That's the Dream

I started getting ideas for this blog a few days ago but I’m pretty sure that it’s going in a different direction… Let’s see where it goes.

It’s almost 2:30 a.m. and I can’t sleep. I just got an adrenaline rush from being pulled over because turn signals don’t work. Luckily the cop gave me a break and no ticket. That’s the second time in the past 4 weeks that I got pulled over for something small, but then again cops do get bored up here. But this isn’t what I wanted to talk about.

The initial idea came from what I believe my purpose in life is, what I mean to be, what I want and long to do which is then followed by things that aren’t really set in stone on my life goal list.

While doing some homework I also had the opportunity to help some other friends with some stuff that they were working on. And while I was helping one friend with Spanish I noticed that she had one of those “a-ha!” moments and it just made me smile. She told me “you’ve been very helpful tonight Reuben, are you sure I can’t help you with anything?” and without even think I said, “I’m a teacher, that’s what I do.”

I feel that I am truly addicted to being a teacher. Not necessarily on any subject (although I am studying to become a music teacher) because I just LOVE seeing that spark that people get when the understand something. Whatever metaphor that’s used for it: putting glasses on, turning on the light bulb, the “a-ha,” or a stroke of genius I just love it all.

It’s almost like understanding many ways to figure out a puzzle and each new mind is the template that it has to fit. The puzzle is familiar, but the conditions are not. In the end weather it takes a longer or shorter time the idea is to complete the puzzle or idea. I may not be that good at regular puzzles but I love projects and I love people.

Which I guess brings me back to the point of me not getting a ticket at either of the times that I got pulled over. I was being honest with them, no bull, and no anger, already had out my info for them, honestly acknowledging my problem and connecting with the officer as a person and not as a machine that writes tickets.

The correlation that I see between these two things is stereotypes of certain teachers. Now I don’t have any kind of teacher in mind for these first examples, but I may use some later on.

The first is the information download teacher, the one who may be burned out or tired of teaching or may even be one of those people that likes to either be right or in charge or in another case employs military like discipline. Now discipline isn’t always bad but that’s not the point that I want to make. This teacher simply sees teaching as a passing along of information, not really engaging with the students or caring about one thing or another. And I bet that just about anyone has had at least on teacher like that.

The teacher example that I want to be like is the one that has respect from the students because he respects and cares for them at the very least on a professional level if not as a friend. Now I do know that I can’t please everybody. No teacher should let their career go sour just because they had that one student that wouldn’t budge, try, or participate. By all means that doesn’t give this good teacher the right to give up. There is heartbreak in this teachers mind because they can see. Good teachers seem to have the gift of seeing what people’s true potential really is and the best teachers require that standard from them. Not unrealistically, of course, but in a way that brings out the best in them. Good teachers are the silent builders of our society. They never get the fame for all the work that they have done, they never see all the praise that they disserve for striving many ours with their students sometimes one on one, they never really ask for anything but honest work because they know. Teachers hear stuff about their students, they really do remember those that have come through their classes, weather they were trouble makers, hard workers, coasters, partiers, social butterflies or anything else. But at any rate they have those memories.

The treasure that a good teacher has is the box of “a-has” or light bulbs that are usually kept in a small corner. Every once in a while after a long day or during a time of great reflection they have to pull it out and peruse or add anew their collection. There are many tears and joys in this box, but it never fails to inspire them.

Me being the artistic person that I am I tend to feel a little bit more than is normal I think. I definitely wear my emotions on my sleeves. And for a while, because of some recent pains and laments (that you could probably deduce from my former blog), I forgot why I wanted to teach. I guess that the fact that I got seared from a past relationship distracted me from remembering my teaching box.

Fear. Fear of having something that I love or even to love. Is it worth it? The idea can be very dangerous, but it can be so fulfilling all at once.

The only other idea that I hold in my heart just as strongly as teaching is becoming a father. I want to learn grow and strive with my children because they will be the closest students that I’ll ever have and it will be ok for me to love them.

Random thought: because I will be a teacher, it might be best for me to teach in a different district than the ones that my children attend don’t you think? I don’t ever want to be a by-ist teacher just because this or these particular students happen to be my children and I don’t want to be too hard on them either. I would probably end up being the latter rather than the former, but anyways back to my prior point.

I don’t entirely understand the feeling that I have about being a father, but it’s such a burning desire that I have in me that the idea practically makes me feel giddy! I tend to thrive on the idea that someone depends on me, that’s just my personality.

But the fear comes back when I think about the step that has to antecede my being a father: finding my wife the future mother of my children.

I’ve realized that I have to go out on a limb and experiment on compatibility. I do think a little too romantically at times and I definitely do not know how to go slow in a relationship, but I would like to learn how. But still the fear.

In spite of the fear I try to find courage in the thought that if she’s not the right one I will have learned something or to put it in better words, “the wrong one is the right one to lead you to the best one” –John Bytheway.

I understand that no aspect of life is going to be free of pain, but I still don’t fully grasp it the same way that I grasp on the other truths that I have internalized. And I guess I’m like that because I haven’t experienced it all yet.

I guess the question is where would the world be if nobody took any risks? Defiantly not where we are now! I fact we might as well be extinct if we hadn’t taken risks! But it still hurts.

I guess the only thing I can do is fight, fight for those moments that I love no matter how few and far in between they are. I must fight for the things that I believe in weather I truly believe in them or not and if I am unsure the fire of experience will tempure truth and destroy fantasy. Do I wish to step into the flames alone? No. I beg God to accompany. Whatever I choose, if I remember that I can have hope.

Anyways, I don’t wish to preach religion with this blog, I wish to inspire people to feel truth in any form. If religion is part of you, cling to it and tempure if you really believe truth will be revealed to you in one form or another.

I believe that truth is the only constant that the world has, but the only problem is that no matter who you are we all perceive this truth in a different way. Perception and opinion creates the very people and personality of a person, not that these are the only factors. But there are times that this truth can turn people away from each other and sometimes against each other. Most of it comes about because of misunderstanding in my opinion.

As a teacher I want to inspire my students to foster the idea that they can think and achieve anything that they want to, but the catch is that they have to understand how these things work by creating a successful ethic for life. Now there is more than one way to achieve the same thing and that’s where the puzzle solving comes in. they must be willing to achieve and to learn, then the universe will open to them and they can choose their path. Achievement. That is what I want to foster.

 And as I forget about myself I feel like I can say that I’ve contributed to changing the world into the ideal place that good people wish it to be.

That is the dream.