Hi Article Clubbers! Next Sunday 4/24, we’re discussing “Children in the Garden,” by Devin Kelly.
This week, let’s get the conversation started: What have you endured?
Feel free to share something silly or serious. After all, as Mr. Kelly writes, endurance doesn’t have to mean suffering. There’s grace and lightness and solace, too. Like children in a garden.
It’s interesting because the question “What have you endured?” automatically makes me think of terrible things – whereas Devin Kelly’s whole point is that endurance can be joyful and light and graceful. But no matter how much I think about a “fun” thing that I endured, it’s hard to come up with one. Maybe that’s what our society has taught us? Or maybe my own personality?
A few things I’ve “endured” – the grief from my dad’s death; the very confusing and slow-moving year of losing my job; my first marathon (with help from a friend). I did none of these lightly!
I had been a classroom teacher for about 20 years when I finally had a student that was, IMO, a dangerous person. He began with constant crude remarks about the content under study (US history), about the texts, the political cartoons, the photos, any artifact could become sexualized in his mind. He was also extremely disruptive, yelling, jumping up on his desk and slamming the door on the way in and out. Young women in class complained to me (after I had, for about 4 months, made weekly calls to his parents about working to minimize these disruptions), asking for me to control his sexually harassing behavior. I'll admit, he pushed my buttons and it was very difficult to endure his disruptions, obscene statements, and disgusting remarks for months, while working through the school's "discipline process," and contacting his parents.
When he was finally removed from my class, I thought it would be done. But he continued his behavior toward me (though thankfully, my female students were left alone). He walked by my classroom door (where I stood outside to greet and talk to my students as they entered) daily and continued the obscene remarks to and about me (even yelling them at me across the quad during lunch break); one morning, he smeared profanity on my door in feces (he told me he did, but denied it to school admin); on another, someone (?) spray painted an ejaculating penis on the wall opposite my doorway. I consulted law enforcement and an attorney as I felt more in danger, that his behavior might not stay limited to school.
Thanks to mindfulness therapy, I was able to endure, to continue to serve the other students in my classes who responded well (or at least better than that!) to learning, to see this as a rare anomaly in the larger context of my decades of work with really wonderful young people. But this experience changed me, made me question whether or not I could continue teaching, whether I wanted to be this vulnerable to someone I was obligated, by virtue of my work, to serve.
It’s interesting because the question “What have you endured?” automatically makes me think of terrible things – whereas Devin Kelly’s whole point is that endurance can be joyful and light and graceful. But no matter how much I think about a “fun” thing that I endured, it’s hard to come up with one. Maybe that’s what our society has taught us? Or maybe my own personality?
A few things I’ve “endured” – the grief from my dad’s death; the very confusing and slow-moving year of losing my job; my first marathon (with help from a friend). I did none of these lightly!
Warning: this one is serious.
I had been a classroom teacher for about 20 years when I finally had a student that was, IMO, a dangerous person. He began with constant crude remarks about the content under study (US history), about the texts, the political cartoons, the photos, any artifact could become sexualized in his mind. He was also extremely disruptive, yelling, jumping up on his desk and slamming the door on the way in and out. Young women in class complained to me (after I had, for about 4 months, made weekly calls to his parents about working to minimize these disruptions), asking for me to control his sexually harassing behavior. I'll admit, he pushed my buttons and it was very difficult to endure his disruptions, obscene statements, and disgusting remarks for months, while working through the school's "discipline process," and contacting his parents.
When he was finally removed from my class, I thought it would be done. But he continued his behavior toward me (though thankfully, my female students were left alone). He walked by my classroom door (where I stood outside to greet and talk to my students as they entered) daily and continued the obscene remarks to and about me (even yelling them at me across the quad during lunch break); one morning, he smeared profanity on my door in feces (he told me he did, but denied it to school admin); on another, someone (?) spray painted an ejaculating penis on the wall opposite my doorway. I consulted law enforcement and an attorney as I felt more in danger, that his behavior might not stay limited to school.
Thanks to mindfulness therapy, I was able to endure, to continue to serve the other students in my classes who responded well (or at least better than that!) to learning, to see this as a rare anomaly in the larger context of my decades of work with really wonderful young people. But this experience changed me, made me question whether or not I could continue teaching, whether I wanted to be this vulnerable to someone I was obligated, by virtue of my work, to serve.