The end of my teaching career.

[labelleizzy]

it didn't feel like being crabs in a bucket
too lonely an experience for a plural metaphor.


though definitely there was a dragging down experience:

• anything exceptional
  
• anything experimental
  
• anything that broke the status quo

I expected we'd be raising each other up
not pulling someone back to toe the line
I expected us all to reach for the stars
not speak only when spoken to

I didn't realize my teaching internship
landed me in a diploma-mill
churning out inferior product
with very few value-add options

Should I have known better?
I didn't.
I have always been too trusting.

I was sent into the trenches
to build bridges with cardboard
and I was guilty when the bridges failed.

when I asked for lumber they said
"There's no budget for that
You'll have to find that yourself."
And some of them smirked.

I was a hero
but I couldn't see it
all I could see was
muddy trenches and disrespect
for miles in every direction

and when I was discharged
grateful and ashamed
I took my papers and went away
glad and sorrowful
that I was too soft for these wars.

I tend my garden on this faraway hillside
watch the struggle from a distance
climb the cliffs seeking perspective -
and maybe some new way to stop the war.


(this is my entry for this week's therealljidol.)

Comments

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Ah. This is so tragic and such a perfect use of the prompt and so very disturbing in its reality. Fantastic work here. Your opening two lines are stellar.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank you for the compliment and feedback!

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

This is just one of the many reasons why I ultimately decided against going into education. There's just so many things wrong with a lot of schools, these days, and too much blame put on teacher and not on the students or parents. It's... yeah. I don't blame you for leaving.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

it's been a long road to stop blaming myself for leaving.
Choosing to write about it, so, it was needed. And it feels really healthy. That school was a dysfunctional relationship for me. The students were great, and I feel so fucking privileged that I was able to be there for them, for so many of them that needed me.
but the school? and the district?

*exhale* there is something so broken, about all the systems of education I have worked in. (four districts, plus at least ten others I've substitute taught in). And after 5 years I think I understand more about WHAT is broken but it's the whole system.

If I can find a place to start a ripple effect from, to make things better, I think that would be an excellent life's work.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

ooooh

that bites home.

[temperance14.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, in a sharp, clear-cutting way.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

I've been distilling the experience down for years now...

Thanks, love.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

beautiful and sad

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

thank you. I'm hopeful in the end, because while the brokenness of the system dented me pretty hard, they didn't actually break me. And now maybe I can enact change from the outside.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i hope so! as i was just remarking on facebook, the internet has given isolated teachers who really want to change the system a way to get together and share notes like never before.

[tonithegreat.livejournal.com]

Aw. So sad that the prompt applies here. I like what you did with it.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I agree. Thank you.

[fodschwazzle.livejournal.com]

Oh lord this hits home. Very topical poem for me. Amazingly tragic and hopeful, encouraging and discouraging. Excellent work.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

thank you.
it's taken me awhile to see clearly how this all unfurled itself in my life. I am hopeful of being able to make a difference in some other way than teaching in the classroom... Writing this was one more step towards clarity.

[vodkafrenzy.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and yet sad. *nods*

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

This so sad, not just for the loss of your own dream but also because this could be true of almost _any_ teacher's experience these days.

This isn't how it was supposed to be, and it should not be such a battle to do well by students. :(

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

This was a really gorgeous poem about a horrible situation. Great language - I loved "value-add options" and "too lonely an experience for a plural metaphor."

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

man, this is just so sad. the fact that you compare teaching to war is really depressing, but well-done.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

I will never not be sad about the system chewing me up and spitting me out. I miss the kids and that sense of community more than I can even describe.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

it should not be such a battle to do well by students.

exactly what broke my heart about it.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

thank you, particularly for the specific feedback on phrases you found good. *nodding*

I miss them, you know? the kids? But you have to climb over so much bullshit just to do the actual teaching, you have so many impediments that other people intentionally put in your way... and you just don't always get the training, tools, supplies or support to Do The Work Right.

I'm good at the teaching, the relationships with the kids, the finding out what they need to learn and helping them learn it. But goddamn if that wasn't an even lonelier gig than librarianing.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

I'm totally not the first teacher I've known to use that comparison.
Far from it.
*sigh*

Schools are broken, society's broken, and the kids just want to grow and learn.

working on reading this: http://indigolunahealingart.tumblr.com/post/101183885377/booklovingdeathdefyingfreak-monobeartheater

because I think I know what they're going to be talking about, and I think I'm going to understand.

[crisp-sobriety.livejournal.com]

Totally with you on this. The education system is broken, and in many cases actively harmful, to the students and the teachers.

[karmasoup.livejournal.com]

I have actually been there. Sometimes you almost would really need to be Don Quixote to make it work. The rest of us know you can't build a ladder to the moon, especially not with only a toothpick for a tool. You were right to be relieved when you got out, and I certainly hope you've gone on to bigger and better things.

[i-17bingo.livejournal.com]

I was sent into the trenches
to build bridges with cardboard
and I was guilty when the bridges failed.

I always wonder, when stuck in a situation like this (or watching our society get stuck in a situation like this), if they just don't give a shit, or if they're just mean.

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[witches.livejournal.com]

this is fabulous <3

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks!

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

*hugs back*
Thanks.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

I think, like lots of things that go wrong on this scale, that there's lots of reasons. I think that fearful people have difficulty being compassionate, and that people become fearful at least in part, by not being sure that needs will be met or promises kept. I think that there are, among other things, corporate entities who have an interest in sabotaging or subverting american educational systems for their own reasons and profits.

I am angry and bitter with "the system" but I do not think I am wrong about this.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And it's a fucking shame the way we habitually waste acres of human potential, both teachers AND students.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Being validated is so fucking healing! And from someone else who has been there, I appreciate it even more.

(I even removed all my teaching related LJ icons because they were too fucking painful to look at. Sad but true.

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

Wow..this is beautiful..<3 Good use of the prompt and hits home..well done!

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

Awww. Thank you. <3

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

This has a very nice rhythm to to.

(Did you end up switching fields completely?)

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

I've ended up underemployed for the last four years or so. Took some short term and some contract gigs. Tried to get into the local Waldorf communities but apparently fucked something up, miscommunication that the schools aren't willing to share with me.

Been making art and jewelry, writing and keeping house. Couple of years ago I started the LJ tag "I'm the chatelaine dammit!" about homecaring.

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.