Muster every ounce of confidence I have

I guess I haven't written a real update in a wee bit.

I started a brand new semester yesterday with all new kids. They are primarily freshman and they are absolutely adorable :) I have a great feeling about this semester. A lot of that can be attributed to the fact that I am much more dedicated to doing a good job. It's really important to me to do my best and be a good teacher.

There's a poem by Tupac that goes as follows:

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.

I explained to my kids that the fact is living here means that educationally speaking they are roses in the concrete. There are schools where the kids are planted in a nice garden, carefully tended to with fertilizer and watered, perhaps in a greenhouse, but here they are in concrete. For them to walk without feet and to grow and live it's all about their own efforts.

My kids are seven times less likely to go to college than a kid from a suburbs. By the third grade my kids were on average 3 grade levels behind their wealthier peers in higher-income areas. A valedictorian from recent years went to a mediocre NC college and was put in a remedial reading class. My roommates teaching elementary school have children whose parents don't read well enough to understand even first grade level assignments.

I have utmost respect for the custodians and lunchroom workers in my school, but who wakes up in the morning and says, "Man I can't wait to grow up and clean up after or feed teenagers for minimum wage and even less respect." The fact is that in the US you are not valued if you aren't educated. There's an absolutely minimal chance that you might make it on your looks or some talent (singing, sports, etc) but that's nearly impossible.

We talked about such things and more. I kept it real, relating these types of issues to my own life- growing up poor, on welfare, white trash, etc, and making the choice to succeed in school. So that was Monday.

On the boo side, I had a really bad migraine yesterday and simply couldn't go to school. It is SO frustrating because it was only day two but I tried to get up and I was sensitive to light, and nearly threw up just walking up the stairs to go call for a sub. So frustrating.

Hoepfully tomorrow goes really well though. We shall see. I hope everyone is doing well, and please feel free to comment and not just be lurkers.