Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Steeling Myself | radical eyes for equity

Steeling Myself | radical eyes for equity

Steeling Myself


Forget it, nothing I change changes anything
“Walk It Back,” The National
Just come outside and leave with me
“The Day I Die,” The National
Yesterday I met with my four classes for the last time this semester. The classes include about 75% first-year students, something I very much enjoy about teaching at the college level.
As I have started doing more purposefully, I ended these last class sessions by telling the students I feel very fortunate to have taught them, that I love them, and that I am always here to help if they need anything since once they have been my students, they are always my students.
While I was telling the first class of the day, my foundations education course, all of this, I felt myself flushed with cold chills, the urge to cry rising up through my chest toward my eyes.
This is nothing unusual because I am a world-class crier, but except for people very close to me, my crying is usually reserved for times when I am alone—often in the car listening to music and being very melodramatically maudlin.
I toyed with that this morning, in fact, as I sang along to The National’s Sleep Well Beast; the rising drums of the opening of the album, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” always pulls at my chest and then by “Hey baby,” the CONTINUE READING: Steeling Myself | radical eyes for equity