Re-Leaf

It probably has been close to two weeks since my last, "cliffhanging" update, where I communicated a great deal of frustration, disillusionment, discouragement and exhaustion At the end of my letter, I said that something inevitably had to change--and that that change would have to happen quickly. Well, it did.

Thankfully, the change did not come as a heart attack, a car accident, a nervous breakdown or as some random tropical disease. It came as a realisation. A realisation that I myself am nothing; that what I do in my own strength amounts to little more than a pile of dust in the light of a broader perspective. I have been working my tail off for the past five and a half months, trying my best to do my best and be the best that I possibly could be--that's kind of who I am. Yet, despite all of my vigorous efforts, all of my sleepless nights, all of my work-filled weekends, I never felt like I was ever going to meet the expectations that were had on me--whether they were real expectations from my employers, perceived expectations that I thought (and maybe still do think) existed, manufactured personal expectations or any countless other benchmark that I was aware of. I always was feeling like I was falling short: other staff members would be having evenings & weekends free, making extra money tutoring or helping out / volunteering in non-school ministries and pretty much enjoying life while I felt as if I was rotting away in my classroom, pouring over my lessons, struggling with my work & with the content (teaching yourself the finer points of linear algebra is a bit tough--especially when you're expected to be teaching the same material to students the next day). I was discouraged, despairing and beginning to get depressed. But then, I realised something. I realised my real station in life--how much my own individual actions actually make a difference.


The Story

It became blatantly obvious to me on the second Monday of teaching after we had come back from our semester break. I had just burned my weekend away, sitting in my classroom pouring over minute details of trigonometric identities for grade 11 math and quadratic transformations for grade 10. I had planned these amazing lessons, where I was going to introduce the concepts to my students in many exciting, engaging ways, but as a result, I didn't get a chance to mark the grade 10 homework assignments. "No problem," I thought, "Most math teachers get their students to mark assignments in class. I'll just allot some time in one of the classes this week to do that, and we can all review together the more difficult questions." It was an excellent idea, I thought.

The week started, and when it came time for me to dazzle my students with amazing teaching & learning techniques... They wouldn't even pay attention. My Grade 11 students (a class size of 3) were just "not in the mood" to learn: One refused to sit at a desk, but instead, lay down and began to sleep; another student chose to play with a Rubik’s cube throughout the class; the third decided that it was more advantageous to stare off into space instead of learning math. When I asked what was going on, they balked my inquisition. Choosing to switch my teaching approach for that day, I asked them to take out their textbooks and turn to the section that we were studying. None of them--not one--had brought their textbook to school that day, nor had they bothered to bring notebooks or even paper to class. Joy.

So, grade 11 was a failure that day. All of the work that I had poured into trying to engage the students was for naught. Hopefully, Grade 10 would be better. Well...... It wasn't. A homework assignment was due that day, so instead of collecting them, I thought that I would get the students to mark their own. It was a fiasco. Only 2/3 of the class even did the homework, and when it came to marking, half of the students refused to even look at another person's work--making excuses ranging from "I don't understand this math" to "I cannot read their writing" or even "I cannot find their homework" (when it had just been handed to them to mark). After sorting out their logistic protests, the whining ensued. "Why do we have to mark someone else's work?" "What is the point of this?" "How are we going to learn from marking assignments?" and, my personal favourite, "You are just lazy, Mr. Daniel. You're making us do your work because you don't want to do anything!"

I was dumbfounded. Crushed. My students accused me of being lazy and not doing work, when they themselves couldn't even manage to sit down for 20 minutes on the weekend and finish their homework assignments. They called me lazy; when I had just spent over twenty hours on the weekend coming up with ways that would help them learn the material better. I couldn't believe it--and what's worse is that a bulk of the class all grunted in assent with this last vocal attack.

There's a limit to how many pearls you throw to swine before you realise that they're just going to poo in them anyways. That day was my breaking point, and on Tuesday, I decided that, instead of giving them my dazzle, I would give them a satisfactory instruction performance--no extra work, no sweating through how to make this information more accessible, no lateral thinking exercises in how to make abstract mathematics more concrete. I would just lecture, review and coach.

They didn't even notice a difference. Not a single one of them. The rest of the week was devoid of Math-o-lympics; free of games, mind-challenges; missing the pictures and the puzzles and not one of them even blinked. The good students were doing just as well; the struggling students were still struggling at the same rate; the hellions were still as hellionish as ever. Why had I been working myself to death for something that the students didn't even appreciate?

That same week, I was given a written notice that I had failed to submit lesson plans for the next week on time. Every Thursday, our lesson plans for the following week are due. I have never been able to come close to meeting this deadline, usually just squeaking in my lesson plans my Sunday at 11pm or Monday morning. This week, when I had been totally demoralised by my students the last thing I needed was to be told that my efforts, again, were not good enough. So, I rebelled.

Instead of trying to do my best to get my lesson plans in as soon as possible, I decided that I wouldn't even do any of my lesson plans until I had a reasonable amount of time to do them--which ended up with me completing lesson plans the night before I'd be using them. Did the world end? Nope. Did my performance as a teacher suffer, when my lesson plans were completed the day before the lessons instead of the week before? Nope. In fact, they probably were better (or at least more efficient), since that way, I could tailor each day's material a bit better in response to what had happened in class that day.

As a result of these events, I've decided that striving for excellence while here at GES is an unattainable goal. Despite all of my efforts, nothing is good enough for anyone anyways, so why should I bother working myself to death? Experimenting with being "adequate" as opposed to being "spectacular" has shown me that the amount of difference that "spectacular" makes in comparison to how much work, stress & time it takes to "achieve," is just not worth it. Am I going to go the extra mile to try & teach students who would rather sleep, rather talk, rather play games or rather spend their parents' money on whatever their hearts desired than making an effort to learn (especially when they know that they can buy a passing grade from our school)--especially when they accuse me of being lazy? Nope. I'll help the students who want to learn; I'll help the students who even at least make a bit of an effort. Am I going to lose sleep over missing manufactured deadlines and administrative make-work projects? Heck no. I don't have the energy or remaining stress tolerance levels to even try to play that game.


The Results

So, I've changed my approach. I'm learning to take work a bit more lightly, which allows me to get more sleep ( though I still am needing 2 Red Bulls a day just to make it to 5:00 without passing out in front of my students). I've actually spent time with people & have had conversations for what feels like the first time since July! We'll see how this whole new approach works out.

We have a PD weekend next week. It's supposed to be a spiritual-retreat dealie, which I am earnestly looking forward to. I haven't had uninterrupted time to spend alone with God & honestly pursue Him in months. Pray that there would be an opportunity to do just that.

Kand, my 10B student who chose to follow Christ, transferred out of GES at the beginning of the term to go study in Australia. Pray for her, that she'd get connected to a good set of Christians over there--I doubt she even knows where to look for them.

One of the biggest problem-students in my classes, a girl named Soda, is beginning to realise how horribly lost she is in school. She has about a 40% average in both Math & Chem., and that's completely due to lack of effort. She's an intelligent girl, but her attitude towards school, authority or anything that stands in her way of getting what she wants when she wants is rotten. On Friday, she asked me for help--the first time this year--and it was clear that she hasn’t learned a thing since the beginning of September. As a result, I'll be spending some tutoring time with her in the mornings before school to try & help her catch up. Pray that this would be an opportunity to reach into her life & show her Christ. It's the brazen, unruly students who typically need love the most, as often times, they act the way they do due to a severe deficit of love.

I've been asked & have begun to adapt and produce Shakespeare's The Tempest, which will be performed by the student body (hopefully) by the end of the school year. Pray for wisdom, guidance and for help from my associated staff members to pull off this gargantuan project.

That's all I have for now. If I continued, your eyeballs would fall out & my schoolwork wouldn't be getting done.

Peace.