Over the summer my vision for my ideal alternate learning environment materialized. This is unbelievable really. Five years ago I was hired into the teaching profession. Five years ago I started to create my ultimate classroom, my dream program, my perfect job...in my mind. Now it's absolutely my reality. If you have read "The Secret", this would be your prime example of the Law of Attraction.
My classroom has a learning space that includes a trio of leather couches to create a relaxation corner, an art corner equipped with airbrusher, a shop bench with tools, a projector with tables for learning, fifteen ipads, laptops, an amazing full kitchen with all appliances, and a washer and dryer. I came in to look at my room in the middle of the summer and crew people were scattered everywhere working on different sections of my classroom masterpiece. All I could do was stand there teary-eyed and gasp. My daughter was embarassed by this so we had to leave, but I still feel that same emotion most mornings when I walk in my room. I am incredibly thankful, and I now know without a doubt that learning space, and how it is arranged, incredibly impacts how successful a teacher can be in bringing students to the next level.
Immediately, my classroom enabled me to challenge my students in new exciting ways. We are already up to two hours of brain work a day. By brain work, I mean work that challenges my students to step out of their comfort zones. All of my students who can read are reading a sentence to a page a day outloud. They are all embracing art projects and experimenting with small engine mechanics. They are cooking and cleaning, memorizing, working with the technology, and embracing changing their behaviors. Our next big project is airbrushing the hood of a car that we are buying from pick-a-part. I am overwhelmed with a feeling of pride and I cant wait to see how far I can bring these kids this year. Not only socially and academically, but also emtionally.
I had a profound realization on Halloween night of this year. This was the first Halloween that I have not accompanied either of my kids out trick-or-treating in sixteen years. As I waited for their return, I realized that this was the end of another chapter of my life. I would have to think about what my next step in life was, and I would have to start looking at myself in a new light. Then something extraordinary happened, the moment I thought about myself as a person needing guidance, I felt an overwheming amount of pain pumping through my veins and all over my entire body. This was a pain I had not felt in over ten years...and I cried.
In the three weeks since Halloween I have fully embraced my need to emotionally heal. When you are in love with an addict you experience pain on a daily basis. My need to protect myself and my children from this pain built massive walls around my heart. When I built these walls I wasn't aware I was building them. In my head I was super strong and I had learned how to be at peace with my husbands addiction. In actual reality, all my pain is burried behind walls that protect me from all feeling and make me appear strong. What I have started to realize about pain is that its actually a poison energy that materializes and then is flushed away through tears. If there are no tears shed, there is no poison released. Either you release it many years later, as I am doing now, or it manifests into some level of mental illness.
Last month I saw my students as little people who needed me. I was born a helper, and I fall in love with people who need me. However, since I discovered my walls and I am beginning to stand outside these walls, I see my students as trapped. This puts my teaching on an entirely new level.
Last week I sat on a tabletop, and as my students were carving out stencils to airbrush, I announced that I was starting Naranon. Naranon is a group meeting for people who have been affected by addicts. My students were immediately interested. I spoke from my heart and explained exactly what I was going through. I explained that in order for me to get better, to heal, I might first have to get worse....I had to mourn. Then an extraordinary thing happened, my students, while witnessing me taking down my walls, began to take theirs down too.
One student spoke of his drug addicted step-dad and the abuse he has endured. He told us about the love that he has for his mom and his hatred for the man who keeps coming back and dragging her into addiction. He told us that those years when he was supposedly being rescued by fostercare were the most painful years of his life. He said, "I needed my mama". His pain was so vivid and I pictured a couple bricks falling off the top of his emotional wall as he spoke. He finished with acknowledging my walls and saying that he doesn't think he can feel either.A girl spoke of the abuser that put her in the hospital and the fact that he was being released from jail this month. Another boy told us his mom did heroin while she was pregnant with him and he never has met her. Not one student interrupted another, all students were engaged, and the emotional level in the room was so incredibly high.
One boy whose walls are the thickest I've ever sensed walked by me as we finished talking. He spoke assuringly, "Ive got some huge ass walls. Im gonna go drink a bottle of whiskey to my head now." I touched his shoulder and he turned to look at me. Our eyes locked, and in that moment that I was staring into his eyes, we saw eachothers pain, and he challenged me. Through his eyes he said, "I dare you to knock these walls down"....and I said, "Game on".
