Monday, May 05, 2008

God help me


Booker T. Washington Middle, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

So I had an interview at Booker T. today. It went very well. We discussed a return to the arts-integration focus Booker T. had before its calamitous fall the last five years into wretched and abysmal decay.

If they offer me a job I might take it, despite better offers at much safer schools. What the fuck is wrong with me? This is the school where attacks on staff are leading the charge in violence-prone B'more. The school where I've had weapons in the classroom, where I've seen kids kicked in the head, where I've been called a "cracker ass muthafucka" by students on numerous occasions. Where just today I had a girl screaming "stop grabbing my tit muthafucka" as a boy wrestled her to the ground and I had to pick him up by the ears to get his filthy paws off her.

I am so torn. Booker T. is the school that needs me most, my desire to teach high schoolers aside.

Oh, God. Maybe they will make this decision easy by not offering me the job.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

IIIII can make this decision easy for you if you want me to...

I know it SOUNDS like a golden paradise and all, but I think there MIIIIGHT be a few downsides to it you may not have considered thoroughly...

:P jv

Anonymous said...

Ah, where and whom to teach ...

I'll make this very easy for you.

Suppose you were dying of thirst, and I offered you a glass of clean water.

People who look a lot like me have previously offered you water that was laced with poison.

I try to convince you that what I have is good for you and will save your life, but your previous experiences, over which I have no control, prevent you from trusting me and accepting what I offer.

So you die of thirst, and I suffer from profound frustration.

You should teach where the students will let you, and where you feel you can comfortably do so, that is, "teach" without having to constantly "persuade."

Better folks than me, of course, continue to try and bring water to those who are thirsty.

You may also feel, a bit, that students at better schools don't "need" you as much. The truth is you will be a powerful force in the lives of many, as you have already been, no matter where you teach.

I have strong bonds with many of my current and former students, who have come from a variety of social experiences. They all need or needed me in some way.

I probably needed them too.

I hope this is worthwhile advice.

Cheers,

Earth Dragon

Anonymous said...

Hey! Think you've done more lately than most people will in their lifetime, so don't worry about it. ED has some good advice I think. I'm terrible at that.

Had a dream last night, you were in it--you were wearing an expensive space-age material shirt created by your designer friend. It was lime green with pools of mercury in the shape of fig leaves. I was insanely jealous!


Nick

Geoff said...

You need to get this shirt design on paper so we can have them made. Not sure how to keep the mercury in place, however. Some sort of force field? Vibrational energy? Intense micro-freezers? Tiny telekinetic organisms?