you think you know something, life turns around and smacks you in the face and reminds you that you don't. i don't really believe in karma and whenever people reference karmic retribution it seems to be less an understanding of cosmic intervention and more a helpless, vengeful appeal for their lost face, i.e. "karma will take care of it" -> "things better work out for me but not for that person whose life choices i don't agree with! because i'm pissed!" usually when people mention karma it is in a negative sense.
so i came back from a really lovely getaway with megan last weekend (see previous post) and i felt so happy while i was away with her that when i got back i couldn't help but feel a little dispirited. i love my life on a day to day basis - i have a loving boyfriend who stimulates my brain and my heart, i adore my family, i make enough money, there will always be a book to read, etc etc, but everything seemed a hint lackluster in comparison to a weekend of no work, no stress, no impending future, especially coming back to my job. i honestly couldn't tell you if i enjoy my job. i'm here right now, as it were, and i can say i enjoy being paid to sit and blog, but i go back and forth concerning the rest. teaching is positive for me in a selfish sense; i have learned so much more than i feel i have taught. not in the sense that i needed an immense amount of help with my multiplication tables or pronoun usage, but connecting with a person and feeling them understand something can be a really rewarding experience. again, this is me i'm primarily focusing on, but i suppose it works for the student as well.
so this tuesday i go into work and i am seriously dreading it in a way that i never have. i teach mostly SAT/ACT preparation, and although the work is often challenging, it has become exquisitely repetitive to teach and reteach the exact same concepts over and over and over again, and i sincerely fear that it is a detriment to my ability to communicate with newer students, as the words coming out of my mouth about parallelism or substitution could be repeated in my sleep. they seem to have lost meaning and i try so hard to pretend it's the first time i'm learning them, to anticipate the questions i'd have and to address them, but i've become so fucking familiar with the material i worry that i just can't. all this is going through my head as well as the thousand complaints i have about the way my work treats education (which i'm pretty sure i can't legally describe here...hmm) and how much i would change if it were up to me which of course it will never be, and i walk through my door and see on the schedule that i have a new student. i'm looking for their SAT binder but realize that this little nugget is only 6 years old! i haven't worked with a younger kid in months, and the change alone is welcome. it's less stressful and they tend to be more excited to be there; they're not taking 4 AP classes and worried about their cheerleading practice/6 hours of homework/boyfriend/getting into harvard at the age of 15. real talk high school is crazy these days. i always thought it was tougher than college, but maybe that's because i gave up in high school and conceded that it was total bullshit. i haven't necessarily conceded that i don't believe that anymore...anyway.
so this little man comes in named aaron and we spend two hours learning; we do exercises with phonics, the alphabet, discerning the main idea of pictures and stories, reading, writing, various math activities. sometimes when i'm working with these kids it's mostly daycare, i give them snacks, guide them through, etc. but sometimes i catch myself in the middle of a lesson and realize how critical this is to a child's development: this little boy is at this moment learning how to read. he's recognizing sounds, he's blending letters together, he's forming letters into words into sentences, his little cogs are moving and he is truly learning. how. to. read. is there anything more important than knowing how to read? is there any one single thing that can open more doors, more avenues to remote thoughts and concepts than reading? this is going to be something that affects the rest of his life, and here he is sitting at this tiny desk, literally learning before my eyes. it's pretty amazing to watch someone learn, and for all the teaching i've done i can't say it's common to see. to really really see someone learn something new and hold on to it is rare, because learning is so complicated and happens over time and sometimes isn't truly learned and solidified for years and years until that one magical moment. and what i was doing on that dreadful monday was helping this little boy along to a magical moment.
can you remember a time before you could read? i can't, i don't think i'd ever want to. so all this strikes me just when i'm getting kind of hopeless and thinking my job sucks and i've gotten everything out of it that i can. karma, bitch!
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