Clap on, clap off

I was ON today. If it felt like that every day, there'd be no reason not to teach.

Being on feels like you're funny, you're cracking jokes, bantering with kids about this and that. Kids are paying attention in spite of themselves, your lesson was THAT interesting and THAT engaging - they just couldn't help it! They tried to pick at their shoelaces or make post-it origami or shoot rubber bands at each other, but in the end, their curiosity won out! They wanted to hear what it was you had to say.

When you're on, when you're meeting with them, it's like you know exactly what to say, the words just come to you from someplace, they just flow. Unlike some days when you feel like you're talking at them from behind a scrim, like your words have to travel far and wide to make their way to the kids, and by the time they get there they are unintelligible or obsolete, like a long-distance phone call. When you're off, you feel extraneous. You feel like an impostor. When you're on, you are a guru.

Days when you're on, you feel like, "Shit, I really did something here today! I think somebody actually learned something. I guess I really do come here for a reason..."

If all the moments could be like that. There are precious few of them, so you have to hang on tight to that feeling. Moments to hold onto:

+ Sh--- while analyzing song lyrics, referencing the Cesar Chavez Read Aloud from months ago. He said, "It takes more guts to fight with words than to fight with your fists." And in my head, I said, "HAHA! I am winning! Holy crap I can't believe he said that, like internalized it, because of what I did, what I chose to read to them!" Really I didn't have time to fully appreciate it in the moment, but that's got to be a career highlight right there. (All the more of a victory since the kid's shown some tendencies towards physical aggression.)

+hanging out in the library as the kids choose books, just seeing what they chose, telling them random thoughts and talking about life and literature

+talking to them freely for a few minutes after school as we dismiss - interesting, the slivers of lives that are revealed in those few moments, like S--- jumping up and down, his tiny frame and crooked glasses vibrating with hyperactive energy, playfully shouting "Maggot! maggot!" at the much bigger but meek and mild-mannered Y---. (The class pipsqueak becomes a powerful drill sargeant through play.)

+ voices aflutter during an exciting part of a read aloud, begging for one more chapter

+ the field trip to museum of the Moving Image, and the look of realization and excitement in Sh---'s eyes when he said, in answer to the tour guide's question, "The moment of rest!" - experiencing the magic of how movies are made as if he himself had discovered it

+today, cracking up unexpectedly -

Ms. D: "N---, why are you always late?"
N---, matter-of-factly, without missing a beat: "I take long showers."



Laughing makes me feel connected to the kids like nothing else. I wish it would happen more often. I should try to let it happen more often. Interesting how the funniest ones are also the most exasperating, and how the most exasperating ones somehow still become my secret favorites.

How innocently N-- hugs me, even sometimes when he's been misbehaving...

They reach out for you. They all need you, they all crave your attention, some more than others. (And really, 1/29th of the teacher's attention -or even less considering all the bureaucratic bullshit that also competes for my attention - doesn't amount to very much at the end of the day. Certainly not even close to what they deserve.)

But even on the bad days, even on your off days, even after harsh words have been spoken, even when you've been communicating long-distance through the scrim, they reach out for you. They still need you.

Maybe that's part of what I'm teaching them, too: we have good days together and we have bad days together, but we either way, we come back. We keep on going. We laugh, then we yell, then we find a way to forgive. We rely on each other. We don't stop relying on each other just because we are upset or angry or just "off." We are happy and sad together. We do the best we can. And when we fail, or flail, or suffer setbacks, we know that everyone will show up again tomorrow, and tomorrow might be different, and we'll all still be there at the start of a new day - good or bad, near or far, off or on.