I must have the most dangerous job on earth. The media hates teachers right about now. We get summers off, we are glorified babysitters, we allow bullying to run rampant within our walls and we are so lazy that we need a union to protect us from our own ineptness. The president endorses the marriage of two men over the livelihood of the thousands that are working overtime to get these kids what they need. Men in society are construction workers or buffoons on ABC Family shows, but not teachers (unless you count the liberal professor in college or the literature high school teacher with dreamy eyes and a weakness for teenage girls). I work in a profession dominated by women. I know I'm making two separate arguments here, one of danger and one of passiveness. It's dangerous to work with kids, this has always been somewhat true for me. It's not dangerous to have to tone down the essence of what I am.
I was reminded how dangerous my job can be last week. It first started with successive absences which either exposed a substitute teacher for being under qualified or it proved that I am unable to sever the umbilical cord attached to my students. During my hiatus, the room became a bedlam of thrown tennis balls (they serve as chair silencers), racial slurs, screaming fits, shoving matches and middle-finger salutes. My colleague mimics the chicken-coop movement of the sub I had Friday, extinguishing one fire before being engulfed by another. In the melee, the kids were removed from participating in the Bouncy House celebration next week.
My wife is prone to give me the eye from time to time, the emasculating reminder that I overstretch my man-pant boundaries. This is part 2 of my dangerous mission. Not only do I work with women (and I'm only pointing this out in a negative in terms of not having another man to share job experiences with like I had in the past. I do think teaching needs more men, but not necessarily because we can do it better. Together, men and women can provide that bond that kids don't get at home, the maternal and the fatherly.) but I work with my wife as well. She sees my insecurities manifest themselves in all sorts of endeavors. I become some hydra-man as I tentacle my influence on the basketball court taking score and reffing the games, or eating with my Wednesday 3rd grade girls who I believe like the fact they can sit on rolling chairs and do a conga line during lunch than my conversation. In the mean time I try and complete all the possible teacher duties one has during the day--grading papers, re-directing students, coordinating meetings, etc. It's what all teachers do. Nothing more, nothing special. And I'm sure each teacher has their "thing", the little extras they do that make their classrooms unique. I'm no different. I'm working on realizing that my gifts have nothing to do with anyone else's gift down the hallway, or that my gift is somewhat better or more genuine. That's being a man too, realizing that I don't have to be the end all be all.
So when my class behaves, I do walk with pride. Who wouldn't? When they freak out when a sub is there, is it an indication that the sub shouldn't have ever stepped into the room or does it mean they will only listen to me? And if they only listen to me, if their true nature is somehow boiling just under the surface does it mean that they respect me, fear me, or are intimidated by me. I think I've said on here before that I feel I'm being attacked and the attack is on my masculinity. No one wants an aggressive, forceful male presence at school. That's dangerous. Just look what we do to active boys in school. Sit down, shut up, do your work, don't do that. We don't know how to harness that energy because we are constantly being told by our mothers, our teachers and now, my boss to control my tone, the tenor of my voice, my presence.
So this week it has been silence in room 160. I haven't had my hallway conversations with my chosen few. No lunch bunch. No hi-fives to the little ones. I know this is not my wife's intention for me to stifle me, but it's my over reaction to her prompst, my boss's hinted reprimands. In a sense, this is the danger. It's easy to overreact. Easy to stumble. Easy to err. Dangerous is trusting in the big picture. I've been all over my new kids lately. Blaming them for being dumped in my classroom without school supplies. Blaming them for starting fights. Blaming them for coming from a charter. Is this what God meant when he made me a rock, the leader in my building?
My fourth graders finished watching "Sounder" (the Martin Ritt version. I have yet to watch the updated version) today. The movie has always been a favorite of mine. Later, I've come to realize how special the book and film are in a way that I've grown to appreciate. The mother's faith, the boy's journey to find his father. Aint no journey hopeless, the boy says. The boy is searching for the namesake that only his dad can provide. His masculinity turns aggressive in his mind in the dreams of retaliation against the white, nameless powers of authority. In the book, the boy eventually meets a teacher who takes him in, provides that bond that his father cannot provide (and just how many black men were taken away in the times of slavery, and later, sharecropping from their families? How many fail to provide that bond to their sons now?). The movie presents her as a black woman, and I don't question the move. It's honest, truthful. A woman provides so much for us. But a man balances out that longing of spirit. Boys will search far and wide for their father. Some on journeys, some on aggressive and destructive detours.
By the end of the movie, I'm always crying. Here, the crippled dad returns. Aint no journey hopeless. He returns home as a husband and a father. You've got to beat the life that's been laid out for you, he tells the son. Sends him to school. Bestows the namesake. You are worthy, son.
Perhaps my kids need more attention. 29 of them. Dangerous. The autistic kid yearning for answers. The new girl who stumbled in how to handle the looks of new faces. The kid who tells me all about her beauty pageant competition. The boys and their jokes. Will they understand that their journey isn't hopeless. I drag a dead leg in their wake, pushing them onto the radiance they cannot see. Dangerous.
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