{"id":345,"date":"2019-04-03T12:56:06","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T17:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/?p=345"},"modified":"2019-04-03T12:56:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T17:56:16","slug":"other-peoples-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/other-peoples-children\/","title":{"rendered":"OTHER PEOPLE\u2019S CHILDREN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m not the kind of\nteacher who chose the profession because of a burning desire to nurture\nchildren and spend time with them. I was more interested in curriculum and the\nopportunity to teach history and science. My calling was born out of an\nidealistic craving for democracy and a deep desire to make a difference in this\nworld. When I trained student teachers in the environmental program I directed,\nI always asked them why they chose teaching as a career. I used to secretly\nroll my eyes when they waxed on about how they love children, wanted the\nsummers off or how they wanted a family and teaching would fit the schedule.\nBoy were they in for a rude awakening!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t like children, but let\u2019s face it, they can be rude and disrespectful, incredibly self-centered and downright mean to their peers \u2013 especially those girls. They roll into your classroom on their soccer balls and basketballs with an oversized sense of entitlement and lacking any sense of grit. Not one bootstrap can be found in their closets, by which to pull themselves up, because \u2013 well they are used to the adults doing everything for them. We coddle them, enable them, and in effect limit their capacity to be human, to take a risk, make a mistake, and laugh about it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I\u2019m not\nalways fond of my students, I have loved them fiercely. I must admit, that for\na teacher like myself who has no children of her own, it\u2019s been a gift to have\nborrowed so many of other people\u2019s children over the years.  I get to practice parenting for six hours a\nday. A little nurturing, mentoring, guiding, protecting \u2013 some of the things I\nsorely missed in my own childhood (like that protection thing). Yet at the end\nof the day, I get to send them home tanked up on Tootsie Roles if they had a\ngood day. I don\u2019t have to cook their dinner or truck them all over Hell\u2019s\nkitchen to soccer games, basketball, and football practice.  I don\u2019t have to sit through those painfully\nslow baseball games, listening to parents gossip about teachers, nor do I have\nto sit with them to do their homework and try to wrap my head around the damned\nmath program, wondering what the heck the teacher meant by \u201cwriting\nresponse\u201d.  I don\u2019t have to pay the\northodontist or save money to send them to college and marry them off. I don\u2019t\nhave to bear the pain of losing them in a senseless war, or to addiction and\nworse. I don\u2019t have to experience the terror of giving birth in reverse as I\nlet them go out into the world. They are, after all, not mine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet for little people\nwho do not belong to me, they have occupied most of the space in my heart and\nsoul and taken up megabytes of my brain. From the end of August until the end\nof June, my students are a constant companion. During the day, I monitor their\nacademic, social and emotional progress; in the evenings I correct and analyze\ntheir work and plug in data; at night I have bad dreams about the ones who\nreally worry me; on weekends I fret about their broken homes, their broken\nfamilies and I pray they will return whole enough to make another go of it on\nMonday. During vacations and snow days, I wonder if I should talk to the social\nworker or call DCF. It takes most of the summer to let them go and cleanse my\npsyche as I prepare ye the way for the next batch.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think that\nanyone other than elementary school teachers can possibly understand the toll\nthat \u201cteaching\u201d takes on our health and well-being. We are simply beasts of\nburden, overtaxed with unfunded mandates and expected to pick up more and more\nof the slack while public schools and all the social structures that are\nsupposed to support them crumble at our feet. It\u2019s a miracle that a good\nteacher like myself can squeeze in one or two decent lessons during the day \u2013\nin between putting out emotional meltdowns, feeding and sometimes clothing our\nstudents, spending hundreds of dollars on snacks and school supplies because \u2013\nwell \u2013 there\u2019s always a budget freeze.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You want so\ndesperately for them to do well, and to feel whole and smart and at home, you\ngo above and beyond by decorating your room with purple walls and Zen\nfountains. None of these things will show up in the \u201cdata\u201d, or if the parents\ngang up on you, because you, as a teacher don\u2019t count.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is natural for me\nto teach with a social construct, and to try to build a community of learners,\nbecause I started out as a psyche major, who had been deeply damaged by public\neducation.  But in the end, it neither\nheals the broken souls of my \u201cchildren\u201d nor my own broken heart.  There is no fix. Certainly nothing that can\nbe accomplished by one teacher.  I cry\nevery time I hear Malala Yousafzai\u2019s quote One\nbook, one pen, one teacher can change the world<\/em>.  I so wanted to be that teacher who could make\na difference. I so wanted to change the world, but I know in my heart of hearts\nthat it \u201ctakes a village to teach a child\u201d, and we teachers are left alone in\nisolation, expected to be superheroes. We must fend not only for our students\nbut for ourselves, our integrity, and our rights. Our unions are supposed to\nhelp fight the good fight, but too often get bogged down in the small stuff. We\nare drowning. I am the water. I am drowned.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps had I been\nable to have my own children, I would not have been so immersed in the lives of\nmy students.  Like most of my colleagues,\nI would have had to leave the building long before my usual 5:30 or 6:00. I\nwould go home to a fullness of being \u2013 a family \u2013 the pitter-patter of tiny\nfeet, laughter and tears. Instead, I go home to a certain kind of loneliness\nthat comes with the territory of childless couples. Too quiet. Too empty.  And therefore, too tempting to worry about my\nborrowed children.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot to\nworry about. It is appalling to me that the most unworthy, inept and broken people\non earth somehow manage to breed like rabbits. \nThey spawn children like salmon, despite their addictions, or their\nborderline personalities. They milk the system whenever possible and blame the\nschool for their problems.  It seems so\nunfair that someone like myself couldn\u2019t have children, when I could have provided\nsuch a well-loved home. Over the years, I\u2019ve had to stand by and watch one\ntsunami after another bust through the walls of a child\u2019s life, knowing there\nwasn\u2019t much I could do about it.  I tried\nonce or twice to work with the social worker, contemplating \u201cthe call\u201d to DCF,\nbut knew it wouldn\u2019t really help.  The\nsystem does not favor me, as a professional. Instead, it favors keeping\nfamilies together no matter how much they screw up.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there you have\nit. That little pocket of resentment which I try to ignore. The one which is\nsewn up tight by the manufacturer so that you can\u2019t quite get your finger in it\nto dig at whatever is pulling on your heart. \nI think it has something to do with how borrowing other people\u2019s\nchildren isn\u2019t enough \u2013 especially when the parents seem to be doing such a\nterrible job. I look at those families, like that heroin mom and the dad in\njail, and ask why them?  Why do they<\/em> get to have a child to love, when\nthey are so messed up, they can\u2019t feed and clothe him properly \u2013 while I sup on\ntheir leftover rations, borrowed children meted out for a short time and then\nput aside.  I guess the answer is just\nthat. I get to put them aside, out of sight and out of mind once the school\nyear is over.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure I would\nhave been a great parent. I\u2019m not sure I could have withstood the oppression\nand the stress while trying to manage a teaching career, which is more than\nenough stress in and of itself. And I\u2019m not sure I would have been happy giving\nup my music and writing, my creative expressions. I think the Universe had and\nstill does have something else in mind for me. \nAnd just as my friends are now experiencing an empty nest, letting go of\ntheir children as they fly away into the world, I must set my borrowed children\nfree. They are no longer mine to fret over, nurture or mentor. I\u2019ve been\nthinking about retiring from teaching and picking up the things I\u2019ve had to set\naside during a long and exhausting career. I don\u2019t think I need to borrow other\npeople\u2019s children anymore, which is why I have grown wings.<\/strong>\n\n\n\n\n\nccent 6;\\lsd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not the kind of teacher who chose the profession because of a burning desire to nurture children and spend time with them. I was more interested in curriculum and the opportunity to teach history and science. My calling was born out of an idealistic craving for democracy and a deep desire to make a … <\/p>\n

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