!!! !!! !!!

i've got some feelings to share. listen here ---> Play Recording

(ETA: i wish i were more eloquent and that i'd thought out more of what i wanted to say, but i initially recorded this as a note to myself for later, to turn into a longer piece of writing, but after listening to it, and hearing for myself the tones of voice and how they changed when talking about different things, it felt right to leave it as is, as rough as it is, because of the emotions present in my voice. i want to preserve the sound of happiness as it was captured there, in case i ever need a reminder.

also, our anniversary date would have been August 8, but i couldn't wait to get this out there!)

life imitates art

“But maybe all art is about just trying to live on for a bit. I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”

– Banksy

i feel lost. like in the last few months my spirit has cleaved in two, the rotten depressed and dark parts remaining here while the other bits floated away, too light and airy and dreamy to be bound to these desolate remains. "O... these fragments I have shored against my ruins." sometimes i feel like i can see the other half of me off in a distance, or i feel like i am that distant self looking back at the miserable remains and pitying her. it becomes hard to recognize myself in a mirror. how do i get those lost parts of me back?

as a kid i would lie awake in bed at night, imagining death and the unrelenting continuance of time without being able to participate in it, of lives without my presence. of being forgotten. i didn't want fame, but i didn't want to get lost in time and forgotten. i think this is the fear that underlies the pursuit of fame – a desire to never die.

the other night i lay in bed, sobbing because i could feel that sense of dying, could feel my loosening grip on my dreams, ambitions and aspirations from when i was a kid. i used to want to be something unusual, to be earth-shattering. i wanted to be destined for extraordinary things. and i felt, as i examined my life, considered the turn of recent events, and the availability of options before me, that my life had become rather extra ordinary. and as i thought of an image of myself as a child and the image of myself now, i began to cry. i never thought it would come to this, to being another unhappy adult stuck in a monotonous lifestyle with dreary rituals and nothing beautiful to celebrate. is this what happens? we grow old and comfortable and stuck in daily procedures and stop imagining different possibilities? i'm 25 and yet i feel old, weary, life-deprived, sick of the limited options (watch a movie, take a walk, read a book, work / be a mother, teacher, accountant, secretary). i don't want to be just another anything.

when i was young i wanted to be a writer, a dancer, a storybook illustrator. i wanted to be a wild animal. i wanted to make everlasting art.

and now all i make is dollar bills.

WHAT A FANTASTIC DAY!!!!!!
this is one of those excellent days when i feel completely competent, no, superb at my job!

check this out: i just taught a class of 14 special ed 6th graders to not only solve one-step algebra equations with addition and subtraction (ex: x-9=13, 8+x=15), but also how to solve one-step algebra equations involving multiplication or division (ex: x/9=12, 3x=36), and furthermore, i taught all of them how to self-monitor their behavior so that they are focused and on-task 100% of the time!!!! they were quiet, diligent and dedicated to understanding all of today's material. and the result? i got 100% from every single one of them on the end-of-day quiz.

i mean, really, does it get any better than this?

i feel like teacher of the year right here.

anyone in the LA area want to give me a job editing film?

or even if it's just a job "getting coffee for the guy/gal who currently edits film," i don't care.

i'd be good at that, too.

i just don't want to hate my job any more.

qualifications? sure. some of my past work here. and a CV here.

really,
stef

idealist

i joined Idealist.org about a year ago, when graduation was pending and "the future" we'd always talked about but never really pondered was looming, no, was here. i was terrified i would collect my diploma in May and then have nowhere to go and nothing to do. after 16 years comfortably riding out the formal education system and its strongly set paths, the idea of the track suddenly ending and launching me forward with no idea of what lay ahead was worrisome.

i think this fear of the unknown is dangerous; rather than explore the possibilities and potentials of the unknown and undecided, we are swept into fates we don't want b/c of fear of failure. i think this is particularly true among the freakishly driven and busy, those whose schedules drive them to the point of burnout and leave them with hardly any sense of what "free time" means. suddenly the idea of not having something to pour all yr energy and time into feels like failure. why?

the point of this post is this: i felt that after struggling with the process of writing my undergraduate thesis, i needed a break from higher ed, wanted to put off grad school, and avoid law school. i figured working a job in the meantime while i sorted out my feelings for formal ed was a good idea. and so i signed up for Idealist to look for jobs, something to fall back on in the next year.

that was a year ago, and i still get the emails. i can't bring myself to unsubscribe from their email list b/c, admittedly, i guess i'm still looking. i check their emails, every day, to see what alternate lives i could be living: lead filmmaker in Venice, community organizer in Chicago, youth media coordinator in NYC, and lament the disparity between my current job and the work i could be doing instead. every time i read about a new job, a different salary, a different locale, i imagine completely different lives and wish i had been more comfortable with uncertainty.

-stephan!e

sometimes you just need to be reminded

school sucks. what else is new? whether you're a student, or a teacher, the school is not a pleasant place to be.

sometimes i feel myself sinking into this deep and dark depression where i lose all sense of hope and possibility. i once believed that the school was the place for change and revolution. i now understand why ppl would hear me talk with my hopeful idealism and laugh.

it's only the first day of the week, and i am already counting down the days until friday. my friend Tim and i were dreaming out loud about a place where we would be able to enjoy teaching, and would love going to work every day, but that place is not where i work.

it's hard to feel like my job is worth the time and suffering i put into it when every day i suspect the students would be just as happy (if not more) if i weren't there. the ones who say they "love" math are liars and/or sycophants. and i must admit, i'm even growing to fall for it. the ass-kissers are at least trying to make my job a little easier.

i came here with bold ideas for reforming education and changing pedagogy to empower youth and change the world. but the more i actually teach, the more i lose my belief that democratic education and revolutionary pedagogy are possible in american public education. at least, certainly not in anything but a higher educational setting.

i read this livejournal entry by my friend Brandon, and felt sad and nostalgic to be reminded of the kind of education i once called "a dream."

indeed, unrealized.

-stephan!e

Sisyphean punishment

image source

i'm beginning to suspect i've done something to deeply offend the gods.

why else would they have doomed me to such a Sisyphean task? i can think of no better phrase to describe my experiences thus far teaching 6th grade special ed math and science in south central LA: the long days and nights of constant worrying and physical stress, the huge gaps in achievement meant to be overcome in one year, the endless lesson-planning for classes the next day that don't even see full implementation because of my students' eruptive behavior, the false sense of achievement and hope when my students finally understand a concept one day, only to feel extra deflated and dispirited when they come back the next day having forgotten it all again, spending 3 whole weeks just trying to teach the bare basics of math, while the students constantly scream and yell saying it's "baby work" and still get all the problems wrong, giving up my breaks and my lunches and yes even my dinners to meet with students, talk with parents, grade papers and write new worksheets, only to come in the next day and have to do it all again.

HUGE BOULDER + HILL = ETERNITY OF FRUSTRATION.

i am quickly growing to hate my job. i spend the majority of my day waiting for the day to end. when not thinking about that, my thoughts turn to trying to calculate the remaining days before i am completely free of my contract and can walk away. June 2010 just seems like too long to wait...

i'm wondering where my train derailed... i came here with good intentions, to take a teaching job so i could help people and feel like i'm making a difference, to avoid a life in corporate america and a desk job with no sense of purpose, to avoid feeling miserable all day and hating my life and my work and never seeing the sunshine.

i never knew my dream job would actually turn out to be my personal hell.

and this is only week 4. there are 32 more weeks to go. (my students could not tell you what percentage of the year is finished. they could not tell you how many weeks total there were to begin with.*)

welcome to the jungle!
-stef


*there are 36 weeks in the school year (32+4=36). i'm only 11.1% done (4/36=.1111=11.1%)

mending the work/play dichotomy

moments after i make the earth-shaking decision to commit the next two years of my life to teaching special ed in Los Angeles for Teach for America, i read their list of rules, regulations and procedures and am appalled to see the following:

"The following activities are prohibited while charging time to an
AmeriCorps program, accumulating service hours towards an educa-
tion award, or otherwise engaging in activities supported by the
AmeriCorps program:
• Attempting to influence legislation (uh, how else are we going to make any real change in the educational system?)
• Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes (how else am i going to stay politically active and excited?)
• Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing (how else are we going to make any real change for the working people in our communities?)
• Engaging in partisan political activities or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office (i begin to wonder now if TFA just wants mindless apolitical robots who will be easily programmed to do their blanched apolitical biddings, as it would seem to me this definition could be construed to mean ANY form of political activity... even voting...?!)
• Participating in or endorsing events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials (seriously? Fall 2008 is going to be one hell of an election, and only the second presidential election i will have been eligible to vote in, and they're asking me to sit on my hands?! they might as well ask me to crawl into a hole and die.)
• Voter registration drives held by AmeriCorps members are unacceptable service activities. (okay... so they're serious. APOLITICAL ROBOTS, DO YOUR BIDDING!)

now i can see why my friend Dylan was so upset to hear i was considering Teach for America. when i told him i got accepted, he replied that he "was glad [i] got in, but sad to see teach for america take another radical peer." i can see why he was worried: in all my work as a community organizer and living wage advocate, even in my undergraduate thesis research, my overwhelming credo has consistently been: you've got to practice what you preach. that is, you have to find a way to blend theory and practice, you have to be a political practitioner. as Paulo Freire said, "this is a radical posture - you can't be neutral on a moving train.

so it saddens me, too, to see that another radical is being subsumed into an apolitical, gutless machine, a fate i had fought so tenaciously and conscientiously to avoid. i've always wanted to find a job that would allow me to practice the political convictions that before were only theories, that would allow me to mend the fissure between work and play, that would be challenging, crucial work that would change the world and that i would enjoy for that very reason.

but, sadly, it seems teach for america is not that dream job, not even close. i wish they'd understand that genuine change and conscientization (which, let's face it, are the ultimate goals of education) don't come from following existing academic standards and policies, but from enacting new ones. nor does self-sustaining systemic social change occur by merely injecting a few well-qualified college graduates into low-income communities to do some "community service"-style work. ending socio-economic injustice requires the dedication of whole communities to changing oppressive systems and their structures, of using education to liberate and empower people (rather than recreate and reaffirm injustices and inequities perpetuated by the very system of privilege and power of which we are products and survivors).

furthermore, i am offended by their suggestion that it takes a deliberate political inertness to be an effective corps member/teacher. this is glaringly wrong! i cannot think of anything low-income communities need more than active political leadership, and who better to provide it than their children and youth? they don't need to be taught to pass tests, they need to be taught to use their voices for change! how can an apathetic, groveling and subservient teacher be any sort of positive role model to youth in a time when what we need most is political change and awareness?!

maybe i should drop out. i could work for a presidential campaign instead, or continue union-organizing. i'm going to burn-out either way, might as well accomplish something...

i've made a huge mistake...
-stephanie