The View from the Walls

It was another ice cream day. It was a rough day. But I feel like I've been complaining about the tough teaching stuff a lot lately, when in reality, I really love what I'm doing. It's stimulating, and exciting, and kicks my butt on days like today, but it's without a doubt what I want to do.

So I'm not going to talk about my school day. Instead, I'm going to finish telling you about the Epic of Gilgamesh. Did I ever tell you the end of Gilgamesh?

It's a great ending. In MY opinion, it's a great ending. I'll just tell you the story. I really like it.

So Gilgamesh starts off as this super arrogant, cocky king who keeps stealing his subjects' wives to have sex with. He's 2/3 god, and super handsome, but super lame. I sort of think of him as Brad Pitt in Troy:

The people pray to the gods, "Hey gods! Do something about this jerk!!" So the gods create Enkidu (ink-a-doo) to come and contend with him. Enkidu's half animal and supposedly has more "street sense" than Gil-- like, he's more connected with the earth. Supposedly. I kind of think of him as Wolverine.

Enkidu runs into Gilgamesh when Gilgamesh is about to steal a bride from a new hubby, and Enkidu says, "Excuse me homespice, I DON'T THINK SO," and they FIGHT, and Gilgamesh wins, but he decides that he likes Enkidu anyway. Because. Enkidu is scrappy.

So now they're buddies, and Shamash, the sun god, suggests that they go fight the gnarly scary Forest Guardian, Humbaba, to get immortal fame. Enkidu-- street sense, remember-- says, "That is insane, that is a suicide mission; YOU can do it if you want, and I'll go tell your mother that you're dead. Because that's what's going to happen."

Gilgamesh says, "No way, it's not my day to die, we are going to KILL this monster!" And he convinces Enkidu to fight. But as soon as Humbaba ROARS out of his lair, Gilgamesh runs away like a PANSY. I think of Humbaba like this:


So Gilgamesh runs away and hides behind a tree, and Enkidu says, "Dude?!! You can't leave me alone here! Remember your big boasts?!" So Gilgamesh comes out, prays to the gods; they send massive WINDS which make Humbaba all disoriented, and then Gilgamesh and Enkidu beat him. Humbaba begs for his life and Gilgamesh ALMOST lets him live, but smarty-pants Enkidu says, "Bad idea," and they kill him.

They take his giant head to the Earth god, Enlil. But Enlil-- the EARTH god-- is not so happy with the two of them for killing his forest guardian. Instead of blessing them, he curses them. Big bad curse. They get cursed a few more times by a few more gods, and Enkidu ends up taking the fall. The gods can't kill Gil, because he's 2/3 god-- he's part of the country club. So they kill Enkidu instead. BUMMER.

Gilgamesh freaks out when his best friend dies, not only because he's sad to lose Enkidu, but also because he's suddenly aware of his own mortality. He decides that immortal fame isn't good enough for him: he has to figure out how to REALLY become immortal. So he goes to the end of the earth and talks to this guy named Utnapishtim who is basically Noah-- Utnapishtim gained immortality by surviving a worldwide flood on a boat with his family and two of every animal.


Gilgamesh goes to Utnapishtim and says, "How did you become immortal??"
And Utnapishtim says, "I survived a flood that wiped out the rest of humanity several thousand years ago, and the gods decided to make me immortal afterwards."
And Gilgamesh says, "What?? I can't become immortal that way!!"
And Utnapishtim says, "No duh."
And Gilgamesh says, "Well you've lived forever-- don't you know of SOME way that I can become immortal?"
And Utnapishtim, who is this grumpy old codger by now, smirks and says, "Ummm.... SURE I do... If you can stay awake for seven days and seven nights: you'll be immortal."

But Gilgamesh IS mortal, and he can't stay awake. He fails the test. Big time-- he ends up SLEEPING for almost seven days, instead of staying awake. He finally wakes up, and tries to lie to Utnapishtim, saying that he never REALLY fell asleep. But Utnapishtim is a smart grumpy old guy, and had had his wife bake a loaf of bread for each day Gil slept. He shows Gilgamesh the loaf baked on the first day and says, "See? It's moldy now. THAT'S how long you've been sleeping!" Gilgamesh is totally despondent. "I couldn't DOOO it...!"

But Utnapishtim's wife feels kind of sorry for Gilgamesh and tells her husband, "Come on honey. Have a heart. He's traveled all this way, and he's really tired... Can't we give him SOMETHING to take back to his people?"
So Utnapishtim grunts and says, "Fine. There's a plant at the bottom of the ocean that will give you eternal youth. If you go and get the plant, and eat it... You'll be forever young."

So Gilgamesh says, "GREAT!" And he goes and gets the plant. And for the first time, we see him acting a degree less selfishly, because instead of just devouring the plant himself, he says, "You know what? I'm going to give this to all the old men in my city FIRST... And THEN I'll have some for myself."

BUT: as he's swimming, a snake comes up, eats the plant, immediately sloughs its skin and becomes a young snake, and swims away. And the magic plant is gone. And Gilgamesh ends up with nothing.

And that's how the story ends! The last picture of Gilgamesh is returning home to his city with NOTHING, standing over the walls of his city, and saying: "You know what? This is a great city. It's strong. The people are great. I can be content with this." And the narrator ends the story by describing him as a WISE king, who knew the countries of the world, and who brought back a story of the days before the flood.

I LOVE that.

I love that Gilgamesh doesn't get the magic gimmick to bring home-- he has to be content with being just a little wiser, a little more humble, and having a story to tell. I love that because we usually DON'T get the magic plant to take home-- we usually have to be content with the wisdom we've gained after a long, tiring journey. Modern hero stories don't give us that kind of ending-- modern heroes get the fame, they win the battle, they get the girl, or something similar. You have to WIN in the modern stories.

But this ancient epic ends with its hero-- its HERO-- simply surveying his city, and taking a big breath in, and heaving a big sigh out, and saying, "Okay. This is what I've got. I'm going to be a good king now. I'm going to take care of my people. And one day, I'm going to die, but so be it. I'll do the best with what I've got."

And the great part is-- we're still talking about him. He probably thought that he was a failure-- he never DID become immortal and that was what he was searching for, after all. But his story was enough to keep his memory around for thousands of years. He is still talked about as a HERO-- for only being a little wiser, and for having a story to tell. I love that. I love that our hero story ends with simply a big breath in... And a big sigh out.

And as I do the same, it helps me return to the classroom with new resolve. So many of the kids didn't turn in their essays today-- after I spent literally hours working one-on-one with many of them. They didn't get them done. So much for the magic plant; so much for the tangible marker of success. But I can't have gained nothing from this experience-- I know the kids a tiny bit better, I've had a few more quality conversations, I'm learning how to talk to them, how to GET to them, how to navigate their personal loads that they come in with. I WILL get wiser through these difficult days. And hopefully, as I do, I'll learn how to be a better "leader" to these kids that are shrugging and shuffling their way into our classroom, and shrugging and shuffling their way into my heart.

They matter. Their lives MATTER.

So I'll do my best to be a Gilgamesh type of hero... And keep trying.

Try, Try Again

Yikes, it's been a while. I blame that on the increased busyness of recent days... And... well... Actually, that's really my only excuse. I'm very busy and important. Duh.

Back to the teaching stories then. Shall we?

The big thing this week was feeling frustrated about the kiddos just NOT TRYING. I realized when entering grades that at least a third of our kids are failing, and it just killed me. We give these kids all kinds of work time, we're super clear on what they have due and what their homework is, and we make ourselves available before and after school for help if they need it. The kids that are failing are failing because they're just NOT doing their work. Some of them are seriously intelligent too-- but they slack off during work time, don't show up for class, whatever-- and don't get their stuff in.

I told Viola I felt like we were watching these kids stand outside in a blizzard. We holler out to them, "Hey! Come on in! It's really warm in here, there's a fire, and a great spread on the table! Hot chocolate too! Come on in!"
They shrug and shuffle their feet on the snowy ground. "Meh. It's too far of a walk."
So we go out to them.
"Well, here then, take this coat-- I hate seeing you so cold, this will warm you up a little."
They gaze at some point in the distance and seem to ignore us altogether. "Naaah......Don't feel like putting it on."
Exasperated now, we try again: "Well take some SOUP anyway, that should do something to help keep you warm. Come on, all you have to do is lift the spoon to your mouth and swallow."
But they don't, they're not interested. So they do nothing to help themselves, and they freeze in the blizzard, and die.

Dying in the blizzard is the real-life equivalent of flunking out, or having an extremely short list of life-sustaining options after ruining themselves by not trying in school and getting Fs across the board.

Some of them may realize eventually that it's a good idea to walk 50 meters to get into the warm house, but by then, they may have already limited their options. They may have gotten frostbitten by being out in the cold for so long, and there goes a hand.

It just kills me.

Anyway: this week, we were working on writing our Epic of Gilgamesh essays. We gave the kids a work day on Thursday; in preparation for it, they were supposed to bring in a hand-written rough draft. As we guessed, only about 25% of our classes brought in a completed rough-draft, but we sent those kids to the library to work on typing them up. The rest, we let work on the drafts in class. One sophomore, Jeremiah, didn't have anything done, but he wanted to go to the library anyway. (To type up... what?) Viola let him go though, and I tagged along with the typing crew to supervise.

In the library, Jeremiah asked in his typically detached way, "So what are we supposed to write about?"
We have been talking about this assignment for the last several days. I tried to keep from sighing. "Well, did you get the paper about the assignment?" I asked.
He shrugged, and looked at a far distant point. I asked the boy sitting next to him if we could borrow his paper with the essay prompts.
"Here Jeremiah. So here are the different prompts-- pick out one that catches your interest--"
"Okay." He glanced at them. "Okay." And then he started typing.
"Oh... You know what you're going to do...? Okay. Um... great!"

I left him, not really thinking about what he intended to come up with after his disinterested glance at the paper.

At the end of the class, he raised his hand. "Okay, I'm done."
"Seriously??" I asked. He scrolled down on the computer screen, and showed me that he had the required amount. "Wow, great! Go ahead and print it off."
With his signature air of disinterest, he printed it off and handed it to me without making eye contact, then sauntered out the door.

I glanced over the first paragraph and was dumbfounded. It was GREAT. There were some fragments, and he didn't have a clear thesis statement, but his command of language was outstanding-- he used clever, unique descriptors, showed real wit and humor, and expressed himself elegantly. I SAW how quickly he had cranked that out-- to see him just bust out something of this caliber was incredible! And this kid is failing our class!

Yesterday, he came into class early and sat down. I went over to him with his paper.
"Jeremiah." I paused. "This... blew me away."
His eyes darted over at me to see if I was serious. "I'm not kidding," I told him. "There's some organizational work needed, but your grasp of language is outstanding-- there's humor here, your word choice is fantastic... I mean, Jeremiah, this is an area where you are GIFTED. You should be ACING this class, not failing it-- I mean you could do this professionally, the raw talent is there! You need to hone it now, and I want you to start bringing me your stuff so that I can edit it and help you get there... But dang Jeremiah. You're seriously talented."

As I was talking to him, he kept trying not to smile, and his TEETH were showing-- this is a kid that normally looks SO checked out! But he was grinning in spite of himself, and it felt so good to tell him that I believed in him.

I told Viola about our conversation and she said, "They love being told that they're talented. What they don't love is being told that they have to do work..."

That's true-- and it's very possible that Jeremiah is going to come in Monday morning with nothing. But now that I KNOW what he can do, I'm going to keep hounding him all year-- I'm going to chase him with that winter coat if I have to.

---------------
Amusing moment with "Gal Pal":
(Out in the hall)

"So Grace, how come you seem to be having trouble focusing?"

"Well-- it's just my friend is being so ANNOYING right now, and it's just like really GETTING to me... Like, I told her that I liked this GUY...And then, like RIGHT AFTER, she said that SHE liked him... And then she told me she would like DROP ME for him... And like, I knew that she talked about people behind their backs but then I heard stuff that she'd said about ME... And so it's just like so annoying, and it's really making me mad, and I just can't focus on the essay..."

"Oh man... I know that stuff can be tough. Well-- sometimes when I'm really dealing with personal stuff, I just take ten minutes to sort of PURGE it by either journaling about it, or sometimes I'll call a friend... Now, we're in school, so you can't call someone, but why don't you just write down some of your thoughts for about ten minutes and get it out... And then see if you can come back to the essay. Okay?"

(Nodding.)

I'm really sort of loving working with teenagers. :) Even if they drive me crazy. That's... what are we at, now? Week 5? We'll call it Week 5. By the way-- in case any of you had wondered-- all the kids' names have been changed in these blogs.