The Terrors of Teaching: Part I
I have taught for 7 years. I returned to the school from which I graduated many years ago. Walking down the halls during my first couple of years, I was fill with a variety of emotions. There is one stop that alumni refer to as The Indian Tile. Each time I would cross that section, an area where many of us would meet up between classes, I felt like I was being transported to the past.
I was an academically advanced student and I was raise with very high morals. Yet, I became a state ward who did not have any regard for my future.
Despite the best attempts by my parents, I had serious behavior and mood disturbances throughout junior high and high school. After trying every intervention possible, I had come to a place of potential legal trouble and/or serious physical injury. By 10th grade, there was nothing anyone could do to stop me from "going 100 miles per hour towards a concrete wall," as my mother would say. She mostly likely suffered the most because she could not save me from myself.
I wasn't a drug user, I wasn't a thief, and I wasn't promiscuous (although, all those rumors followed me throughout high school). I was angry and very defiant; it sounds so simple and easy to handle, but it certainly was not for those that tried to help me. I couldn't control my rage and anyone was a potential victim of a blow-up or a fight. I lived for picking fights during those days for the slightest offense, even if I knew that I wasn't going to "win." With what we as a society now know, one could say that I was a bully. It can also be argued that I was teenager with long-standing post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and clinical depression. Anger and depression was all that I felt for many years; the only way that I knew how to cope with my "diagnoses" was to lash out with vicious verbal and physical attacks.
I can never apologize enough to the people who I unjustly hurt.
As a teacher, I have seen children who truly know what trauma and suffering is in their young lives. While most parents seem to do the best that they can, there are always those that abuse and/or neglect the needs of their children.
My school has many problems, but the lack of security at home and the amplified rate of "fight or flight" is a major factor. In fact, school serves as a safe haven for many kids.
The fact is that our schools are not going to have great change until the community rallies together to bring about change in our neighborhoods.
Sadly, the socioeconomic struggles have bled over to the schools. The two schools in this video are within walking distance from another. It was said that the "lesser school" mentioned was said to be transformed into a similiar school to the "nicer one." There have been changes that have occured within our district since that was stated and I am holding faith that all students will recieve a "fair and equitable" education regardless of any behavioral or socioeconomical struggles.
Until Next Time,
LEARN LOUDLY
