are worth. This is the lesson that I hope I can teach my students outside the classroom.

The kindnesses and the insults we received that first day were all magnified a hundredfold. Occasionally, people driving past would shout out the window, "Get back to work you lazy @#$@s!" or "greedy teachers!" It was then that I was struck with the realization that they had no idea who we were. The people they had yelled at were my colleagues and friends. These were good, hardworking, professional people, who never deserved to hear insults like that.

It made me think. How many times in my own life had I judged other people and their actions without really taking the time to get to know them, or to hear their story? How often have I said unkind words out of ignorance? Too often. It also made me realize that even the smallest acts of kindness, like a smile or a thumbs up can mean a world of difference to those who are facing challenging and extraordinary circumstances.

It's Thursday, early, early morning and the strike goes on. I'm on a journey, being taught as I go, guided as if by an Unseen Hand.

Here are some photos from the day.

Rethinking the Lotus V

As ninth-graders go, Terry was a pretty typical kid. He had average grades, average athletic ability, average looks. For the most part, that is how Terry viewed himself: middle of the road, nothing special. His father had died when Terry was in the fifth grade, and the loss was especially difficult for his mother. While his mother increased her already heavy drinking to relieve the pain she was experiencing, Terry muddled his way through middle school. He had been largely unnoticed by his teachers. After all, he wasn’t exceptionally bad, nor was he exceptionally good. He was, well, somewhere in the middle.

If you had asked him what his interests and hobbies were, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you much. His heart was in pain, though on the outside it really wasn’t observable. One day, a new student arrived at his lunch table, bearing news of enticing lotus fruit. His name was Gordon, and he was what the teachers and administrators would refer to as a “problem child.” He was open about the fact that he frequently used marijuana and would share stories of being high with the others at the lunch table. Intrigued, Terry began spending more time around Gordon, eventually riding the bus to his house after school one day. It was there that Terry first experimented with pot. He and Gordon began riding their dirt bikes to the middle of the woods. There they would “light up” after school. His mother, in a haze of alcohol, would rarely say anything to Terry about not coming home from school until hours after it had already ended. He would spray down his clothes with deodorant to cover up the scent of the smoke.

For the greater part of his ninth-grade year, Terry would steal money from his mother’s wallet and buy dope from Gordon to satisfy his ever-growing cravings for the drug. This wasn’t his personality. He wasn’t really a thief. But his demeanor changed, he became apathetic toward his schoolwork, and his grades began to plummet. He cared little about his future and his life, for thought of getting high consumed his thoughts.

The parallel between the mythical lotus and substance abuse is a fairly easy one to draw. When Terry was high, the fact that he was average didn’t matter. The fact that his father was dead didn’t matter. The fact that his mother was an alcoholic didn’t matter. When he was high, the marijuana whispered softly that all was right in the world and that he didn’t need to worry about his cares. The wounds of his heart were still throbbing, but he was, in the words of Pink Floyd, “comfortably numb.”

Rethinking "Love"

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to
love—and to put its trust in life. — Joseph Conrad

You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her. — Anonymous

Teens today have been wounded in a variety of ways. They are hurting. Outwardly, things may seem fine, but below the waters, there is a immense private suffering. Look at our society. What is put forth as the solution to our problems and our pain? It's romantic love, isn't it? Watch a few TV shows. The shows aimed at young people portray the main character trying to get a boyfriend or girlfriend. No doubt, it can be entertaining, but it won’t make things right in the world. Commercials communicate the same message. “Wear this deodorant and you’ll have to fight the girls off!” “Try this shampoo and the boys will flock to your side!” There are so many messages in our culture that sear the idea into the minds of adolescents that if you find the right person, it will make everything all right.

It makes sense then that when students search for answers to life’s heavy questions, they take their quest to the opposite sex. How many girls at the school lunch table have conversations that focus on boys? Quite a few! Do adolescent boys feel pressure to have sex with a girl? Absolutely! There are a great many unhealthy relationships in our secondary schools today. Why? Because students are looking for the answers they seek and the healing for their soul-wounds in the opposite sex, with little or no guidance from parents or teachers. Odysseus came upon such a dilemma when he encountered the beautiful sea nymph Calypso.