music: Miles Davis- Kind of Blue
In June of 2006, Missa Toss hung ‘em up. Two hard years as a schoolteacher in Boston Public Schools was about all he had in him. David left Missa Toss be, and drove clear across the country. By himself. Now it’s the end of August in 2007, about 14 or so months after MIssa Toss said goodbye, and he realizes that it wasn’t goodbye after all. Tomorrow Missa Toss rises from the ashes and takes on a new school, a new city, a new group of kids, a new set of challenges. Missa be mad forcin’ it.
I myself am surprised at my decision making here. To be absolutely and perfectly clear, I am quite excited to be getting back into the classroom. There are so many good things to be said about teaching high school that I often take them all for granted. But there are also enormous challenges, herculean struggles, impossibly high mountains to climb. Teaching takes its toll on all fronts, especially the more sensitive, personal fronts. And after this past amazing year of movement and growth, after many who have been close to me as Missa Toss have said that I look and feel and act measurably better than I did when I was teaching, going back into it can seem like completely lunacy. Maybe it is.
Last March, when I realized that my current gig as a Naturalist in the Marin Headlands was not sustainable nor personally challenging to the extent I needed it to be, I began to consider other professional options. Resumes were e-splattered all over the Bay Area (because one thing is for sure: I’m nowhere near done here), and of the 30-odd probes into sectors ranging from education to nonprofit to consulting, not even a second look from any institution outside high schools. It’s like that in a city like San Francisco, I suppose, with thousands upon thousands of overeducated, overqualified, upwardly mobile young people all vying for the same 15 jobs on Craigslist. This significant reality check crystallized certain sentiments, though, namely that teaching (and more specifically public urban high school teaching) is what I’ve been trained to do more than anything else, it’s something I’ve been told I’m good at, and more importantly, it’s something I enjoy. That the David on paper could only appeal to that for which his resume was groomed made things much simpler and much more clear. And so by no large surprise, I’m back to exactly where I started.
But Missa Toss has come out of retirement to entirely different circumstances. The school I’m in now is a drastically different place: much more progressive in terms of pedagogy, much more collaborative, much more young, energetic, motivated, intelligent. Instead of planning for ten classes a week from scratch on my own, I am co-planning for three classes a week and working from precedent. Instead of traditional drill-and-kill tactics, I’m encouraged to think creatively about assessment and demonstration of understanding. I’ve been in PD for the past three weeks, and for the first time I feel like I’m being treated like a professional. All this, of course, is the backdrop to the real work that hasn’t even started yet. When 8:00 hits tomorrow morning and the kids are in their seats, expectant and restless, everything changes. No doubt it will be hard work. No doubt I will sweat, bleed, and cry over these kids like I did the last group in Boston. But given the perspective gained from a year away and the years I have under my belt already, I think I’ll manage much better. Beyond the job, I’m in a much more healthy place mentally, socially, and physically and I’m quite sure that I will spend far fewer weekend nights staring at the insides of my room by myself.
I’m apprehensive. That much is certain. I’m determined to put David ahead of MIssa Toss this time around, but I also know how David and Missa Toss have this tendency to work themselves into the ground for the things in which they believe. There will be some serious adjustment, and some long hours, and some days where there is nothing I’ll be able to do but come home and faceplant into my pillows. But I’m also expecting moments of exhiliration, transcendence even. Missa Toss is much more grounded, sure of what he’s able to do and how he’s going to do it, and because of this new context is all fired up. There will be time enough for all that in the coming months, but for now it’s time to get horizontal. It’s a school night, after all.
Posted by davidtaus at August 27, 2007 12:53 AM | TrackBack