summation

Here's an excerpt from an email I wrote a friend who never reads my blog. Talking with him is always clarifying, safe and funny. We'll call it the alchemy of friendship.

time zooms by. i am finally coming to turns with my job, relaxing if you will. i get so frustrated with how i think things should be and how they are. but, i shouldn't get uptight about things over which I have nil control. i have the occassional wow moment, but most of the time I feel like i'm learning how to improve my mistakes. there's a lot of trial and error. tallying of the score. then, i stratergerizing to take another whack at teaching. this is going to sound horrible. but, i'm at a loss at how to teach the truly dumb kids. i think i'm going to tatoo it into their brains through repetition. i've been having my kids respond to different art related to the literary element (setting, character, etc) that we've been covering. my mentor told me to keep doing it with my upper kids, but that it was a waste of creativity on my lower ones. she suggested work sheets. i promised myself that i'd never be that kind of teacher. oh well.
but, i'm on the search for an easy Iliad to read them. Probably fewer than half of the kids i'm teaching will graduate; so I feel obligated to expose them as much as possible. Perhaps I'm just overwhelming them.... But, by definition of average-- half the pop has to be below. But, I'm learning how to focus on the good and not to get mired in all the ridiculous and pathetic. i'm bracing myself for parent conferences. a lot of the locals think i'm uppity because of my accent. i chatted on the phone with one dad about what we were studying (islam and judaism); i used the whole knowledge is power logic. it was awesome: this guy in S. explained to me how Obama is the anti-Christ. I'm not a big fan, but please.

and, i feel like my soul is really a work zone right now. I'm not sure what God's up to, but i'm trying to be as pliant and open as the brick I am can be. i read a really good quote by Dallas Willard: "Ruthlessly eliminate hurry."