Failure Blog: An Ode to Mixed Metaphors and The Rambling Man (900 words)

A failure: not getting Sarah a job at my high school. That’s an unfortunate blight on the year. Something to learn from surely.

It’s easier for me to write about failure than success – the latter being so ill-defined and the other so haunting for we dedicated teachers. My English Tutoring Club (ETC) was a failure. Maybe not a crash-burn-explode-there-goes-the-city-block abomination, but it hardly hovered before it sputtered and stalled. So I yanked the plug. (Because I had many other, much more successful ventures demanding my attention. Austin asked me today about my Board Game Club; I’d forgotten about that club and the Tuesdays we’d shared. Tangent: My memory has been completely and worrisomely sucking lately. Reason: I’m fucking exhausted to the core of my being. “I can’t remember faces / Don’t remember names.” That’s for Mason Cole.)

We mocked ETC, we did, students and I – for its undefined focus, for its “let’s have t-shirts slogans,” for its general worthlessness. But ETC’ll soar next year; I developed a revival plan as soon as I realized it was faltering: Mo and I will co-pilot it (failure #1 – it necessitated too much for me to coordinate alone – as he puts it: sometimes you can throw another ball in the air, and sometimes you have to take a pass) and we will incorporate ETC under our Civil Rights & Civil Liberties (CRCL) agenda (failure #2 – inconsistent core student group, poor student leadership, too few available [and helpful!] outside resources. [A “helpful” resource is one willing to give money/resources/people/assistance with assured reliance and relatively little hassle for a teacher working full-time plus.]) So now we will be covered on all grounds thanks to CRCL’s umbrella. Also, we have former-Governor Mabus’s blessing.

Our students point-blank asked him if he’d support a campaign to change the name of the Ross Barnett Reservoir, and he said no. His rationale: Spend your energy combating real-time injustice not symbols of injustices past. He didn’t want us pouring our energy into a failing cause that wouldn’t really improve the status quo. His suggestion: Peer tutoring. He nailed it, and though ETC already had a new mission, now it had wings and a blessing – okay, fine, “a prayer.” Wings and a prayer. [By the way: Former Secretary of State Dick Molpus wholeheartedly supports student efforts to change the Reservoir’s name; and you know Mo and I are too insert flattering yet backhanded compliment here to turn our students around now. They are righteously indignant about that reservoir… Further information: Andy Mullins stood with Ray Mabus on the “fix something more meaningful” line, and we’ve yet to ask former-Governor Winter.] I say: Both. ETC and CRCL together.

But this isn’t what I want to talk about. I want to talk about AK. AK was a soft-spoken 4^th-period honors freshman whom I failed. Sure, he earned a 60% or whatever – but I failed him. I had him so many times, and not once did I actually win. This will be involved.

I had his mother on speed-dial. I called her. She came to conferences. She held up her end of the bargain. She forced him to stay after school. In my classroom. She forced him to attend tutoring sessions, CRCL, and ETC meetings when I asked her to, but even with all those extra hours – even with all that extra exposure to me and my ways – I failed to meaningfully connect with him. He thought I was unfair, boring, mean, stupid, and a waste of his time. He slept (often in the most uncomfortable-looking positions one might imagine) at every opportunity, never volunteered an answer all year, rarely had any homework to submit, hardly touched handouts, contributed only to one group project.

And here’s the kicker: He’s smart. Not smart as in “oh boy, that kid sure has a lot of potential,” but smart as in actively smarter than most of his peers but too stubborn to try at all. He’s a fluent reader (his mom tells me all about the words he looks up and the books that he reads for his own pleasure), but I could never get him to do anything for class. I don’t know what to make of him. To be honest, he reminds me of myself a bit, but I sure as hell hope I was never that rude or arrogant to my teachers. He thinks he’s already got a career in the pros and a million dollars in his pockets. Why the hell does he need my class anyway?

He’ll acknowledge me in the hall with a “wassup Mr. Khaki Pants” with his head bowed and his feet shuffling, and I can always tell that he’s thinking something intelligent and gone. Not least because his mother reports back to me the thrilling dinner conversations that CRCL had sparked at his home. But only once did he and I engage in such dialogue. And to be honest, I remember the moment of interaction more than the content. [There goes the memory again!]

So there’s my failure: one kid at a time. I’m not sure I got anywhere with AK, and I poured in a lot of myself (relative to other students, I mean). By no means did I not go “above and beyond” (as Joe Sweeney terms it). This is a failure of success, not a failure of effort. And I failed AK. I wonder if they’ll remove him from the honors program. Never in my life have I felt more like Ozzie Osborne… incoherent and incompetent…