Tonight… wow. Tonight was simply frustrating. Wednesdays just leave me wiped out. I have a collection of my most challenging students all in one night (although not ALL of them exhaust me. Some I honestly look forward to working with). Students that cross the line over to plain disrespect and whom I argue with on basic points of music. Students that haven’t put in the effort and time into working on their music…. and then get annoyed at ME because they don’t understand. The most frustrating students are the ones that are SO intelligent and simply refuse to work hard at something that doesn’t come easily to them. They expect me to arrange things so that it is pleasant and easy and simplified. It’s a constant power struggle. It’s a battle for dominance. It’s a poker game of calling bluffs and raising bets. I’m at my wit’s end.
I’ve decided to write one particular 14 year old student a letter. Because I’ve had enough. His behavior and attitude is unacceptable. I will have no more of it.
Tonight I also realized one of the reasons he frustrates me so much is because we are so much alike in all the wrong ways. His ego is the size of Neptune and so is mine. With an inflated sense of pride and a head swollen with knowledge we constantly battle for control and power. He runs his mouth about how he thinks I don’t know what I’m talking about and I underestimate what he knows. And I silently condescend to him out of spite and insulted feelings and give him glaring looks and make sarcastic comments under my breath. The only difference between he and I is that I am 13 years his senior and have been knocked on my cynical, know-it-all ass in life and humbled. He has not. I have been intellectually spit on and underestimated and challenged and my pride and self esteem have been stomped. College taught me that I knew nothing in life. It also taught me that I have the power to find out. It taught me that what I THOUGHT I knew about everything was not only wrong but not enough. It also taught me how to find out the truth and how to push myself to work hard to learn.
College humbled me. I walked out of homeschool high school a cocky, angsty, self-righteous, superior who laughed in the face of anyone who told me I was not all that. What a difference 5 years made. I walked out of college with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, an inferiority complex and a terrible GPA. I spent the next 4 years cowering in the corners of my own mind, licking the wounds I acquired from all the emotional falls, bumps and scrapes the higher education classroom had given me. I walked across the stage of my Alma Mater with many lessons learned but no degree. I didn’t finish the required credits to receive my Bachelors. Chemistry stood in that way. I had failed the class (and a few others) and my pride was so damaged beyond repair that I didn’t have the strength to pick myself back up to succeed in the class to finish what I’d struggled so hard for. I told myself it was easier to just say I had my degree if anyone asked. After all… I put in the time there. It’s not like I didn’t receive the education. While I never falsely claimed holding a bachelor’s degree on my resume or other important documents for employment, in conversation I skirted around the issue. I trained myself to say “I majored in….”, rather than “I have a degree in….” It was the biggest secret that I had only admitted to my closest friends and family members.
The shame continues to ruin my self esteem. I feel like a failure. I feel like a fraud. I feel like an incredibly intelligent student who will not admit that they need to work harder to fully acquire the knowledge and tools they need to have a successful life. Tonight I saw myself in my stubborn, cocky student who made excuses about how he “doesn’t learn that way” and how “the way music is written doesn’t make sense” and how he “doesn’t need to learn this to be good at piano”.
I’ve told myself similar things. MY brain doesn’t comprehend chemistry. Chemistry doesn’t make sense. I don’t need a bachelor’s degree to live a successful, fruitful life nor to prove my intelligence to the world. These things aren’t necessarily false. Chemistry doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t need a bachelor’s degree to be successful. I don’t need to prove my intelligence to anyone. But is this not beside the issue? The truth is that I need to roll up my sleeves and finish this class required to receive the degree I made it so close to earning. I can go on running away from this mountain because of my fear of heights, or I can hook up my safety gear and climb that mountain, one step at a time. I only fail in life if I choose the easy way out and therefore forsake the long-term benefits.
I was so frustrated tonight because I realized I cannot demand that my students put effort into anything, when I, the teacher, continue to run away and avoid what I must put effort into.
And now I know what I must do. I must show determination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMsUEJJHh1I
And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.
Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won’t rot, I won’t rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won’t rot.
And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
~ After The Storm” by Mumford And Sons
Confessions of a Vicenarian 