I swam this morning. Through an agonizing shoulder ache that had me stopping every 100 yards to stretch, that had me doing touch turns instead of flipping. I had to remove myself from Coach and Dolores's lane so I could baby it, but I kept on going. Believing. Hoping...
I meet Mersault in my classroom, stare across the table at him, watch him in perplexed wonder. He is the "hero" from Albert Camus' absurdist novel, The Stranger. He chooses nothing, cares for nothing, tells me "Nothin'" in answer to 90% of my queries. The other 10% are met with shrugs. All actions happen around him. He has no memory, has no past, takes no responsibility for what is done him. He lives school in the passive tense.
I meet Mersault in my classroom, stare across the table at him, watch him in perplexed wonder. He is the "hero" from Albert Camus' absurdist novel, The Stranger. He chooses nothing, cares for nothing, tells me "Nothin'" in answer to 90% of my queries. The other 10% are met with shrugs. All actions happen around him. He has no memory, has no past, takes no responsibility for what is done him. He lives school in the passive tense.
Like Mersault, his discomfort leads him to act out. Like Mersault, he shoots a man because he is too hot. The man he shoots is himself. In the foot. In the future.
I want to put him on trial like Mersault. To be judged by his peers, to have to listen. I want to force him to reflect. To see.
This I am wrestling with. I have no happy ending. No solutions to propose except the slow, painful one of consistently staying my course. Of offering him an education every day, of drawing my line in the sand of how much I'll let him disrupt the education of others.
I kept on swimming this morning. Through the pain. I did a lonely 2700 yards in a lane of my own. But I stayed the course. With 500 yards to go, it finally gave. My shoulder loosened up and I hopped back in with Coach and Dolores. I considered it a victory.
Could there be a happy ending yet for my Mersault?
5 comments:
Great perseverence through the pain in the pool. I probably would have been out of the water at the first sign of shoulder pain.
Hope there are other happy endings as well :)
you really had to gut that one out.. and I wish you the best in reaching someone who is so hard to reach....but thats the reason you teach, right??
That must be hard to witness because I'm sure this one student is not an isolated case. I see kids like this and want to take them home with me, feed them, hug them, show them someone cares, and make everything all better. But, I know it doesn't work that way. You only hope after they are adults and on their own that they can pull themselves up and find their own way not mired down by the past. OK, that comment went on and on and on.....
I'm convinced there is a special place in heaven for teachers- hang in there and hang with this kid- you never know how it affects everyone else watching
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