Kristen, “College scares the crap out of me. I’ve always been excited to live on my own, to take classes I am actually interested in, but sometime recently (approximately last Tuesday, 7:12 PM) I realized how different college is going to be. I’m worried about my family, not because I need them, but because they need me. I don’t know what they’re going to do next year without me as chauffeur/grocery shopper/laundress/therapist.
Happy: rain, classical music, quiet, baking French bread, coffee, reading, problem solving, making funny faces, golden retrievers, writing in cursive.
Grumpy: loud noises, rap music, shopping, people who are stupid/ignorant/loud/pretentious/share genetic material with me.”


Sylvia: “Supposedly I wanna do computer science. Or maybe that’s what my dad wants. I can’t even tell anymore. …I love web design. But apparently it’s not a “realistic” career. I’d love to be a teacher…only again, according to my dad it’s not “realistic.” God knows why THAT’S unrealistic…”

Stephanie…”I come from a political family. My grandfather was a sentatoresque person fro Taiwan for forty years. He was elected in Nationalist Mainland China right before the Republic of China fell to the Communists. He then fled on a plane to Taiwan. He’s met Chiang Kai-Shek many times. I think that is my main reason for interest in government.”

“I need to do a thousand things and more. I need quiet. I need rest. I need to turn in my order for my graduation robe. I NEED TIME.” Nora

Maria’s is funny but true:
“COLLEGE!!
Different friends?
Should I like boys now or wait till college?
Will I get into the colleges I want?
Parents are bitchy
 It’s my last year here they should cut me some slack.
What’s my brother gonna do when I’m gone?
Am I scared to go to college?
UW or somewhere else?
Am I gonna change when I go to college?
Am I with the right friends? Why am I doing stupid shit? Why do I still care about boys
I’m lazy for no reason
I’ve changed and I don’t know if it’s good or bad.”

Farrah, #2 in her class
“I’m sick and tired of my friends who seem increasingly vindictive and fake. My parents are always on my case about everything even though we used to get along just fine last year. I’m tired of everyone expecting so much from me all the time. I want the freedom to be lazy and slack off but I’m scared of failing. I can’t wait to go to college, buit I’m so scared I won’t be able to go out of state because of finances and just not getting into a “good enough” school in my parents’ eyes…”


Erin told me about death and her experience with it this week. Maryam explained to me about all the death she’s dealt with this year and how she wants her ADD to go away. Nicole, whose parents split up two weeks ago, is concerned about how her little sisters are handling it and about her grandfather who has parkinson’s and could go any day now.

Many of them speak of loss of jobs. Brandon, in particular, who has been really dropping in this class…wrote two whole pages!!! About how he lost his job as a martial arts instructor and how eaten up he is all day thinking about the poor kids he used to teach who now have an instructor who is just in it for the money.

Melissa told me about the struggles she’s been having with self-worth and her relationship with her father, how she’s going to counseling because she’s split between two sides of herself. Melissa is seen by her classmates as being dumb. She ended this way and it seriously made me cry, “I’m happy when I get recognition and affirmation, when I feel like I’m loved and when I accomplish something important to me. I’m unhappy when I feel used, ignored, unappreciated, when I don’t improve or when I fail, and when one of my two sides is unhappy it is almost impossible for both of my sides to win.” That is a very eloquent and intelligent girl, if you ask me.

But probably my favorite was this:

John:
Happy
Flowers
Wetlands
Sunny days
Unicorns
Classical music
Ie Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto
Grits

Grumpy
Rain
Cold
Homework
Broken xbox
Pop music
Grape juice

The days since my anger at my students have been quite, oh…well, I guess…blech. The anger I felt made me literally torn up with anger until I left the building. I sat by the water for a while and after a long time of reflecting I felt two things 1) I was overwhelmed and burned out and 2) those kids would not be prepared for the simulation on Friday. After an emotional mental battle, I canceled the simulation, told my admin that I couldn’t host the visiting teacher observers Friday (a big deal for me, to tell someone no), and emailed my students to tell them not to worry about homework…we’d do it in class on Friday.

I determined that we needed to stop. We all did. Just stop. This week they had gotten lost and I had gotten angry and in my anger plowed on through. Friday we needed a day of reflection…which was strange. I never stop in my AP class and they know it, but I was convinced it was the right thing to do, though it scared the hell out of me to be so vulnerable with the class.

So today after our First Amendment Friday discussion, I asked them to take out a blank sheet of paper. I explained to them how irritated I was Wednesday just to be in the building and how my own reflections made me realize how important it is to just stop….to take time to think about where you are, especially in the middle of the rat race. I told them about grad school, about how I had this professor who, in the middle of the most intense time of our work, made us spend 45 minutes of class time somewhere in the building reflecting on life. At the time I thought it was bogus, but I ended up getting so much out of it and the class energy soared and confidence perked again. Parker Palmer says we all need space in our lives, time to be silent. It’s through these silences that we come to peace with things in life and have time to just breathe.

So today that’s what we did. I gave them three questions and I had them just think and write for 15 minutes. 1) Why did you chose to take this class over the other options available? 2) Write about life. What’s going on in your life? In school…out of school…family, relationships, college, etc. 3) What makes you happy? What makes you grumpy?

I can’t tell you how wonderful that was for us today. The kids wrote and wrote and wrote. It was crazy…it was like they craved that time to just stop and reflect. I told them that if they wanted to just reflect for themselves, they didn’t need to turn it in to me. But, most of them did and when I read them during lunch and after school today I was very emotional. They were very candid and I saw so much in their words that helps me understand how they’ve been acting. We talked as a class about how they feel right now and what we can do as a group to get through it. It sounds like a group counseling session but really, it wasn’t like that. It was like a problem solving session. I’m glad we did it because now it’s out in the open and we all know what’s going on and there’s no hiding from it. As the kids left they were smiling and calm and I practically had to kick each class out.

It was also good for me because I knew that there were probably other things going on in their lives that made them so distracted, but I had no idea. Because of the pace of my course I don’t get to talk to them as much as I’d like, to get to know them as well, but today I learned SO MUCH about them and I think they wanted me to know.

Only problem now is figuring how to get my work done. My tutorial has become haunted in recent days by adoring fans…who are confused about life (my first hint that it was more than just they were bored with the class) and are scared of the future. I had to remind myself this week that it is really for those times that I teach. I was feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to perform and forgot why I wanted to teach in the first place.

Things aren’t perfect. We’re still all tired and I really am burned out, I now realize. But…I could feel the love and support in those classes today…we’ll make it through.

I am so pissed off. I really hate my students right now and I don't really have that good of a reason why. They're confused. I can see that, but they complain so much that I keep trying to find new ways to teach them and then they don't try and when they don't try they get confused.

ARGH

So we have wasted days on end because they complain and then I change things and then they don't try and so it doesn't work so they get confused and then I get pissed off.

I need a vacation. And I need to scream at someone.

And I need to talk to kids about why they've checked out but they don't want to talk to me and I honestly don't want to talk to them becuase I'm so pissed off at the world.

I need to feel Christ's love for them but I can't. I'm just angry.

Sometimes you read things that just...are beautiful. School has been strange lately. It's been a mixture of joy and anger. It's ridiculous how much I enjoy teaching CompGov...obsessive you might say. Because of my obsession, I have been immersing myself in my curriculum. However, I'll have you know that balance has finally come to my life. Well, more than usual, at least. When I immerse myself in work, I love it. So I get a lot done. I am mostly caught up with grading (and have been for a while now). I have begun habitually taking up space at a coffee place in Renton, which I love for many many reasons. The result is I have free time and have to dispose of it somehow. If I don't, then I work more. For instance, last Friday I had an awful, awful day. I was very angry. I don't think I've been that filled with anger before and there really wasn't a good reason for it. But, I could feel it, I was so angry. I was supposed to have gotten a lot done but didn't. Finals. Ech...I don't want to go into it. BUT ANYWAY, I headed to my coffee shop because I just wanted to get out. And then I thought, I should go to a movie. I need to learn to do things on my own, especially since Friday traffic would keep most of my friends from joining me. I ended up spending about 3 1/2 hours sitting in my coffee shop, at my table, with my curriculum materials spread all over my table, planning and reading and watching videos about Russia. Yes, I was planning on a Friday night and I was soooooo happy! But it made me feel sooooo much better! It was relaxing to me! I love learning about Russia and here I was, doing just that, no pressure. Plus, it put me in such a good mood and traffic was gone by then, that I called Margie and we went to the movie too!

But anyway...I do have more balance. Last week I went to dinner and the ballet with girlfriends. Margie joined me in Bellevue to go to my salon. The week before I went to a Superbowl party, had dinner and a movie with the girls, watched a friend test for his green belt, and then tonight...since I had worked so hard in the last few days that I didn't have that much to do, I came home and read a book.

That's why I'm writing. Because after finishing that book and sobbing for the many things I got out of it, my mind was rushed with all these thoughts. It was like they were all scrambling over each other to rush out first. And I thought of how much I've been enjoying life lately. And I thought about how beautiful some people are. I thought how much I wish I had read that book with a book club. I thought about how wonderful it was that I had time to read that book tonight and that it's still not so late that I can't get my work done that I put off. I thought of the ballet and beauty. It reminded me of class. The last two days I have been a passionate teacher. I lost my voice today. I was teaching the kids about Marxism, and how Leninism and Stalinism depart from Marxism and...well, you don't need to know what. But even though it was straight lecture, the kids were so immersed. They questioned and then argued and then questioned more and I explained and teased and read to them from Marx. And they were intrigued and I was on fire, energized by their engagement in the lesson. And when I was finished reading my book I also thought of something else from today.

I thought of how bitter my voice got and soft...when I spoke of Stalin, when I confessed to the kids that I have a very heavy bias against Stalin. And I was quiet as I explained to them the theoretical difference between Marxist-Leninism and how Stalin shifts the interpretation to fit his own totalitarian goals and I got choked up in class...lol, in class!...as I mumbled to the kids that when I said that Stalin was paranoid and would brook no challenge to his authority, that I meant by the end of Stalin's rule 5/9 of the Politburo, 1,108 of 1,966 delegates to the party congress and 1/2 of the army corp were dead, as well as 20-60 million of his own people. It made me emotional, thinking of the evil that came from that one man...The kids said, 6 million in the holocaust...yes 6 million. That's awful. 20 million is awful too...

And that's why I thought of that anger I felt today, how I felt sick to my stomach thinking about that kind of evil. Stalin. Hitler. Countless souls were gathered up during the years of their terror. And yet, as is so beautifully shown through my book, some souls are just beautiful. Some things just sparkle. Some memories deserve to be recorded.

You should read, "The Book Thief."

It's beautiful.

I have to write today because I have the most awful migrane headache. Odd reason, I know. Let me explain. Today in class we had a debate. The debate was frustrating for the kids. They were not very confident and felt like they still didn't get it. But...oh my goodness, the debates were rough but soooooooo good.

I kept having to jump in to help clarify and redirect to the question. I even had to arm down some of the kids so they wouldn't bully the other side with their questions but the reason I have a migraine is not because of all those pieces. I have a migrane because I was working so fast and so hard to keep track of their arguments and keep track of who said what when, because they TOTALLY got it! TOTALLY! They thought they were confused but my seniors held a scholarly debate about challenging governmental theory and international politics like pros.

I am really proud of them this year. I get upset when they don't try. But, we are going through Comp much more theory-based this year and MAN, do they understand the theory! It's crazy! They can talk about where British political parties are headed, can discuss David Cameron's plans for Britain, and discuss deepening of authority without legitimacy of the people, the implications that legitimacy can have on political power and can already use those themes to speak in a scholarly way about political power and ecnommic control in Iran, Russia and Mexico before we've even covered the specifics. It's amazing! They are true political scientists and they don't even think they get it. I don't know how to explain it. I see the difference when last year they can identify the PM of Britain but this year they can talk about what the current economic crisis will do for his voter base and what that's going to mean when Gordon Brown calls for elections. They talk about it like it's no big deal and that kids always talk like that in compgov, but it's never been like that in this class.

Ok, I'll stop rambling. I'm really impressed with my kids right now.

The debate topic was, "Resolved: The failure to ratify the EU Constitution signaled the end of EU deepening." They talked theory. They talked about deepening authority economically even without politically, the implications of unanimity voting, of political efficacy in an uninformed populace and still addressed the fact that authority can, nevertheless, increase without popular choice. They talked about the length and scope of change and linked it to the historical EU.

My brain hurts because my students had such complicated arugmemnts (even though they sometimmes confused each other). I'm seriously impressed.

Some days I get very frustrated when I see zombie students. And then there are days when I get emails or notes like this:

"Burdick ,

I'm emailing to make sure that I have this assignment, no matter what. I also truly want to apologize for the grades that I have been getting in your class. I was lazy, but I have fixed that, I just thought I should let you know.
I don't want to let you down, well, because you're actually a great teacher and I did not take advantage of that. And I'm sorry.
Well Anyway See you in class

Jeff Hotes"

16 days and counting until my landlords leave (4 months after our agreement, 13 days longer than they told me in December). Much has happened in the last month. The strike has had lasting effects that are much harder to deal with later in the year than earlier. Tomorrow I have to start working again and I battled it all week. By this time I think I've come to terms with it.

I am so thankful to God for giving us snow days. I have been out of school two and a half weeks when we were supposed to only have a week and a half of break. Now, this will cause plenty of problems in time, but I'm not going to think about that just yet.

I got back Thursday from spending 5 days with friends down in Oregon. Mark and Amy always open up their house to us and make me feel so taken care of. It's incredible how healing it is to spend time with good friends. Travis and Eva-Lynn were in town, Pat and Kathy came to two parties (and hence I got to talk to talk with Kathy more than I have in a long time), and Lindsey stayed with Amy and Mark also until New Years. There was many a night conversation until 5 or 6 AM, laughter, movies, good food and fellowship. It was very worth it. November hit me like a steam train and since our snow makeup days are going to complicate things, I don't know when I'll get another break again so I'm glad I used these two weeks. I may find my life consumed by school for a few weeks until I can get caught up, but I think I can handle it now that I've seen friends.

We're all in different places and we're all learning to cope with building new friendships and support networks. We all struggle with different things. Some are learning to live together, others to learn to say no. I struggle to find my place in previous relationships that are being defined by marriages and families. It's difficult to do that on your own, but I know that God knows what I need and if I need it, He will provide it.

Here are some pictures from my trip down south!