Lessons and Limits

You may have noticed that the blog schedule has been a bit sporadic since the school year started. There's good reason for that. One, the school year represents a really big change in schedule for our family - we're very school-year centric here - and I'm just not good at change. It takes me a while to get into a new schedule (in fact, I'm not even there yet - notice this Tuesday morning post is coming out on a Wednesday).

The other reason is that I got called to sub on the second day of school. I was a substitute teacher, when I could, for half days last year (while my daughter was in school). With her starting Kindergarten this year, I'm available for full days (when I'm available), but I never expected to get called the first week (teachers tend to want to be there to get the year started well). One of the local schools has a teacher out on maternity leave and they were having trouble finding a long-term replacement and needed some extra help in the classroom.

It was great - same kids every day for a couple weeks - students I had subbed with pretty frequently last year. Smooth sailing. Then the school went through two long-term subs in about four days without much hope on the horizon. I got offered the chance to take over the class for two months, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Listen, I only signed up to sub last year because they were short. I wanted to fill a need and help the public school system, which has become the community space our family is pretty heavily invested in. I've served on district committees. I try to make most school board meetings. It makes sense. I knew the kids; I'm ok with seventh grade math. Shoot, I've lived with a middle school teacher for more than a decade.

Despite having lived with a middle school teacher for more than a decade, I just simply had no idea the skills and abilities one really needs to teach. I don't know many people who have more respect and admiration for public school teachers than me - but I gained a whole lot more over the weekend. Trying to get a handle on everything required to even take over a class for a few weeks was literally overwhelming. I couldn't sleep,
riddled with anxiety (not something to which I'm prone - it took me some time to even realize what was happening).

I also learned the difference between someone who can teach and a teacher. I've done Sunday School classes and tutoring - I've even taught actual classes in the ministry training program on two districts. It's a lot different getting a class of kids through the day and being a consistent,
positive presence there with everything on your shoulders.

I knew this. Of course I knew this - but knowing something intellectual or through observation is a lot different than knowing through experience.

I'm a wimp, for the most part. I don't tend to attempt things I'm not certain I can complete. Risk is not my thing. However, when I'm pretty convinced something has to be done, I buckle down and do it. There aren't a lot of things in my life that I've attempted and failed. Yes, that's because I'm cautious, but it's also because I'm a pretty quick learner and I'm good with systems and organization.

In the end, I probably could've done it. I could've taken my lumps, endured sleepless nights, learned from my many, many inevitable failures and possibly survived. My sanity might not have been intact, but it could've technically been done. I opted out though. There's a sense of shame in that. One, I don't like to admit defeat. I've gotten less obsessed with winning over the years, but I'm still darn competitive. This feels like a loss to me, and that's a big ego hit. I also feel like I'm letting people down who work hard and a tremendously difficult job. My not being there created extra work and more headaches for people who have an impossibly tough assignment to begin with. That stinks.

It was a good lesson in limits, though. Just because I can do something or something needs to be done, doesn't mean I have to do it. I probably should've known this was a bad idea from the beginning. I'm not a teacher; I don't really want to be one. I can fake it through a day or two -
which is really useful and helpful in its own right - but that's about it. So many great people have a passion for it, and skills to be really good - and, despite my close proximity to one of them, I'm not sure I ever truly appreciated that, certainly not as much as I do now.

My life is not where I thought it'd be. I'm not upset at all; I really like my life. It's just that I don't really have a job description.
I find great joy in being "of use," although I never know from one season to the next exactly what or where that will be. I keep trying to jump into new thing where I'm needed, but I learned over the last few weeks that perhaps a little more self-reflection might be important in figuring out where that is.

Even more so, other people might have a different perspective of what I am (or should be) capable of doing. I need to trust myself a little more. It's a difficult balance between challenging one's self (or accepting the challenge of others) and knowing one's self well enough to say 'no.' Hopefully I got a little better at that this week - and maybe it'll mean I can make more of a difference in the right places moving forward.

Anyway, we should be back to a better posting schedule now - at least until basketball games start November 15th.

Systems

Systems are interesting. Complex, organized, inefficient, unpredictable. Systems are usually perceived as broken, unfair, unfeeling. That's likely right.

My wife took the Myers-Briggs test online today. She's done it before, but it's always interesting to see if things change. I took it too. I'm pretty much the same all the time (INTJ, if you care). Anyway, the explanation for mine talked about how people of my personality like to attack systems (usually in a good way) loaded with idealistic pragmatism. We have an unwavering belief things can work better and an irrational confidence we can do something to improve things. That's likely right, too.

I, along with about 80 others, were invited today to be part of the listening process for the strategic plan of the local school district. IO was, of course, flattered when I received the invite; less so when I found out how many people would be there. That's all ego. I didn't have high expectations that they'd really get anything concrete or specific out of the group. I'm not sure they did. I'm not sure they were planning to. (We provided some good general directions and we'll see how that translates to action later this summer.)

But one thing that did strike me as important was just how many people were there to generously and sincerely contribute to the process. There were a lot of people there - at least half weren't being paid to be there. There were a lot of diverse opinions and perspectives, but things were really positive and civil. People whose positions lead to our making assumptions about motives and character got a chance to be people. That was good.

It was also a chance, as I reflect, to really understand systems better. As much as my idealistic pragmatism wants to make me a tyrant, using my specific skills to improve the world around me (or some small part of it), things don't really work that way. Providing a strong education to 10,000 students requires, by necessity, a relatively complex system. It's going to be big and it's going to include people. It's not a problem to be solved or a puzzle to be cracked.

Yes, systems are problematic, but they're also necessary. Most systems, even dysfunctional ones, are made up on good, well-meaning people. Those people might act or react in less than ideal ways, but often that's in response to some systemic issue - the machine isn't working quite right and the parts are breaking.

I'm still a pragmatic idealist (I doubt I'll ever escape that) and I'm still an iconoclast when it comes to respecting tradition or authority (that was another character trait from my INTJ description), but I think I have a better appreciation for the necessary mess involved in systems. It bugs the heck out of me, but deep down there was a real recognition of broader understanding.

Whether it's a school district or a worshiping congregation, a family, workplace, or neighborhood, systems are what they are. They can be better, but they're never going to be depersonalized.

That might not sound like news to you, but it was my satisfyingly profound revelation for the day.