Balancing My Brain With an Early Morning Bryan Rant, Then Back to Grading

Over the last weekend, I've been reading educational autobiographies from a wide-range of individuals in their early stages of, perhaps, becoming teachers. I am admitting to myself that this semester I have an unusually astute group of writers who seem to be passionate, self-aware, engaged, clever and curious. Often, I get generic responses to why one is thinking about a career in education, but this crew  - a lucky one - has diverse perspectives and a world-liness to them that seems to be more global and conscious of the extreme experiences in our educational system.

Of note, are several who wrote about coming from affluent communities, but recognizing the inequalities and inequities of U.S. schools. For many, they name programs in their successful high schools that partnered them with other schools that didn't have the same resources, and how beneficial this was to how they understood knowledge and schooling. Still, others wrote about coming from marginalized, underfunded schools where they were the first in their family to graduate high school AND to go to college (with all the stress and fear that comes with that). They wrote about immigrating to the U.S. and the struggle it took for their family to get them into an American school.

What has impressed me with this crop is that they are good writers. Almost all of them have turned to words as a way to make sense of their world, often journaling about what they see and understand, while asking questions to pursue later.

Over the weekend, too, I mentored a young man who was asked to write a personal piece about his life before arriving to a college campus. As a relocated refugee who lost his father and a little sister to HIV/AIDS, he explained how writing words with a stick in the ground and later with a pen to paper (which was a tremendous privilege that came with going to an American school) was how he's come to be self-aware and to build-self esteem. The content of what he wrote was truly amazing, even if he didn't have the language (yet) to articulate the narrative in the ways of American English traditions. As I read his story, I couldn't help but think about how language justifies his existence - putting into the global understanding of knowledge that he, as a college kid, is taking care of his mother and brother while going to school and working. He is the man of his house, and he's always trying to make sense of his luck of being in the U.S. given the refugee experiences of his youth.

I know that the U.S. is awash with universal healthcare, but I'm also a fan of universal educational opportunities. It is a shame when children are turned away from nations and denied access to learn like those born into more privileged societies. As I read the essays of my students and mentee, I couldn't help but think of how awful it is that more is not invested in schools around the world. I'm reading from kids that education is all they have ever had to promote them in the world into circumstances better than how they grew up.

I couple this with previous semesters where students wrote of apathy within their college-prep backgrounds and little determination for doing better than what was expected, other than to go to college and get a job.

Education is more that a preparation for a career. It is partially that, but it is also a means to make the world a better place.

I know grading is a pain in the ass, but many of my students are really impressing me this semester - giving me hope that the next generation might be more tolerant, more loving, more global, and less divisive than our own.

Only time will tell.