TibKat's Insight's
Friday, May 19, 2006
Roller Coaster
Alright, so it’s been awhile since I have felt motivated to sit down and write in my blog. My school year is wrapping up tomorrow and I and my friend will be embarking on some new adventures. I am so excited to reach for my future right now and know she is too. Yet at the same time I can’t help but look back at the year behind me.I was talking with my sister tonight who gave me an analogy about life and to better explain, I believe, where she is, she said, “Life is a roller coaster, it has its ups and downs.”
I had also heard something in passing said about my life awhile back, something to the effect that I have it so cushy, that I don’t remember how it is for some of us who are struggling. This floored me.
Yes, I am “blessed” to be so happy and I am blessed to have my health and family and well to be honest a roof over my head. This is something I am fully aware of and hope I don’t take for granted. My husband and I live out in a very rural area of AZ. We made this move on a whim, a year ago I accepted a job to teach at a charter school, to teach what I love, Drama! My journey here was not what I would call “so cushy”.
Life is a roller coaster indeed, sometimes though; we need to know that we can choose to get off.
In starting out this year I have had a wide arrange of students, some very challenging and rewarding and some very angry. I had approximately 12 to 15 in a class and was not only teaching Drama to students who didn’t want to be taking Drama and teaching Social Studies, which I had never taught before. I struggled. I fought to reach my students; I wanted to give them the chance to experience the shear joy one can have through drama. They resisted and fought back. I had a few fights break out in class, student’s swearing at me and insulting me and was advised to try a different approach by my administration. Few things worked, most things didn’t.
What I’ve felt I have learned over this past year, is that no matter how hard you try to help others, if they aren’t willing to help themselves, you can’t do it for them. Being the “Big Sister” in my family I have always tried to “help” every one else, whether they want it or not. Usually they don’t. All I can do is offer my assistance or my hand as they struggle through hard times. The same with my students, this was a frustrating lesson to learn, again.
I tried to teach them, I stood offering them the tools they needed to learn and enjoy their education and what I got back was a blank stare. I feel that some of them will look back and ask theirselves, “Why?” Why didn’t I listen, why didn’t I try? They have lost valuable time that they can not get back. They, though, are children and because of this, they still have the chance to make it up.
My thoughts go back to a time in my life that I can’t get back; I was on a "roller coaster”. I had a time in my life when I turned my back on my family. I turned my back on the ones who loved me the most, unconditionally. I eventualy was forced off of my roller coaster life, not willingly. In the long run, I was lucky because it was then that I found me.
I see my students with this same analogy, though most of them have little to no choice as to when they will be able to get on or off. I may not have reached all my students this year but hopefully a few. I consider that a success. I have been true to myself, it has been a long journey, but our future looks bright. I chose to get off of the roller coaster. Good things don’t come to those who wait, they come to those who go get them.
I do remember how it was to struggle, I remember and I see it every day. I have seen children grasping to life the day after their father committed suicide. I watch other children going to jail for crimes committed out of ignorance. I have had students thrown away by their parents and left to be raised by a group home because they weren’t wanted by there mother.
So when I hear things, that I have lost perspective with how it is to struggle, I guess you may have to forgive me because I am seeing real struggle. I am blessed, regardless and am thankful for what I have each day. I hopefully have helped some others, at least those who wanted it along the way.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Tupperware
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
