Road Trip Recap

Other possible titles for this post:
"Too Young to be Old; Too Old to be Young."
Or, "Big Ball of Awkward."
Or perhaps, "Student Teacher Temptress." Please God, no.

Gah. I'm still cringing.

The boys talked about their drinking stories the whole way up. Little Lincoln ended up going in a different car so they had no incentive to censor-- apparently, I wasn't reason enough. I told them, "I'm going to pretend you're talking about Koolaid." Tried to distract them with traveling stories, but as soon as they had a chance to talk again, we were once more talking about inebriation and destruction of property.

Annie texted me in response to this report: "Haha! I love how comfortable they are with you!"

Well... or not. Told Viola about the car ride and she said, "You really shouldn't let them talk about that stuff-- it could misconstrued as you, like, encouraging them to do that. You just have to be careful-- make sure you tell them that they can't talk about that anymore with you."

"Right. You're absolutely right," I nodded. Thought: "Stupid. Stupid. How did I not figure that out when they were talking about it?"

Then she said, "I have to tell you what the girls told me in my car: apparently Dylan has a HUGE crush on you!" She laughed.

"Oh nooo..." I said.

Tried to act normal about everything though. The boys rode in my car the whole weekend, so I tried adjusting my demeanor to a more ADULT, PROFESSIONAL, I-am-NOT-in-fact-closer-to-your-generation-than-to-my-middle-aged-colleagues kind of attitude. I think I was kind of awkward about it though. I ended up being mostly sarcastic and grumpy.

Friday afternoon, I heard one of the girls, Kimberly-- a chatty, brash, self-identified lesbian say, "I want Greta on my team!"
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing!" she grinned.

I found out that the boys-slash-Kimberly called out "My team" whenever they saw someone that they wanted "dibs" over-- that they were attracted to. I reported this finding to Viola.
"Wait-- didn't someone call you for THEIR team?" she asked.
"Yes," I said grimly. "Kimberly." And she laughed again.

The worst was Friday night though. Jane, the theatre teacher, had to go tell the kids to be quiet. She'd mentioned earlier in the day that she felt like she always had to be the bad guy, so I decided to go stand beside her in solidarity. She was standing in front of the guys' room, and when I stood beside her and looked into the room, I saw Aaron in just his shorts. My eyes opened wide and I turned right around to walk back to my room.

This was a mistake. Because by LEAVING, it meant Aaron was able to CHASE AFTER ME. Which he did. Naked chested. And then tried to thrust his naked-chestedness into the room as I tried to shut the door on him.

Are you cringing? Because FRICK, I am.

This is what I should have done: I should have been stoic and aloof in the first place, and stayed the course beside Jane as she told them to shut up, never mind the scantily clad high-schoolers. OR, if I couldn't have done that, I should have turned around on Aaron and unleashed the wrath of a thousand furies by roaring, "THAT IS COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE AND YOU NEED TO STAND DOWN SOLDIER!" Instead, I freaked out, tried to run away, ended up batting him away like a stupid teenager, and just about burned up in blushingness.

The whole weekend was a miserable confrontation with THE LINE. I feel like "the line" has been well-established with my freshmen and sophomores. They KNOW I'm their teacher, and they treat me as such. None of them would ever even THINK of chasing me down a hotel hallway, and if they did, I KNOW my first instinct would be to ask them incredulously, "What the H are you doing??" But I haven't practiced being a teacher to seniors yet-- and they haven't seen me as the up-front teacher of a lesson, or as the governor of a classroom. To them-- I'm the exception. I'm the cute young intern who lets them get AWAY with stuff. Of course they do: kids are always pushing boundaries; it's MY job to assert myself and make sure they follow them. But when a 6'2" mostly naked 18-year-old is chasing me down a hallway, my instincts kick in, and unfortunately: my instincts in those situations still say RUN.

Complicating things further is the fact that, under normal circumstances, I WOULD probably pal around with these kids. When we dropped them off at the dance on Friday night, I started getting into the music and thought it would be fun to go in and dance WITH them-- but realized, of course, that I couldn't. I "got" all their pop-culture references, and all their jokes. They're all cool, interesting people-- and being with the boys put me in the same frame of mind as being with my little brother, who's their same age. I realized that my reaction to their stories in the car-- laughing and chiding them-- was the same kind of reaction I have when my little brother tells me a story of misbehavin'. That was the instinctual response. But the response that I must learn is not the "big sister" response. It is not the "25-year-old" response. It is not the "friend" response. It is the TEACHER response.

"Teacher response" hindsight is 20/20. And makes me feel incredibly foolish when analyzing the actions that actually occurred.

Viola returned to the subject today, saying that I should have distanced myself from Dylan as soon as I realized that he had a crush on me, and went on further to say that running away from Aaron seemed flirtatious. I spent the rest of the day feeling horrified and mortified. Morhorified. Though she told me she knew I didn't mean to come across that way at ALL and that I clearly wasn't doing anything wrong intentionally, I just had to be very careful with these boys. Her ending disclaimer didn't make me feel much better.

I know I'm learning still. I know I'll have a brand new slate next year. I know that the next time any one of these situations happens I will KNOW how to respond. But in the meantime...

Gah. I'm still cringing.

Road Trip

So here's the story.

Tomorrow (Friday), I'm driving to Bellingham with Viola, the theatre teacher Jane, and about 11 of the students. We're going to a high-school theatre conference thing to perform a cutting of our school musical, Oliver. Today, after our final rehearsal, we figured out which kids would drive with which teachers. Jane and Viola claimed kids first.

I got all the boys.

This is my car:

Aaron: Our tech guy. 18, tall, one of the star basketball players, handsome, volatile, troubled, easily angered. But smily.

Leon: Playing Mr. Bumble. Also a Senior. Square, swarthy, and typically wears long jerseys, baseball hats, and big gold chains with fancy medallions. Speaks with a lisp; sings like butter.

Lincoln: Playing Oliver; our little one. Absolutely adorable. Just on the verge of puberty, which terrified Jane during casting since she worried his angelic high voice might drop mid-quarter. Long lashes around sweet blue eyes, and some of the biggest feet I've ever seen.

Dylan: Playing Fagin. Dyed black hair, long long skinny legs, wrapped in long long skinny jeans; giant gauges in his ears. Has apparently been a model for "edgy" publications. The best actor in the bunch, and when he rubs his hands together as the avaricious Fagin, and unfolds his long legs in giant, cartoonish steps, he's absolutely hysterical.

That's sort of my school in a nutshell. Or-- a Honda Accord, rather.

I'm actually really excited for my carload. I hope we have fun!

The Disentangling

Taught all day today and feel a bit knackered. I'm supposed to be responding to my grad school classmates in an online discussion right now, but I need to hit the refresh button on my brain first.

Therefore:

Blogging.

(When I first wrote 'blogging,' I wrote 'boggling' which would not be an inaccurate description of current self.)

Last week, I snapped at this boy named Dylan. Dylan is one of a few students that I think of as "peeing puppy dogs." They're totally adorable, but totally frustrating-- never getting their work in, making low efforts when they do, and plus, they lie all the time or tell stories to get out of stuff. Think of a little brown-eyed pup grinning up at you with this disarming expression... while pissing all over your new carpet.
"Dylan, what is this?"
"My in-class essay."
"Yeah... but... you wrote a paragraph."
(Shrugs and grins.)
"And you brought it in 10 minutes early. You could have spent 10 more minutes on this. You know that we're looking for like five paragraphs, right?"
"I guess." (Grins.)
"Dylan, this is lame."
(Laughs sheepishly and shrugs.)
"You can do so much better than this. This is seriously lame."
"Sorry..." (Grin.)
I heaved an angry sigh, and threw down his paper on the table. "Go sit down."
And he shuffled off to his desk.

I immediately felt guilty. Why didn't I leave it on an inspirational note? Is he really going to try harder if I just tell him he's lame?

After class I tried again.
"Dylan. I don't want to just leave this by telling you you're lame. I think what you DID on that test is lame, because I know you can do better than that. Viola and I can't help you get better if you don't try. It's like basketball practice. If you show up and just sit on the bench, we're never going to be able to give you helpful pointers to improve your game. You HAVE to try. I really believe you can do better than this, and we can HELP you be a better writer if you GIVE that to us. Okay?"
He grinned shyly. "Okay." Then he paused. "Um... Greta? Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," I said, smiling. Finally. He gets it. This is one of those great moments.
But he burst my bubble. "How are your FEET so small?" he said, wrinkling his nose, and grinning.

ARGH. Today he wasn't even trying to be cute: he was just contrary and apathetic and rude. I thought to myself, "You're not even the peeing puppy today. You're diarrhea puppy." So I put him outside. When I went out in the hall to talk to him later on, he told me that there was, "a lot of drama going on, and he was just sick of it." I told him that I understood drama could make things frustrating, and that I would try to go easy on him-- but that he needed to meet me halfway. Who even knows if he was telling the truth. I know he doesn't have it easy. But does he have it as hard as he'd like me to think?

When I drove home today, I felt tired. It had just been a long day. I still feel tired.

Two songs came on the radio. First, "Washed by the Water," by Needtobreathe. Second, "Revelation," by Third Day. Both songs that had gone on my "New 2" playlist, which had been created during a very stressful time of life.

I remembered a picture I'd gotten in my head once, during that time. In my head, I pictured myself on a dark beach, sitting on packed sand with my knees clutched to my chest. On the shoreline in front of me, I saw endless piles of garbage. The sky over the ocean was dark grey and stormy-- but beneath that sky, there hovered a large, bluish spirit. She guided the waves in and out, to the rhythm of my breathing. In, and they washed up over the garbage, stopping just short of my toes. Out, and they took some of the garbage with them-- pulling cans and old plastic wrappers away to hide forever in the ocean's secret deep. She continued to guide the waves: in, and out. In and out. And piece by piece, the shoreline began to clear.

Then I pictured someone close to me-- someone that I've been worried about. It was Christmas morning in this picture, but this person wasn't celebrating. She was wrapped in string-- tangled up in so many strings, and each one was a spot of pitch from her past experiences, her burdened living that wouldn't let her go. One was her relationship with her dad-- and there were memory strings and conversation strings and disappointment strings knotted with just that one. One was her negative body image, and knotted there were magazine strings, and media strings, and comment strings, and mirror strings, and cruel self-thought strings. There were strings of financial stress, and strings of worldly expectations, and strings of an unknown fearsome future-- there were so MANY. So many: so so many. And she was so tangled.

But God was in the room-- it was Jesus this morning, but He wasn't His Christmas-baby self. He was a grown up, wearing khaki pants, and a brown sweater vest with a brown tie, and he had his sleeves rolled up. I don't know about His face, but it was a soft expression. And when He focused on the strings, they began to snap-- one, by one, by one. And she slowly gained movement. The strings began to untangle, and she became more and more free.

And then the picture went back to the beach. But this time, the sky was clear and blue. There was no storm; only a soft breeze. I was on my feet, in a white dress, and my head was up, and my shoulders were back. The beach was clear: it was only soft bleached sand for as far as I could see. I began walking along the beach, feeling that breeze whisper around my neck and through my hair, and I felt such a deep peace, and such a pure joy, and such a real freedom. And though I didn't see Him yet, I knew that God was walking towards me.

And I thought, "In the end-- it's just Him. We begin as free souls-- and we end as free souls. We become so burdened in the meantime. But He frees us from the garbage-- He frees us from the tangling. In the end it's all clear-- it's just that long, white beach."

Since then, when feeling overwhelmed or stressed, I picture those waves coming in over that litter-ridden shore, and pulling it out, bit by bit. And I breathe to the rhythm of the waves in my mind. Today, when driving home, I pictured Dylan. And I pictured him all tangled up. And I thought, "They ARE all tangled up-- every one of them. They're so burdened and tangled and confined." I thought of Isaac, and Andre, and K, and all the kids I've mentioned over the last six months, and all the tough things I've discovered that they face every day.

Maybe my mission as a teacher is simply to help them with the disentangling. I know I can't articulate that in words like Jesus, or God-- at least not in public schools-- but I can articulate it through kindness, and encouragement, and belief, and respect-- even in ceaseless beleaguering. I can articulate it with words like Hope, and Freedom, and Peace, and Future. I can try to show them love that looks like a cleansing wave, or a snapped string, or a long white beach.