Monsters, Rain, Discovery

Sometimes, I have so many thoughts milling around in my head at the same time, that I can barely formulate one. Dancing, drunken guests crowding the room, jostling, spirited and sometimes unsure of foot and stomach.

Some thought pops out, suddenly sticking up from the rest. I observe it, loving it, and let it do it's thing.

Sometimes feelings accompany these thoughts. Sometimes they are good, sometimes not.

I feel like a slow pot, ready.

Right now the thought that has taken hold is not a pretty one. It's rooted in a memory of something that happened today.

I have a particularly challenging class. Twenty one individuals, each with a story, each with a motivation, each with reactions. What frustrates me the most, is that hard as I try, I cannot inspire them, motivate them. This isn't a reenactment of Freedoom Writers. More like, Stone Wall Bludgeon. A lot of these kids hate school, they hate to think, they hate anything that makes them awaken from the deep slumber of the mind that they have intentionally fallen into.

And some of them are very rude, covertly hostile, unreachable.

And I am human. There is so much I can take with a smile on my face and an adage on my tongue.

I got so frustrated today that I raised my voice at a student. Not in anger, just to be heard. I feel for these kids, but I know that, to them, I am their jailor. Yet one more hurdle they need to overcome to get the freedom they crave, the freedom they more than likely will not know how to handle. I fear for them. They are so ill-prepared and stubbornly want to remain so. And, it seems sometimes that there is nothing I can do, or that they will allow me to do.

It would be better if I didn't care. It would be so easy to stay aloof and observe them like guinea pigs in a cage. I don't want to do that though. That isn't who I am.

And yes, I am tormented by the fact that I raised my voice - at one student in particular. There is no way I can understand or pretend to understand his life. I can only work with what he is giving me and that's a whole lot of f-all. He is a very bright kid, and he is falling through the cracks. I see him there, wedged and falling, and no matter how I try to help him out, he refuses this help, and reacts hostilely.

I am sad. I am sad that I have to accept the inevitable, and I don't want to.

Funny, when I stared this post I was going to write about Cloverfield and how much I love the rain. I guess I just stuck to writing about discovery.