survival skills

i will be so glad to get out of this setting. the last week or so, knowing i will be done soon, has been like waking up from a long period of sleepwalking.

back in november, or maybe earlier, it became clear to me that i was not going to stay sane unless i just suspended everything i know, and tried to "go with the flow" in the classroom where I found myself.

i'm good at that--forgetting, adapting, getting along...it's a valuable survival skill, sometimes.

being able to recover yourself afterward is the real challenge, but one which i think i've gained with age & confidence. it helped a lot that i took copious notes before i "went to sleep;" reading them helps me remember my shock & horror in the early days in this classroom, and reconnect with my knowledge about what its problems are.

as i write this I consider, not for the first time, that what i am describing is the same thing that so many students have to do every day. especially for students whose outside-school life is a serious mismatch with school, the skill with which they can slip between two worlds is key to their survival.

i am thinking in particular of J, an amazingly resilient little girl whom I view with something akin to awe. I want to ask her, "how did you learn to do that so well?" she seems to have an amazing self-possession, in every sense of the word. her family has all sorts of difficulties which, since they are poor, we know ALL about (god, i hate that!) and she doesn't get to school every day, but when she does, she works hard, and often spends lunch catching up with what she's missed. at the same time, she never seems worried or anxious about it, just works methodically, then brings the work back and asks, "ok, what else am I missing?" she just does what she's told in the time that she has. then she leaves.

the more amazing part, though, is that she seems to do all this without really buying into it. she seems to know that it's sort of a game. she has to do it, but it's not Important in a real sense. the kids who accept that school is a real test of their intelligence (and in some sense, of their value as human beings) get very anxious about succeeding, and this anxiety ties them up in knots (different kinds of knots depending on whether they find school do-able or not). it's like they accept that the teacher is the center of the universe, and they either love or hate that fact--they either scrabble for the teacher's approval in a sort of pathetic desperation, or kick back furiously against the teacher in a hopeless rebellion, but either way, it's still all about teacher, and the kids seem to lose themselves completely.

J, meanwhile, just coasts on through as though she's untouched by all this. She knows how to relate to teachers so they think she's a "good girl." at the same time, she makes it clear to her peers that she is not by any means "on the teacher's side." her primary peer affiliation appears to be with the Black students (I believe her Mom is white and her Dad is Black), but she gets along well with all the kids who are friendly and easygoing--not with the kids who are obsessed with school, whom she ignores. the role she plays with some of her more rebellious Black peers is interesting. she makes it clear she's "on their side" (shares with them the wry faces when the teacher says something ignorant, and makes under-the-breath comments--but hers are meant only for her peers, not to aggravate the teacher), and yet at the same time, she consciously models a sort of quiet resistance that does not show up on the teacher's radar ("shhh, cut that out--just stand here like you're in line and you won't have to go back to your seat"). it's like everyone else in the class is bouncing off the teacher, positively or negatively, and J just passes through, surviving, and surviving well in comparison to those who still put the teacher in the center of their universe. born & bred in the briar patch. how did she get so good at this?

my own response to J was very educational to me, as well. at first I felt like she was some kind of nut I had to crack, I had to get in there, get under her skin. it bothered me that she didn't care about me or my approval like the others did. but the longer I was in that room, the more I saw J as the survivor in the war zone. I forgot that I once thought she should let me in--I'm just remembering that now (ridiculously egotistical!!--and kinda sick too-- but such a classic "helper" attitude). I started wanting to tell other kids, "psst, watch J, she knows what she's doing," but there was no way to say that. I wonder if there will be, in the future.

I wonder if J really is as cool as she seems. I wonder if she has just learned to be inscrutable, but is really having all screwed up somehow. I wonder if she "got that way" from some kind of terrible experience that I shouldn't wish on anyone (like, someone who picked on her when she showed emotion, or no one to depend on at all). Somehow I doubt the last--people who are picked on and have no one to depend on tend to be more reactive, not less so--right? Hmmm.

Maybe the only thing I can say for certain here comes back to me, because I'm the only person whose head I'm inside (if that makes any sense). I think my changing reaction to J means I'm developing better boundaries; that I'm more able to see the kids as themselves, and less seeing them in terms of how they validate me (a big pitfall for me and most teachers!). That was one of my goals for the semester, so in that sense, I guess I have succeeded.

There's something to be said for the war zone, after all.