miracles, in government buildings

I just wrote an essay about my writing aspirations that turned into one about the joys of teaching.

And I meant all of it, despite yesterday's post. Well, not despite-- in addition to. Who says white is the new black?

On the one hand, teaching--and I've done a fair amount, though I've never had my own class for the course of an academic year--is awful. You're in charge of twenty-five or thirty moving bodies all at once, and all of those minds have got to learn something while you're keeping them safe and engaged. Sometimes it just doesn't gel. In fact, it often devolves (at least at the K-12 level) into babysitting.

BUT

When it doesn't, it is amazing. Just in the past month, I've had the same kids over and over in math class and have actually helped them learn. There's a moment when they figure out a new concept that feels like a miracle-- real, true communication. The teacher has just taken an abstract concept that can't be directly articulated and passed it from her head to a kid's. How miraculous is that?

Just because it happens every day doesn't mean it isn't a miracle-- and yes, that word is WAYYYY overused. But isn't attempting that kind of ineffable communication a writer's life work? It's like watching a reader read your novel and digest it and connect it to her own life, all at once and one-on-one.

So yeah, when I'm exhausted because I haven't had enough time to form the ideas (do the actual writing) in my own mind, or when I'm just physically busted from trying to teach each day all day, it feels AWFUL. There must be balance between forming the ideas and communicating them. But that balance is possible, and finding it is the dream of every teacher, writer, director, actor, composer, painter, sculptor, artist, hell-- maybe every manager. Like all beginners, I suppose, I'm still working to find mine.