music: Ray LaMontagne- ‘Till The Sun Turns Black
At the age of 24, I made the decision to enroll in a teacher training program whose goal was to prepare intelligent, qualified, driven adults for a career in teaching in the inner cities of the United States. I thought at the time that this would be my task for the rest of the time I walked the earth as a competent adult, that I was to work in the service of those who needed it most, that I was to play a hand in achieving social equity, that I was to battle ignorance and injustice on the front lines. I dug into the task with pluck and resolve, and emerged battle-weary 12 months later with a small piece of paper saying I was now qualified and prepared to fight such a fight.
I realized quickly that my approach to teaching in public inner city high schools demanded a certain degree of martyrdom from me. In exchange for doing the work necessary to achieve progress on the front lines, I gave up significant parts of myself. David took a backseat to his teacher alter-ego Missa Toss, who ran the show for 10 months out of the year. Missa Toss achieved things during his two years in Boston and received many high compliments from pretty impressive people and places, but it all came with a heavy personal price. David was left with nothing. David found himself being given Friday nights after a full week of Missa Toss hammering and blasting, being hammered and blasted. All David could do for those two years was put his pillow over his head and hide in the darkness until the unconsciousness of sleep took the pain away.
Somehow this was tolerable to me. I justified my own suffering by the thought of my students; how because of the work I’ve done for them they will be given some sliver on an opportunity that I had growing up, that somehow my endless hours and incredible sacrifices would give them that little edge that would help boost them into a position of opportunity in their life. And those students would make it, some of them at least, and they would find ways to achieve certain degrees of power themselves and then throw themselves into changing the system that had beaten me and countless others into acquiescence, a system that was designed in many ways to keep them down, keep them pacified, keep them poor and disadvantaged. This hope is what sustained me through countless weekends lost to grading and planning and worrying, and hundreds of accumulated free hours spent resorting the insides of my own head in quiet and darkness. By all measures, Missa Toss made me miserable and I did nothing to rectify the situation for a very long time.
Halfway through my 27th year, over three years after I pledged myself to the service of urban America’s youth, I sent Missa Toss into early retirement. I turned my back on my job and life in Boston, packed my things, and drove clear across the country. I reflect now that I drove as far away as I could from my life as Missa Toss. I landed in San Francisco, took a job that felt more like a vacation than work, and immediately felt the difference in my own life. I was told by those close to me that I sounded and looked much healthier than I have in years. I indeed felt better than I had in years. David had his life back, and was enjoying the hell out of it. My first year in San Francisco was one of my best years to date.
However, the lesson was not learned and that part of me that allowed for Missa Toss to exist was not yet quiet. Because of financial pressures, job market pressures, pressures of professional obligation, and internal pressure to not give up on such an important cause so easily, I found myself last spring poking and prodding at Missa Toss to see if he was really dead. Through a series of tough decisions and unexpected twists, I ended up taking a teaching job for this fall, fully believing that this time, it would be different. I believed that this time, because I had two years experience and because of some structural and pedagogical differences with the school, I could find a way to compromise Missa Toss’s relentless drive with David’s basic human needs.
I was wrong on all counts. I quickly fell right back into Missa’s old patterns and practices, and realized within days that this would once again be David’s undoing. Once again my physical and mental health suffered, once again I allowed myself to believe that Missa’s fight was worth the personal sacrifice. Once again I was martyring myself. It was someone else, someone who at the time cared more for me than I cared for myself, who had the empathy and love to point out to me how damaging it all was. Only six weeks after starting again, I began to plan my exit. The second attempt was not working, the lesson was not learned the first time, and I was realizing how much I’d tried to deceive myself into believing it would work.
I began to write this in the middle of December, almost two months after I snapped into admitting that my personal health is more important than the battle for America’s urban teenagers, and all the while I, and my relationship with this wonderful person who cares so much about me, are in need of rebuilding.
Just before my winter holiday, I gave notice to my principal that I would be leaving teaching at the end of the semester in January. I spent a great deal of time reading back some of the things I wrote as Missa Toss from years past, and was struck at how much I suffered under Missa’s direction. I spent a good amount of energy thinking about what my life has become, and am not at all satisfied or happy with my current predicament, but have been too intertwined with Missa’s work to do anything about it. Everyone in my proximate life has, to some degree, given up on me because of Missa Toss. I don’t blame them; Missa leaves no time for himself, let alone other people. Missa is unfair to himself and those close to him. Missa has slowly been wearing me down to nothing. It is for these reasons that I have decided to leave teaching, and with it, bury Missa Toss for good.
Tomorrow will be my last day in the classroom. Tomorrow afternoon I will turn in my semester grades, hand over my keys, box up my personal belongings, and turn my back on Missa Toss after four very hard years of much struggle and little progress. I, as an individual human being, am experiencing a strange mixture of emotions, including relief, disappointment, anticipation, and deflation. The price I have been paying for fighting what amounts to most days as a losing battle is not worth it. I am excited to be able to soon get to things that have been waiting in the wings for over four years. I am hopeful to re-establish contact with my friends nearby. I am praying that I can mend my relationship with those I’ve hurt in the interim. But I am also feeling quite defeated, feeling like I’ve failed in my work to a large degree, feeling quite guilty that those that believed in me and counted on me to do this important work are being let down. I think: if someone like me, who is qualified and intelligent and in all ways cut out to do this important work, if I am unwilling to do this, then where does that leave our society? I worry greatly about the future, and about the inequity that exists in our world. I worry greatly about people growing up and not being able to contribute productively and positively to the world. I know, though, that I can’t begin to address these problems if I am myself not an effective person. It’s because of this that I have to leave, however shamefully and reluctantly. I know that I have to find a way to take care of myself first, and then worry about the rest of humanity, and I can’t take care of myself as Missa Toss. If I can’t take care of myself, I surely can’t take care of the kids I’ve promised to serve.
The kids…again I am amazed by them. As I leaf through some of the parting words they left for me, I reflect on how frustrating they are, how needy they are, how immature, bullheaded, volatile, nasty, selfish, irresponsible they are, how needy, scorned, protective, resilient, damaged they are, and in the end how compassionate, thoughtful, empathetic, supportive they are of their teacher. For all their setbacks, struggles, and faults the kids I taught are good people. And in the end, that’s all I want for them: to be good people.
So this is Missa’s requiem. He is slipping quietly into obscurity, with very little fanfare or ceremony. He is not finishing what he has begun. He is admitting defeat at the hands of the system he worked so hard to serve, not able to cope with the crush of humanity that passes through his life at school every day. He is leaving me worn out, defeated, underfed, underslept, and depressed. But I am still here, ready to start rebuilding my own life, excited about the infinite possibilities and directions I might take, anxious about what the next short while will look like for David. With Missa Toss out of the way I will able to find the time to take care of myself, and by extension, those other things and people I care about.
This time of year carries with it the most darkness, but also the knowledge that light is ahead. It has been gray and raining all week, but there is hope for sunshine in the near future. I have been crying most of this week, but I am keeping faith that the struggle now will ultimately point towards healing. I reflect on some of the moments in my life when I knew that afterwards everything would be different — my last days at camp, my last weeks of college, my final visits with my grandmother before she died — and I know that this week carries equal gravity. By the end of tomorrow it will be done. Missa Toss is dead; long live David. The future is wide open, brimming with possibilities, and for the first time in years I’m excited for it to come.
Posted by davidtaus at January 25, 2008 02:46 AM | TrackBack