Misery is the River of the World, Everybody Row.

Contrary to what the title of this post might suggest, my first two days were, by and large, successful, free of obvious failures, and, most importantly, a release of the almost unbearable anxiety I was feeling from the thought of getting up in front of a new set of kids.  It is true that that anxiety has been replaced by a new weight upon my soul as I contemplate the vast sums of paperwork, planning, and drudgery that await me on top of somehow continuing to manage my classroom successfully without possessing any natural aptitude for it, but I appreciate the variety. 

As I prepare to reflect upon my first days in school with kids, I will continue to stick to my pledge of avoiding negativity and excessive complaints.  However, since my stress level is so high that some complaining is going to be inevitable, I'm going to set certain ground rules for what I deem acceptable and unacceptable complaints.  If only my classroom had such clear procedures.

1.  No complaining about the education level of the students.  
    To me, it seems absurd, if tempting, to complain about or disparage the children that you have because they do not read, write, speak, or complete math problems correctly.  This is like signing up to help fight forest fires and immediately complaining about the heat, quantity of fire, and the fact that all the trees are burning up.  Except, instead of volunteering, you are being paid 32,000 dollars a year (a respectable sum for most people in this country and especially the world) and receiving a free graduate degree and a laptop (courtesy of the recovering Morgan Freeman) to do a job that, while incredibly stressful and time-consuming, puts you in no life-threatening danger.  At the end of the day, at least in the case of teachers in the program, you probably have the easiest life out of all the people in your classroom, whether we are talking about the long or short term.  I am very willing to argue this with anyone.  No one feels more exhausted than I am, but I will refuse to build myself back up by disparaging my students, even the ones that appear poised to irritate me in the coming months, and I absolutely refuse to dwell on the skills that they lack.  The fact that these deficiencies are primarily not their faults as individuals seems to be the whole point of coming here in the first place.

2.  As little complaining as humanly possible about other teachers and the administration:
    One pleasant surprise about North Panola has been the high quality of administration and teachers at the school.  If I was being honest with myself I would say that I feel like I have a chance to be pretty good teacher (though there are other possible outcomes), but I would not be surprised if, at the end of the year, I was still in the lower percentiles of teachers there.  Like I said, that has nothing to do with me, but is a testament to the extent that having experience, a shared background with your students, and a certain personality type are incredible advantages when it comes to teaching.  This again makes me wonder a little about our program design.  On average, does someone like me, a relatively soft-at-heart, well-meaning, well-educated, white northener (no, this does not describe everyone in the program, but it represents a good portion) have the same ceiling for teaching-quality as someone who came out of the schools that we are teaching in, has been successful in spite of that, has the same background, and has always wanted to be a teacher, suggesting their personality type might be more in line with an ideal teacher than people who decide to give it a shot after graduating?  I would say no.  I still think this program does a very good job by supplying these schools with good teachers.  I just think it could do even more good if it offered its benefits (or at least more of them) and its training to people who deserve it more, are more suited, and are more likely to stay in the field and especially in the area.

 Back to the main point, however, the reason I'm witholding my complaints about the administration is that, while of course there are things that could have gone smoother, disruptions that could have been avoided, and information I would have liked to have had earlier, it seems like an incredibly hard job.  I find managing a single classroom and coming up with a file for each person to be incredibly intimidating, I do not know how I would react to trying to handle an entire school.   Of course, there are plenty of bad principals out there in Mississippi, but I'm willing to give mine the benefit out of the doubt and, if that benefit runs outs, I'll try to channel that energy I would devote to complaining towards the things I need to improve in handling my small, sliver of what goes on in that school.

3.  I will not complain about the cultural difference between me and my students or the problems that result from them.
    My students did not ask me to come to Mississippi.  Reggie Barnes, my favorite part of summer training, made the point that we are the intruders, not the students.  It is true that my students do things, make statements, and possess names that appear unusual to a white person from New York.  That is not their problem.  It is mine.  I will make my best effort to have my world fade into theirs as much as possible.  To the extent that it is not or that I resist, I will not hold our differences against them.  I can handle them being held against me.  They have more things of true importance to worry about in their own lives and possess less rights as human beings than I do.

With these limits in mind, I'll hold off on writing anything until later when I have more time to think and have gotten more preparation and organization done.  To be honest, a lot of my stress and general edginess stems from personal issues rather than professional.  If I was doing this without massive credit card debt and car trouble and while continuing to live with my girlfriend for the next two years instead of dealing with the separation, it would still be hard but I would be significantly more confident in my ability to handle it than I have been lately.  All that said, I am still alive and taking it one day and many, many hours of preparation at a time.  Part of me hopes that I'll be able to come up for air at some point in the next couple months and feel a little more in control, but life has very little to do with hope and a lot more to do with surviving, managing, and finding some kind of happiness in whats in front of you.  It very truly could be a lot worse.