In the immortal words of Lynrd Skynrd, "It ain't for everybody." In that manner, of course, neither am I. What matters most, I guess, is that seemingly, my future is coming into focus, and at a certain level, I may have been premature in suggesting that special-ed was unequivocally not where I was at. Even so, judging by the nature of the phone calls and assignments I continue to get, I'm not even run-of-the-mill in terms of special-ed students. A lot of it lately has been Young Adult/Community Services kind of stuff. Even among my regular high school assignments, it seems to be crystallizing that older students are where I'm really at as a teacher. I went to my orientation today for Washtenaw's Court Involved Youth program, which is, as you might have imagined, juvenile detention. Whew. Am I gonna be able to make my mark here, or just go down in a ball of flame? I can't really say much about this morning, except to say that not much of it seemed really iffy. It was odd being in a place where, such as I was, I felt like a relative success as a person. And there is, as I continue to say, more decisions to be made, more education to pursue, and just plain more things that need to happen first. And I'm confident that they all will. I guess there really is no putting any thought to the side, just kinda realizing the way in which you affect people. I guess it could reasonably be said that I have NOT known as much about myself as I have known. And if, at this point, it's about see where the chips fall, and the recommendations come from, that, it seems, is what's going to be most crucial to my future. Unfortunately, dammit, I don't know that yet; in all likelihood, I won't have a truly clear enough picture to proceed before at least some time later in the year, if not into NEXT year. But I can read the writing on the wall, none the less. Is it necessarily what I would have meant for myself? By everything I've *been*saying, I suppose you could surmise that the answer is "probably not." Is that necessarily bad? Perhaps I should have just seen it coming, given the manner in which I regard the situation I'm in, the frustration I've felt over so many things for so long, that it really was inevitable. Nah, it's all good. Therapeutic, maybe, at a certain level. High risk? I won't deny that it's an issue. But I've followed my heart before, and it wasn't so bad. In equal measure, I've responded to what was in front of me, and that, too, was not the worst experience ever. But I've always been able to do better, and I feel like I'm just starting to, which is not unimportant. Perhaps it just comes down to the fact that people DO have a good sense of what's in me, even if I don't have it for myself at all times. There will be no discounting of my own interests, strengths or anything else; but equally, no disregard for where the future lies.--
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