Reflections of a BadAss Teacher – Year Two
Getting ready for work this morning, I experienced something I had never felt before.
I was not ready to go back to work.
I am sure that my working at the school for four weeks during the summer had something to do with it. But it was more than that. Trying to pinpoint exactly what it was at first was hard. Last year I had found BATs before going back in September. Last September I was energized, excited, aware and awake.
Where were these feelings this year? BATs had worked hard over the past year, forming relationships in our fight against corporate education reform. Strides had been made, bringing our pushback to a point that I had not predicted, that passed my expectations.
So then I should be even more energized, right? I should be strapping on my virtual boxing gloves and tightening those laces.
Why the hesitation this year? Why the lack of enthusiasm to go into the classroom? I could hardly believe that, as I got dressed this morning, I toyed with thoughts of finding yet another career, even though that would almost guarantee that I worked until the day that they wheeled me out on a stretcher.
Thinking about all of this as I sat in our opening day staff welcome sessions I thought about what had made me become a teacher in the first place. We all know it wasn't for the money, (minimal) or the summers off, (a myth) or the 8am to 3pm workday (a joke). So what was it. Why had I become a teacher in the first place? What had changed since then?
Sitting in these meetings, with three more days of meetings still ahea, I realized what had changed. I knew what had shifted in focus this year.
The children.
The children have not changed. They will always be these creatures with sponge-like brains that have new ways of doing things. Different ways, that we as adults, will always struggle and race to keep up with. That has not, and will never, change.
But education no longer focuses on the children. It has become a political tool that is used in an attempt to shift power. To shift power from one political party to another, to shift power from the have-nots to the haves, to shift power from the people to those that rule their state with an iron fist. From a Badass Teachers Association: