Giving Up

When I started journaling, it felt like my life was improving. Progress was slow, but it was going in the right direction, and that was all that was important to me. I convinced myself I didn’t need to seek outside help; my coping methods were working just fine. By now, I started to come to realize that journaling wasn’t going to solve all my problems, and unfortunately, I had already canceled the psychiatrist appointment. If I was to schedule another, I would have to wait at least a month. Things were still really bad at school, and it seemed like there was no hope of it getting better. I had run out of ideas, and there were no more replies to my job applications. So on Sunday afternoon we went to the Catholic Basilica for mass like we normally did. It was a towering church, and there was a large mosaic Jesus covering the front wall. This wasn’t a Jesus on the cross with his head turned down; this Jesus was pissed. He was rising through the clouds with blood on his hands, and it seemed like he was glaring right at you. Since college I always enjoyed church because it felt like a recharge for the week, but by now, church felt hollow. It was a reminder that there was either no God or God had abandoned me. That Sunday, I muttered into my hands, “I give up.” Struggling to stay afloat and waiting for a rescue had finally become too much; there were no other branches to hold. There were no administrators or teachers trying to help me out anymore, and I was tired of trying new management techniques. It felt like I had let go of the branch, leaned my head back, and allowed myself to drown.

I knew quitting was best for me and even for my students, but quitting wasn’t working, and I didn’t know what else to do. When I whispered those words, “I give up,” I started accepting that I was no one special. I did not have the power to change the world; I did not have the power to change my classroom; and, up until then, I didn’t even have the power to change myself.

I came to Daley to be a great teacher, a teacher that taught underprivileged kids how to overcome the challenges of their world, but I also imagined success: Teacher of the Year and award speeches. That desire for success was hidden; I wasn’t aware of it because I didn’t care about looking for it. I thought I had the right reasons for teaching at Daley. I was a smart kid, and I worked hard; the rest would figure itself out.

But I became aware that I thought I was different from other people. I thought I was special, and I figured when others had failed before me, it was a sign that is was the right job for me to do. But that job had led to complete destruction.

Hell was not Candler Park or Daley or the administration or anyone really, it was what had happened in my mind, what had happened to my life. If the road to hell was ominous and jagged, maybe I could have avoided it, but my road was paved and quick. As a teenager, I liked to skateboard down the steep hills of my neighborhood. I had a longboard, and the only one way I knew how to stop was by jumping off. Whenever I tried out a new, steep-looking hill, about half way down I thought, “I’m going too fast, this is going to end badly,” and it usually did. Maybe there were signs that told me I was going in the wrong direction, but I wasn’t looking for any of them. Maybe there were onlookers who told me to think twice about the path, but I was too busy telling them I knew exactly where I was going.

By the end of my first year, things started getting better, and I thought it was a sign that I was finally coming around as a teacher. The kids started to line up better, and we even learned a rap to perform to anyone that might come in the doors. On the last day, I had a big party to celebrate, and I planned it for the middle of the day - one of my many teacher mistakes. Always have parties at the end of the day. After we had the cupcakes, almost the whole class was up out of their seats, flying around the room, and there were still two hours to get through. Instead of yelling and chasing them down, I just took out a chair and sat down right in the middle of the room. I called two nice girls up to the front of the class. I let them pull up their chairs so they could sit right next to me, and I told them they were the only ones who had my permission to go outside. Because they had been so good the whole year, it was now up to them to decide who was allowed to go out. The others slowly lined up to apologize. Each kid lined up and eventually pleaded his/her case to the girls. Not much of a surprise, but everyone was forgiven, and by the end of it all, everyone was quietly lined up. I had successfully lined up a crazy class hyped up on sugar and the excitement of the last day of school; I must be on my way.

When my second year started, I was in control, much more so than any moment in my first year. My class walked the halls with their eyes forward and their arms behind their back without a word. When an independent evaluator visited the school, he left a note on my desk saying how impressed he was with my class, and how he was looking forward to the first observation. I was going from the worst class to the best, and once again, that voice started getting louder, “Keep pushing, keep pushing, this is it, you are finally fulfilling your destiny.” It seemed like a long journey, but I had made it; I was the teacher I always wanted to be. But I started getting tired, and my command started to slip. Things went from bad to worse quickly, and this crash was much harder than any other crash I had experienced. As first year teachers, we had been told countless times about the ups and downs of the first year, but by my second year it seemed there were no excuses anymore.

So when I finally gave up, I accepted that there was no escape, that I was stuck. And for some reason, the following week went by just a little bit easier.