A couple items restored my faith in the all-powerful goodness of hard work.
The main thing being this: When I used to imagine doing this for a job, I was attracted to it by the idea that maybe I could inspire one or two out of every thirty students. Really inspire them though. As in, inspire them to become great people in the world.
In the process of getting this job, training, talking, preparing, debriefing, briefing, interviewing, accommodating, and everything else, I got a little distracted by any one of several things such as: certain of my colleagues' goals and apparent effectiveness at reaching at least the success rate of whole groups rather than individuals, if not really inspiring their quest for greatness, goodness and success; also the explicit stated goal for me that every student has the chance to learn and everyone should pass, making the testgrade into the true gamut of my success and therefore happiness; and maybe also a little residual albeit never agreed-with memory of several of my peers' insistence that they would not be happy unless they were fixing the world for every one of their students. That and more.
In this mess, I forgot that original, maybe low-sighted goal of simply playing a positive role in one or two little lives. But I was reminded yesterday by this one little dude, who saw me in the hallway during my long-awaited free time of the day, and said, 'Hey mr. tote, would you tutor me?', and of course, I said, 'right now?' and he said, 'yeah. I have lunch.' And I said, 'What do you want to know?' and he said, 'anything interesting.' So I said, 'well I'm technically supposed to have tutoring hours right now anyway, so let's talk,' thought, gosh. I don't need to force my exuberance on anyone. They'll find it where they find it, and if that happens to be in my class or during my ordained tutoring hours, then I am fortunate enough to have fulfilled my modest goals in life.
Now, I have set loftier goals. It is true. But as it is I am happy today for once again without noticing it during the process, I have achieved yet another benchmark for life. Always complacent, always patient. Glory glory hallelujah.
I am surprised to find that this blog is more about me than it is about the world, considering how much the world has to offer in terms of subject matter these days.
Tuesday was an exciting night in every city in the world, and I was happy to be in one of them. It just doesn't make sense anymore to be anything but optimistic about our species. We as humans seem to be nearing a culmination or tipping point as Terrence McKenna used to say. Electing a cultural icon as a world leader during a time of crisis is just what everyone seems to want. I don't care so much about the nitty gritty political details, although I am paying closer attention to them than I used to. I just think it's nice that the entire planet got emotional about the very same thing at the very same time Tuesday night, and it was emotional on the side of hope and happiness rather than war and destruction. Walking around Tuesday night with a helpless grin and seeing the same grin on thousands of others who filled (at least) ten blocks of a city street was a profound experience that I think brought us closer as friends and families. But the world is still the world, and this closeness has to be cultivated now that our global moral compass has been re-calibrated.
But this is about me; at least it's supposed to be about me, so here's me at the moment:
Look at previous post from same day for musical incarnation of today's sentiment, brought to us by Brooklyn's Daily Strom.
No comments:
Post a Comment