This is the hardest job I've ever had.
It's like everything that was supposed to happen in their little histories in the way of love and connection, never did, or happened all wrong in the worst of ways. So now, they're all wired backwards. Joy can come out as anger. Excitement can come out as tantrums. If you're only with them for a week, they fall in love with you, but if they know you'll be there a year, they push you away and treat you nastily so they don't have to lose you.
Everything I loved about teaching - connection, discovery, mutual creation - it's all absent. Or it comes in such scant little moments that I feel like I'm parched in a dessert, licking up some tiny drop of water I've found somewhere. Or they hide it from you because they don't want you to know you've touched them, and sometimes, you find out through the grapevine that something you said or did was meaningful, and that tiny little glimmer is all you have to keep you going for days or even weeks of dark.
Yesterday I was reading a little quote book that I kept of funny things my kids used to say in Taiwan. I was laughing out loud. They were so fun and whimsical. They soaked up any love you gave them and used it power their little minds through the learning process. They loved to find ways to impress you or make your laugh with the way they used their new vocabulary words.
"My elbow grows on an elbow tree." ~ Jerry, low level English student
"He didn't want to talk about what happened at the zoo, because he feel in the monkey cage, and the monkey made him her baby." ~ Jolin, mid-level English student
"That man is raking up pieces of human flesh." ~ Thomas, a macabre, high-level student :o)
But here... well... I just can't see that ever happening. It's like they're allergic to learning, because they're allergic to engaging. And they're allergic to failure, so they don't even try. There are bright spots, but they are like a match someone strikes that goes out almost the second you look at it, rather than the super nova that my former students gave me.
I wish I could say I was strong enough for the matches to be enough to keep me going. But I don't know if I am. I just don't know.
The hardest job I've ever had.
