I’ll tell you what haunts me each day–how to change the world, one day at a time.  I’m cognizant of this when I hold Liliana tight, read her a story, make her a healthy snack, write letters, plan a surprise, even when I’m e-mailing.  I’m that aware that I’m living each moment as best I can.  It might seem obsessive, but if you practice, you start to breathe easier, knowing that what you’re doing right now is important–for whatever reason.

An example.  My first year teaching, I taught math at Valley View High School in Moreno Valley, CA.  The building was new, and the hallways were wide and well-lit.  I was pleased to have a classroom with a sunroof.  Imagine: I could be “outside” all day!  I had a variety of classes–algebra, geometry, and basic math.  Moreno Valley was a bedroom community at the time (this meant that parents were commuting the two to four hours into L.A. to work every morning, and home again at night…sometimes I would have to call at 10/11 p.m. to get anyone at all).  There was an overload of kids, so the district had worked out a system where on the first day they flung fifty kids into each class (I had six classes), and the teacher would have to fill out a “grievance” form, because this violated the maximum number of students a teacher could have.  Thing is: the district had ten weeks to rectify the problem, so on that tenth week, last day, you’d have a reshuffling of kids that would exacerbate any behavior or study problem that was already there.  Or you’d have an adjusted kid who gets lost in the literal shuffle.  It broke my heart every time, but there was no way around it.

It wasn’t until my second year that I had a few students come to me, asking if they might hold a Bible study in my classroom during lunch.  At the time, the district allowed such things, as long as we allowed other meetings to go on as well.  I had never really said I was a Christian (as you know from other posts, this does not go down well in many cases, because so many people have been hurt by someone in the church), but somehow they knew they could ask.  Of course I said “yes.”  After the first session, at which I hovered in the background, they asked me if I could please join them and possibly come up with some good discussions they should be having.  “You know,” they said.  “Like things we should know about life.”

So we began.  We talked about sex–heterosexual and otherwise.  We talked about family problems.  We talked about what we wanted out of life (if I had read Viktor Frankl by then, I could have added, “…or what life wants from us”).  We discussed boy problems and girl problems.  We covered vast and mountainous terrain, all there in that small carpeted room that was otherwise designated for adding and subtracting and dividing.

I look back now and think of all the things I could tell them, now that I know a little more, now that I’ve lived life a smidgen more.  But I did the best I knew how to then, and that’s all I could have done.

Another example.  I had a class of low-achievers (code for kids who had been ruined by the system or had parents who no longer took an interest in them…in fact, this was the class whose parents never showed up on parent-teacher night).  My thinking back then was that I could change the world, so I went merrily on my way, designing games we could play, tricks that we could use, so that each and every one of them would get an A on their first test.  I was tickled to be doing so well.  Then came test day.  I flitted about, biting my fingernails, seeing that there were a few rough pauses in their answering.  Oh well, I thought, they must be doing well.  They’ve filled in all the answers.

I sped home and began grading.  Here a D, there an F.  Sobs stuck in my throat, then came rushing out.  I bawled like a baby.  What had I done?

Dan came home.  I told him everything.  My disappointment.  What do I do now? He chuckled.  Then he said, “Well, Elissa, you can’t worry about the 99% of kids that you’ll never reach.  You worry about that 1% you can.”

“That’s not good enough,” I cried.

“It has to be,” he said.  “You can only do your best.  You’ll never know how you’re impacting them.  Who knows?  It might not be math you’re giving them.”

He was right, of course.

Toward the end of my teaching stint (this was when I was teaching biology), I had two ninth-grade boys come into my classroom after school to make up a lab.  They started talking about sex and whether or not they should “go for it.”

“What do you think, Elliott?” one asked.  [As a term of endearment, most of my students called me this, knocking off the Mrs., sometimes holding up their index finger, mimicking ET in the movie, “E-l-l-i-o-t-t.”]

“Well,” I said slowly.  “Think of it this way.  Imagine you have a blue piece of construction paper over here.  A red one over here.  I’m going to glue the two together, so they’re attached.  Okay?”  They both nodded.  “Now, for whatever reason, I’m going to pull them apart.  I think what you’ll find is that pieces of blue have stuck to the red and pieces of red have stuck to the blue.  So, you might think of it as though you’re leaving pieces of yourself behind, and you have to ask yourself, do I want to do that?”

“So you think it’s wrong?” one of them said.

“Hmmm,” I said.  “I know that if you’re religious in any way, you’ve learned it is wrong, but I also know that you want to do it, and you haven’t been given any good reason why you shouldn’t.  After all, sex is fun, mostly, so why shouldn’t you do it?  All I’m saying is that by giving pieces of you away, you’re possibly losing some precious parts of you, before you’re ready.”

Whether or not I gave the “right” answer, I knew they understood.  Now it was up to them to make a decision.

I feel the same way about motherhood–this stab in the dark feeling, this forging my way through a tangled jungle–and guessing from the e-mails I’m receiving, I think there are others who feel the same way.  In closing, my friend Anna sent me this link to a piece written by Judith Warner for The New York Times.  You can access it here.  She nails this sort of feeling, this obsession of doing the right thing for your child.  Sometimes it’s good; other times not.

All you can do is hope.