Wednesday, January 30, 2013

January 30

Today's creative time came when, technically speaking it should not have.  Inspiration took me in the middle of a mandatory training.  I was amazingly bored and being force-fed information that I'd been force-fed at least two times before.  At first I was doodling, then I started writing a letter, then it just started.  It sounds pretty outraged and probably more than a little contrived, but here is what came out when I just started writing what was in front of me.

I was very hesitant in putting this up.  Writing is very difficult for me.  Writing and sharing is terrifying.  Even though what I wrote just sort of flowed out, I was seriously considering not posting it.  I came very close to painting or drawing or something just to have something else to post.  Facing fears...yay?


It reads:
There's a lady at the front of the room.  Clearly passionate about she's talking about.  But I don't care.  She might as well be the teacher from Charlie Brown.  Wah-wah wah-wah wah.  I've heard all this shit before.  It might have been helpful 3,5,10 years ago.  Now, you're just wasting my time.  Trying to tell me how to do my job when I already do so much more than what you're advocating for.  You think small.  This program is small.  The books you're thumping in my direction aggravate and annoy me.  You would really take my contribution to the world and marginalize it until I'm irrelevant?  You hand me books and papers and proudly declare, "It's all done for you," "What could be easier?" "What an amazing resource."  "So much simpler."  Here's my response.  I don't want it all done for me.  I worked to get here.  I don't want some over-paid soulless money-grubbing corporation doing "everything" for me or the group of children they've never met, who are dealing with issues they can't fathom, and are capable of more than their narrow minds can conceive.  "What could be easier?"  When did teaching or childhood become easy?  Both are fraught with challenges; small bumps in the road and catastrophic explosions that make you wonder how you'll survive that ends in amazing potential for growth, insight, and progress.Teaching and childhood are messy and marvelous.  They are ups and downs, amazing discoveries and hard learned lessons.  They're not supposed to be easy or simple.  Anyone who tells you they are is not just selling something, they're selling you a steaming pile of manure.

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