It's all in the attitude

I fall easily to pessimism. I generally expect the worst to happen just so I can be surprised and relieved when it doesn't because I HATE being let down. I can't stand to get excited about something and not have it work out the way I want. I guess that probably makes me a somewhat normal person, but it does send me into an especially severe downward spiral when I expect something is going to happen and it doesn't. #control freak

The one area of my life, however, where I am not a pessimist is with my students. People make jokes to me all the time about me being a teacher that watched too many movies where a person comes in to a school and works a miracle, turning the school around and winning the trust and love of what others think are crappy kids. It's true. "To Sir with Love" and "Dead Poet's Society," mixed with a lot of liberal guilt made me want to teach. I do walk around my classroom assuming that all my kids are going to go to college and lead better lives than their parents are, even though subconsciously I know that a lot of them won't. My conscious naïveté has bought me a lot of respect from them. Until last week.


Last week was horrible. The proverbial stars were not aligned whatsoever. One of my favorite kids got caught drinking in the bathroom and trafficking it to others and is now getting expelled, another's father committed suicide, there were stupid fights and drama going on everywhere. On top of that I was teaching them how to write an argument paper and most of them chose really heavy topics like abortion and gay marriage so that weighed me down (mostly because I had to bite my tongue to the ones that were taking the position opposite mine) and several of them didn't want to write papers because they realized it was something they would have to do on their own and not in a group. The backlash was serious and it was a week-long game of "Whack-a-Mole."


I was wandering around the hall, looking especially dejected, when a co-worker asked me if I was alright. I don't know her well, but I just took the opportunity to unload. I confessed that I felt like a terrible teacher because some of my students weren't understanding their paper and didn't want to write it (what 14 year old does, though?) and that behavior in general sucked. She gave me a long lecture about how all young teachers are idealists and I need to realize that I can't save everyone. Some kids will slip through the cracks and I can't do anything about it. They don't want to work, they will get left behind and that's the way it is. You just have to focus on the ones that will make it. So what did I do? I bought it. It took a lot less mental energy to concede that things were bigger than me. Free at last!


Then I paid for it double the next 2 days. They went from worse than normal to bad. Kids that never misbehaved with me were acting like giant jerks. It felt like no one was working, everyone was commenting on how Fromm is being a real "B" and I found myself saying things that I normally would never say. I became miserable and seriously considered another job. Then I realized something: things were just "uncomfortable" and the discomfort was all related to situations outside my classroom until I decided to adopt the mentality that some of these kids suck and always will and I can't stop it. Then it became unbearable.   

My pessimistic inclinations really screwed me and I felt terrible about it. So what does a good teacher do to win back her kids? Well, she would probably talk ad-nauseum about how she messed up and is human so she makes mistakes and apologize, but I just went and bought a bunch of star crunch and a movie and planned on winning them back through bribery. I thanked them for working so hard all week and explained that I know it's difficult to write an argument paper and made a deal that if they work hard for an hour, I'd hype them up on processed sugary snacks and watch part of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Worked like a charm. We were all back to our old selves and in the middle of practical jokes and class discussions about random topics, nearly all of them met the goal that I had set for the day. Thank God 8th graders are so easily bought. (Herman Cain, I know you're reading this. Don't get any ideas).

I learned a very important lesson about how to not become a burned-out, grumpy old hag before I really do move on to another career. I should say that the teacher with whom I had the discussion that temporarily converted me to what is probably realistic is great at her job but I personally have to pretend that I'm a super-hero to enjoy what I do. I'll keep pretending and hopefully the young minds to which I am entrusted continue to believe it.

Oh, hey.

So here I am with a blog. Having a blog is kind of an egotistical thing. It means that you assume people care what you think about enough to waste a few precious moments of their lives to read your musings.  Those of you who have known me since high school and certainly those of you that knew me in college understand that I do assume that people want to hear what's going through my head and you're probably wondering what took me so long to get one of these going. I have no idea what took me so long. I guess until now Facebook status updates were working just fine. Plus, my friends are pretty good listeners and humor me more than they probably should. I do have to confess, though, that I plan on my opinions making me a lot of money some day so I guess this is practice. Don't worry, I'll be sure to take it down a couple notches from Nancy Grace when my day comes.

There was a specific motivation for starting this blog. Over the last few years I've read blogs by quite a few of my friends and acquaintances and noticed that the blogging theme for women in my age group in this part of the country revolves around their experiences with making their new house a home, or being newly married, or starting to raise children. Love all of you that are sharing photos of your knitting projects and newly painted dining rooms and your frustration over the cost of organic baby food peas, but I'm not there yet. I might not be there for a long time because I'm not particularly interested in that at this point. I want to write about my life as an independent woman now-approaching her late 20's who soaks up a lot of culture and entertainment, loves to wear beautiful outfits, lives to eat and drink all that is delicious and insists on having an impact the state of the world while living in a city that usually makes it difficult to do any of that. You will also hear about my life as a teacher in a school full of kids that have lived interesting but challenging lives. And, if you know me, you know I'll share my thoughts on politics and social issues a lot. (And yes, I do consider fashion to be a social issue). This will be a manifesto of random topics and opinions by yours truly-- some will be deep, others will be shallow and I'll probably make you laugh, you will certainly raise your eyebrow and I might make someone mad. Oh, well. A guy once told me that honesty wasn't attractive in a woman, so obviously he liked to be lied to. If that's what you like, you better check out classy Casey Anthony's blog because I only tell you what I really think, for better or for worse. Enjoy.