written from a slightly different context.
I used to regularly write on Saturday mornings, reflecting on my experiences in the classroom during the past week, during the regular 2-day break from seeing my students. Although back in the classroom full time this year, I have not written that much about my teaching.
Today, however, is the first of 9 consecutive days when I will not see my students, where except for planning for the week I get back (where I am scheduled to be formally observed), I will be removed from doing anything school related, and during which my thoughts may well be elsewhere.
On Monday afternoon I am scheduled for surgery. It is not a major procedure, and the expected recovery period is about 4 days. I chose November 20 because there are only two instructional days next weeks, which on an alternating A/B Day schedule I will miss each class only once, and still have a full week to recover, just in case.
It is the just in case that in part brings me to this reflection. While a relatively minor procedure, it requires general anaesthesia, with which there are always risks. Further, I am 71 years old, and at my age underlying and persistent health issues become more common. It was on November 1 of 2016 that I underwent my last operation, to insert a stent to control an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Last night I spent a bit over an hour finding online and filling out certain documents that I will have to get witnessed/notarized in the next few days before surgery — separate powers of attorney for my wife to act on my behalf financially and medically, and a will leaving her all property I own and naming her as executor. I do not expect her to need any of these, but it is part of being prudent. Given her own health issues, when we have a chance she will also have to execute similar documents, although in her case I would expect she would leave specific bequests to several institutions and to several relatives. As it happens, in theory at least she has more assets to address than do I. In the long term we may have to have more specific documents, which will require us to spend some time thinking about the various possibilities before us.
It is recognizing what I needed to do, and that this is in fact only the start of a process, that brings me to this reflection.
Too often we do not consider possibilities that may happen to us, and if they do, how they may negatively affect those close to us. What were we both to die in the same incident, what would happen to our cats? They are our family. How do we address if one of us is disabled? What discussions have we had about our wishes about heroic medical intervention, about being organ donors, etc.?
What is interesting is that as a teacher I am required to address the “what ifs” more than many of us do for the rest of our lives. I have three days for each A/B day emergency lesson plans — that is 6 days of plans. Should I have to use one, I am expected to replace it.
But I turned those in during the first week of school. The students on my roster have changed a fair amount since then, as have my seating charts. I realize that I need not to have rosters and seating charts as part of my emergency LPs (although I am required to include them), but to have clearly marked and easy to find folders containing the latest versions in my classroom. I always provide duplicates in the folder I leave for my substitute(s) when I know I am going to be out — making sure those were complete was my final task before leaving my classroom, something I was doing while simultaneously going through the pre-operation phone call from the hospital where my procedure will occur. It is 2 blocks from my house, and it is where my wife has undergone most of her treatment for her blood cancer.
But beyond the legal aspects of such preparation as I have done for my surgery, there are also practical things. Having a power of attorney for financial matters does not help if my wife cannot easily access the funds in my bank account, from which all household and common bills, and her medical co-payments not collected at time of service, are paid. She now has a document that gives her the information necessary to sign in online to my bank account, as well as the pass code to my ATM card. She knows my sign-ons and passwords for both of my email accounts, as well as my account here at Daily Kos. She knows how to unlock my I-phone.
A part of me is almost superstitious — by taking all possible preparations none of them will be necessary. Of greater importance is doing what I can so that if something unexpected happens I am the least burden possible for her to address.
Meanwhile we plan as if life will go on without major change. This afternoon we are having a love seat and a sofa delivered, replacing respectively the hospital bed that we acquired when she first came home from the hospital in 2013 and a wicker sofa now sadly decrepit that dear friends gave to us when they moved to Ohio. I took apart the hospital bed last weekend and carried it outside, putting it on the curb for a special pickup on Monday afternoon (our trash collection is Tuesday, and heavy metal objects are special collections — mattresses are ordinary trash). In preparation for today’s delivery Thursday I took out the wicker sofa and cushions. I will be spending several hours before the delivery thoroughly cleaning the spaces into which both pieces of furniture will go.
I will report to the hospital by 12:30 PM on Monday for a 2:40 procedure. That means I have to move the old sofa and cushions to the curb before I go up to the hospital, as well as put out the ordinary trash and recycling, and empty the dehumidifiers. I obviously will not be able to do anything physical like that when my wife brings me home from the hospital late Monday afternoon or early Monday evening, and some of it is too heavy for her to deal with.
My one other remaining task to do before I head to the hospital is to ensure that all payments necessary at least through the end of the month, and probably through the middle of December, will either have been paid or scheduled to come out of my bank account on Monday. That will give some breathing room should something happen to me.
Having addressed issues like these, I can clear my mind and reflect on what is really important to me.
That includes reflecting on the events in the news that swirl around me. Those make me realize how fortunate I have been.
I was born in 1946. My first political related memory is a kindergarten teacher saying something about President Truman. My first TV memory is watching part of the Army McCarthy hearings, at least, I think I did, although at the distance of more than 6 decades I cannot be sure that memory was not in some way shaped by later seeing film about it.
I grew up in a time of change. From McCarthyism to the Civil Rights movement to Kennedy, to the Great Society programs, to urban riots, the worldwide disruptions of 1968, the development of the environmental movement including the first Earth Day, gay rights, the age of voting being lowered to 18, and of course Vietnam and everything that flowed from that. I took ten years to get through college, and during my absences from formal education served in the Marines, spent time in Greenwich Village (where I supported myself in part by playing bridge and scrabble for money), worked part-time in a singles bar on the Upper East Side, and had the beginnings of a decent career which ultimately spanned about two decades working with computers, something at which I was very skilled.
One reason I feel an obligation to give back, to be of service, is because of how much I benefited from the service and the generosity and giving back of others. That includes financial and other support from a grandfather and from my parents, including the sacrifices they made to their own lifestyle to be able to nurture the musical gifts both my sister Judy and I displayed from our very early years. It is also because of the care others have given me at moments in my life when I was troubled — and there were many. That includes the patience of the late Dr. Joe McLain, principal of Mamaroneck High School during my tenure there, who took time to meet with me and help me sort out a great deal of confusion in my own thinking when my loving but troubling nuclear family was in danger of disintegrating. It includes teachers in high school and at Haverford who despite my lackluster academic performance saw things of value on me, and did not give up on me, alternatively challenging and nurturing me, efforts that may not have really begun to bear fruit until at least my mid to late 20s, and which never reached their greatest impact until I entered my 6th decade and was in a public school classroom as a teacher. By then I also had benefited from the love and support of the woman who has kept me sane and alive for now more than 43 years, and with whom I will God Willing celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary on December 29.
At this point my mind turns back to my current teaching setting. It is a bit of an understatement to say that I am in a school with some real problems. I have also for a variety of reasons made more mistakes than I can ever remember in a teaching career now more than 2 decades in length. My wife thinks that at least some of that is due to my forthcoming surgery. There is a condition being addressed that has been somewhat stressful, and despite knowing that it is considered a minor procedure she expects that on a subconscious level I have worried about what could happen. Certainly my willing to address all the issues I described above supports that thesis. I have had multiple thefts by students, so far two blue tooth speakers, an I-phone some food items. Yesterday I had to stop a student from stealing a packet of hall passes from my desk (which does not lock). I have students who have no respect for me, which they show in a variety of ways. Some have no respect for any adult in the school. We have students who come to school and wander the halls all day, or attend one or two of their four classes. There are procedures that supposedly require us to do all kinds of contacts and documentation, but those kinds of procedures are only meaningful if the incidents requiring them are infrequent enough that teachers are not spending a significant part of their time and energy fulfilling them in lieu of doing actual teaching.
Yet despite that, there are good kids who want to learn, who want to try, who respond even to the challenges I throw at them. I feel an obligation to them, even if at times classrooms and the school itself are almost too disruptive for meaningful learning to take place. While I can do that kind of analysis, that does not make me feel any better. I feel as if I am failing them.
In the past five days I have had two of the most difficult I have ever had as a teacher. But Thursday was probably as good a day as I have had at this school, as was really able to connect with almost all of the students in two of three classes I taught that day, and about half of those in the other (which is about double the normal ratio for those kids). Yesterday I was just trying to get through the day especially after when halfway through my first 90 minute period I had to call the office to have a very disruptive and disrespectful student removed and in the remaining 45 minutes no one came. Believe me, I documented all of it, both in electronic communication to the parent (who has previously ignore such communications from me and other teachers) and to the administration. That was offset somewhat by some positive things with students in the other two classes.
As I drove home after the pre-op phone call with the hospital, I wondered how I would feel if that were my last day ever as a school teacher. I would be sad that it ended on such a negative note. I think back to the 2011-2012 school year when I knew I might retire, realized that in my 6 classes that year I had no bad kids and reflected on why that might make it good point to end my teaching career.
And yet, and yet. I may not be as effective a teacher as I was 6 years ago when I contemplated retirement. I may be reaching far fewer kids. I may make more mistakes.
As I drove home I also recognized this — for all that I find wrong with what is happening this year, from the environment to my own errors — i ask myself would my students be better off were I to leave right now, and the answer is clearly not. Some of them are learning. Some of them have told me about how disruptive last year was in the school, and why they do not necessarily believe that the administration is going to get control of the building. I have now even gotten some of them willing to tell me politely when they think I am wrong.
So I am torn. Were I to wake up tomorrow and discover I had enough money that I did not have to have the income I am getting from this teaching job, what would I do? I suspect I would leave, but give the school through the end of the year to replace me. I am tired. I am not sure that for the energy I am spending I am making enough of a difference. But I don’t know for sure. And as of now I have no real opportunities of such a sudden pot of money (Publisher’s Clearing House, want to do something about that?).
I am on my second cup of coffee at my local Starbucks, where I often to come to think, to write, and yes, to blog. With no sofa at home right now, this is a more comfortable place than any available at home. Shortly I will read some things online, check my email, pay a few bills, then go home to do some more cleaning.
I will listen to music. I will probably not listen to news.
I want to savor whatever it is I am doing for the next 50+ hours until I undergo anesthesia. Life should have moments where all we do is simply savor it.
I may reflect some more on how lucky I have been.
I will almost certainly take time to send some emails to be people whom I want to thank for things. I do not want to leave such affirmations undone. It is why I took time with some students yesterday to pull them aside and compliment them on the improvements I have seen.
I will spend time allowing the cats to crawl over me, or go to sleep on me even if I am in an uncomfortable position.
I will make sure my wife knows how much I love her, and how grateful I am for our more than four decades together.
Thanks for reading.
Peace…...