have a little white whine (and an exercise in connotative language)

[ASSIGNED: FAILURE STORY]

Are there individual students whom I feel I've failed? Ha-ell yeah! Isn't that what the "one child at a time" jingoism pretty much guarantees? GIve me 120-something students and then let help me feel good about "making a difference" for one. Do the math. 

But I have to admit confess that my biggest sense of failure has come from not being able to make a difference stick it out at SDHS. I made a commitment. At this point in my life, commitments are not made lightly. And I said I wanted a small Delta town, knowing these are the toughest assignments. Did I not fully imagine what that meant? Well, yes, be we never do. I didn't fully imagine what being a parent would be like, either, but I stuck with it for whatever it would be. How can I even begin to compare another 3 years in Mississippi to my commitment of the past 25?

I've said before and i'll say again (but now I'm changing the tense): All the reasons I left are the very reasons I should have stayed. 

That pretty much says it all. 

White Whine: The lack of leadership made my efforts there futile. Teacher Corps is not sending a new group of teachers there this year and I'd be alone further isolated. I can ultimately help more students by being in a school with some degree of leadership and organization. The school I'm going to is still classified as critical needs. There are still hundreds  thousands millions plenty of students whom I'm not teaching no matter where I end up. 

But then I see NW's curious eyes tracking me. Or I hear DT's soft voice as he asks my approval of every sentence he writes. I see DC's little stack of books she stores on my supply shelf. I reread SB's metaphor poem about her dead mother and compare it to the weight of her armor she wears every day.

And I know Dr. Mullins is right: It's not really about me. But I made it about me when I decided to leave those students. 

White Whine: There will be students I love at G-W. I'll probably succeed in educating some of them. But I will not succeed in educating 120-some others to whom I made an implicit and explicit commitment. I told them all that they were not the reason I was leaving. It smacked of the "divorce speech" whereby parents veil the fact that it's the other parent they can't stand. But the kids are still left parentless. Do we I continue to soothe our my conscience by saying they'll feel better because of that fact?

I dunno. But now I know why I'll be sticking with gin.