Prima Gringa Blog

From a blog post on teaching in Mississippi Delta ---Prima Gringa Blog -- http://primagringa.blogspot.com/ --

Moving to Mississippi was one of the strangest decisions I have ever made. In many ways I am still confused as to why I am here or why I haven't left yet but one thing is clear: it's not really about me and my own personal happiness, at least not at this point. As I have told my close friends, I have reached the point of no return. I have seen too much, invested too much and already loved too much to be able to step aside from it all with a comfortable ease. While many days I wake up exhausted from my five to six hours of sleep at 6:47 am on the dot (without fail) I could not walk away from my kids or from the life I am slowly beginning to build here with the fractured pieces of my old self. 

This week was one of those weeks that just wore me thin. But it really was nothing compared to the initial shock, pain and frustration that accompanied my move here a few months ago when my world unraveled and my life was altered in ways that I never thought it would be. Things and relationships that I thought would be the most stable points of my life were suddenly ripped from my foundation and I was left reeling. 

I had come in bright-eyed, in eager anticipation of inspiring kids in my classroom, of entering into America's underbelly and waging war on structural injustice and corporal sin. However all the reasons that I had felt inspired to join the movement to teach in a low-income area became distant and dim as I was met with the unraveling of my personal life and more practical and miniscule challenges such as: What to do about pencils and pencil sharpening in a second grade classroom. Will kids be allowed to sharpen pencils whenever they want? Will they have to ask you for a pencil or can they get one themselves? Will they have a special hand signal letting you know that what they really need is a sharpened pencil?

While these questions may seem utterly ridiculous to a person who has never taught lower elementary, the concern is completely valid, I can assure you. Worrying about pencil sharpening actually matters because twenty broken pencils can turn into a logistical nightmare if you are found in the middle of a lesson with no pointy graphite ammunition to replenish your kids' supplies should they all decide to break their pencil tips at once, which as far-fetched as it sounds, can happen. It has happened to me. 

The little things matter. Bathroom breaks matter, having a stock-pile of tissue matters, understanding my kids' accents matters, behavior charts matter, parent communication matters, crayons matter, books matter, having a set of dice matters. Literally any little thing that you could possibly think of matters. 

And so I have thrown myself headlong into the litte things. The laminating of number cards, the creating and decorating of writing folders, the mini-lessons on kindness, the mini lessons on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and the way my heart sings when Ariel asks me for "that book on Malcolm X." In the midst of this strange dedication to laminating and phonics activities I have found joy. I wouldn't call it happiness because that superficial feeling of bubbliness while it exists on certain days and in certain moments is gone in others, but I would call it joy because joy is deep rooted, founded in Christ's love for me and for my precious children, who are my undeserved gifts. 

In the midst of the little things I am confident that while I may not be "waging war" in the ways that I had imagined I am impacting change in my kids' lives by the mere fact that I am in it. And by sheer nature of the impact, I too am being molded and shifted into (what I pray is) a more Christ-like woman, a woman who lives selflessly and has her gaze set eternally on Him. 

Yes. My life was turned inside out when I moved here. Yes. It is hard to wake up some days. Yes. I feel like a failure when my kids talk over my lessons at times, quite a bit in fact. 

But a lesson I fast learned when my plans derailed and my strength was waning early into the journey was that not only could it be much, much worse for me but also and most importantly that I was eternally held by a love that will never let me go. And that because of this I can let my weaknesses be His triumphs, I can let my failures be His victories and I can let my frustrations be His opportunities to show up and He always does. 

Because of this I can freely throw myself into the little things and trust that the work I am doing is in some way waging war on the big things I came here to fight and topple. Because of this I can live in this strange place away from my friends and family and rest in the fact that it's not about me and that who it really is about is: Jervarious, Makea, James and the 17 other beautiful minds that fill my classroom every day by 7:50 am as they busily chat (they are supposed to be quiet) and hum away on their morning work. 

When I think of them and the little things they do such as, the fact that Omar has had Barack Obama's biography for at least eight independent reading periods now and that today he told me he wanted to be president and I seriously believe he could be, or the fact that my kids beg me to wear my hair down and when I do they insist on braiding it, or how my kids remember my lesson on Martin Luther King and the fact that he taught us to "love our enemies." Yes. Those little things, when I think of these I am no longer confused and being here begins to feel more like home. I am right where I am supposed to be. 

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