Broken Blade

I used to be a teacher,

As sharp as a well-made knife,

That was meant to be used roughly,

Every day to take a little punishment.

Tempered and sharpened over the years,

Hardened and indestructible,

But at the same time, flexible.

Slicing through problems,

So gently and delicately.

Like they were almost nothing.

I used to be a teacher,

Able withstand the abuse from students.

That’s part of a teacher’s job description.

You take it and if it wears you down,

You sharpen yourself,

And go back to work again.

But long have they been,

Desiring my absence.

All their efforts,

Focused on this task.

They missed no opportunity,

To sabotage.

Contaminate.

Humiliate.

To wear down my former sharpness.

They’ve done it.

They win.

I’m nothing but a useless dull blade,

That finally broke in half,

But I used to be a teacher.

To My Son Christopher, On The Occasion Of The Birth Of His First Son, Elliott

He is the first son

Of the first son

The oldest son

Of the oldest son

Your son extends beyond you,

Into the future,

And behind you,

Into the past.

He will be the first son of the first son of the first son of the first son,

But he will be one.

Not many.

Though he be connected, he will not be them.

But without them, he would not be.

He will not be them,

And he will not be you.

He will be he,

And claim his place in the world.

In time,

It is possible,

He will in turn meet his first son.

Another connected one.

Thoughts of a Teacher Heading Towards Burn Out Bridge

Most schools I’ve worked at have a full time student councilor, and those that don’t at least have a part time one who comes in once or twice a week. This is someone to whom the students can talk when they’re feeling overwhelmed by the various pressures of their adolescent lives, such as having to deal with school, parents, friends, crushes, that sort of thing. Very rarely is such a service offered to the teachers. Basically if they are feeling overwhelmed, overstressed, or overworked, then they’re supposed to handle it on their own, which I think seems a little unfair. Teaching is a particularly stressful job, especially for newcomers, and it would be incredibly helpful if they could have someone to talk to when they are having “one of those days.”

Alas, no. In my fifteen years as a teacher, I’ve seen many fresh out of school teachers arrive full of enthusiasm and eager to begin their careers, and then witness their slow decline into misery. The bright-eyed look on their faces at the beginning of the year is gradually replaced by a deer in the headlights stare of bewilderment, as they are eaten alive by their students and offered little to no support from the administration. They thought they wanted to become a teacher because it would mean job security and long breaks and it would be fun to work with kids. But they weren’t prepared for the reality of dealing with a room full of obnoxious and indifferent teenagers, most of whom don’t really want to be there. To use a military term, they wash out.

If you can get past this stage then you can look forward to a long career as a teacher. You develop your own teaching style and methods for managing unruly and disruptive students. You learn to be effective, and inspirational, and learn ways to stimulate your students’ thirst for knowledge. These kinds of skills can only be developed over a long period of time. In teacher training, you study methods of “classroom management,” but pretty much all the education and training you receive is useless once you enter the classroom. I consider myself to be a pretty decent classroom manager, but I still make mistakes from time to time. Sometimes there are students that you just cannot reach, on whom all of your tried and true methods do not work. Those are the students that stamp out the fire that burns within the teacher, the flame that burns with a passion to bestow one of life’s greatest gifts: knowledge.

Unfortunately, once that fire is out, it’s very hard to get it going again. As a teacher, that’s when you’re burnt out. That’s when you have to make a difficult decision, whether to continue to work in this burnt out state, when you are nothing but a tiny wisp of smoke, a shadow of the confident educator you used to be, or you can admit you’re burnt out and you can quit. This is the crossroads at which I find myself now. I’ve had a long and varied career as a teacher, but right now I feel like I’m on a train heading towards Burn Out Bridge. Once I cross it, my career as a teacher will be finished, or at least on hiatus for a while.

It isn’t just one or two particularly obnoxious students that are pushing me toward that bridge; it’s a variety of factors, personal and professional. The stress has taken its toll on me, physically. I’ve become overweight and unhealthy. I’ve recently developed a headache that hasn’t gone away for over a month. It might be related to an accident three months ago that resulted in a head injury. I was hit over the head by a malfunctioning railroad crossing boom at the train station, but that’s a story for another time. The doctor said it was more likely a tension headache and he advised me to stop taking pain relievers and try stretching and massage instead, which does actually work, albeit temporarily.

Professionally, I feel overwhelmed and inadequate. I have a teaching credential in one subject only, which is English. Yet, I am teaching four subjects, in three of which I have no credentials, and even though I’ve been assured repeatedly that I’m “doing fine,” I don’t feel confident that I am. The students deserve someone who knows what the hell they are doing, who knows how to teach these subjects, not someone who was asked to teach the subject because there was no one else available. At least the subjects I teach aren’t very crucial ones. They are practical subjects, so I try to make them as interesting and fun as I can, but I know next to nothing about the theoretical content I’m supposed to teach, since I never read most of these subjects, nor have I received any training in how to teach them.

Finally, the school at which I work has recently changed ownership and not all students and staff are entirely on board with it. We chose this school because its name, image, and philosophy all appealed to us. However, that all changed at the beginning of the year. The school that we knew and that we chose over all the others is now gone. It went from being a small neighborhood school to part of a large corporation. Additionally, our principal, the man who hired me last year, resigned because he didn’t agree with the demands placed upon him by the new owners. It’s a lot to take in. We’re still in the “let’s wait and see” phase of the transition, and it’s not a very comfortable place to be.

So here I am, uncertain about whether I want to continue working at this school, or indeed whether I want to continue working as a teacher at all. I don’t want to leave my job, and yet I do. The work is still fun and stimulating, and my colleagues are good people, but I feel that my career as a teacher is nearing its end. I’ve always held firm to the belief that one should only be a teacher as long as one’s heart and mind are completely committed to it. There’s nothing worse than being taught by a sad, overwhelmed, and jaded teacher who crossed that bridge a long time ago.

I feel like I should get off the train before I get there.

Goodbye, David Robert Jones.

Daniel and I end most evenings sitting in our cozy little pub, which Daniel converted from an enclosed porch shortly before I moved in. We chat over the events of the day, whilst sipping on a glass of wine and puffing on our ecigs. This is also a great time to listen to music, and just relax before heading to bed. On Saturday, the ninth of January, I was reading through facebook and saw that David Bowie’s new album was being released that day, his 69th birthday. What a wonderful present from the birthday boy. It wasn’t the first time, either; his previous album, “The Next Day” was also released on the ninth of January, 2013. We’re both huge Bowie fans, so I found the album on Spotify and we gave it a listen. It was jazzy, weird, experimental, and kind of cool. We ended that evening listening to my David Bowie “Hunky Dory” playlist. It has a lot of songs on it, not just from the brilliant Hunky Dory album. It’s my thing to give all my Spotify playlists clever sounding names.

It turned out that we were listening to Bowie’s last album, as countless other fans no doubt were, on his birthday, which turned out to be the day before his last day on earth. I can’t think of anything more poetic, more elegant, more quintessentially Bowie, than to go like that.

As a life long fan, however, the news of his death came as a complete shock. It was Monday morning and I hadn’t slept very well the night before. This was the first day back to work after Christmas break, and my mind was full of planning and details. I left for work extra early and arrived at the office about 7:30 in the morning. At 7:59 Daniel sent me a link on Facebook messenger to a story on the Hollywood Reporter website, which reported that David Bowie had died the day before. My first reaction was (and I quote), “NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” But then we thought, wait a minute, this has to be a hoax. So I quickly googled for any David Bowie death hoax pages and immediately found one that said reports of his death were fake, and his Twitter and Facebook accounts had been hacked by some cruel troll. Well, that was a relief. I started my first lesson of the day reassured that David Bowie was alive and well, just as the page that reported the hoax said he was.

Of course, the cruelest irony of all was that the reports of his death were in fact true, and that the death hoax page was itself a hoax. Over the next hour more and more reports of his death started appearing on other sites, Daily Mail, Buzzfeed, Gawker, the BBC. And then we knew the unthinkable had just happened. And the idea that David Bowie was dead was indeed incomprehensible. I actually wrote, “I can’t even think about it right now. It’s just too horrible.”

“Same here,” wrote Daniel.

I went through my day, reconnected with students and colleagues, answered questions about how I spent Christmas break, taught my lessons and planned more lessons, generally kept busy. But at one point I went to the staff lounge and sat on the couch. No one ever sits in there so it’s a great place to get some peace and quiet. For the first time, my mind was quiet enough to fully understand what had just happened. David Bowie was dead. How could he be dead? That doesn’t even make sense. No one knew that he was sick, that he had been battling liver cancer for eighteen months. I was sitting alone in the empty teacher’s lounge, and I could feel the tears running down my face. I still could not accept it. My mind would not process it. I quickly composed myself and went to join students and colleagues for lunch. But it was in the back of my mind all day, “David Bowie is dead.”

When I got home from work, Daniel and I talked for hours about how surreal it was that David Bowie was dead. He had also broken down and cried that day. We ended that evening that same as we did on his birthday, listening to Bowie’s music.

It’s now Wednesday, my day off. I knew I was going to write all this down, and I’ve finally had time to sit down and do it. Earlier today I watched a video of Rick Wakeman performing “Life on Mars,” on piano, as a tribute to Bowie. That’s when I broke down and really cried. It finally sunk in that David Bowie was dead, and how incredibly sad and tragic that is.

The Man to Fell to Earth has had his last day on earth. He’s really gone. It’s so painful just to write these words down. David Bowie was a brilliant musician, a true artist in every sense of the word. The world feels plain and dull without David Bowie in it, so empty, and a hell of a lot less weird.