In the spring when the flowers bloom
During my entrapment at CSU in the last few years, I took a class called the Sociology of Poverty. This class was a source of much oddity, where the antics of fellow classmates and the disorganization of the professor were the sources of much hilarity. The professor had once been a social worker who told us many a tale of her years working Intake, as anyone in the social work field will tell of their jobs. I am not one of those people who takes in such sayings as "the culture of poverty" or even buys it to begin with, but one day I decided to ask a question before the class. I am far too seasoned in the world to be at all idealistic or liberal anymore. I asked the professor I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way but it could very easily, but I am asking this question because I have honestly been struggling with this, and that question is that if you want us, the students in this class, to take away one thing from this experience, what is that one thing? She gave an answer which actually turned out to be one of the more profound lessons that I have ever learned in life, truly. And that answer was "life is complicated." This rings as true today as it did the minute she said it, life is complicated. It was yet another one of these complexities that drove me to see another side of myself as it applied, seeing exactly how complicated life can be, when I started working at a social work organization for the last few months.
Work is a complicated thing. It is called "work" rather than "having fun" because we are working and not, after all, having fun. It's what we do in order to keep ourselves financially afloat rather than sitting around doing nothing or, in fact, having fun. In one of my many jobs in my working history, I answered an ad for a position with a social work organization that would lead down a path towards teaching. I got a job working in a preschool in the city which is attached to a social work organization. My title was that of "teacher", but I was really nothing more than unskilled labor to them. I was a sub floater, in that I was to literally float between the four classes they had to provide relief to the lead teachers. The lead teacher had to leave the room for a bathroom break, or they wanted to work on paperwork, etc.; hence, I would be there to be with the kids. It's a living. Always loved being around kids, it gave me an excuse to play with dolls and toys, and it keeps you young to see their innocence. Always practical in my wants and needs.
One thing that I was not ready for was to see the mental illnesses and problems in the education world, couple that with being with a social work organization you see another slice of life. Sometimes I'd like to strangle the white liberals, they have no idea what the world is truly like. The hardest thing was finding out what was going on in the lives of the kids outside of the place, like it always is. Illiteracy, apathy, sickness both physical as well as mental, and the kids being raised by others rather than their biological parents. One dropped out because over the winter break his father beat up his mother and she was laying low in a shelter and had to pull her child out because of it. I don't debate issues or topics, I just sit there and go with the flow. The problems are so big and so depressing there is nothing you can do about it. It's hard to say what is bigger or more depressing, the fact that the problems are so big in themselves or that the problems are so old. I traded all the stories with others who had been in the social work / education fields, and they all said "I've heard that before." The kid who eats nothing but chips and pop. The child who is barely six years old, hears voices and clawed his face raw in the middle of an anxiety attack, and whose mother could either care less or doesn't want to hear it. The long standing Bill Cosby routine (no pun intended with the amount of trouble he has been in for the last few years) that said his dad used to swear so much he thought his name was Jesus Christ used to be so funny. And then you meet the kid who thinks his name is Jesus Christ, and that's not funny and you will never laugh at that joke ever again. The best of the best is from a buddy of mine whose mother survived teaching kindergarten in the city for thirty years, and on an information form under child's date of birth in the blank she filled in "in the spring when the flowers bloom." Truth.
My time there is over with, I am moving onto the next chapter in life. I might return if I get the phone call, anything to make a buck anymore. And if the kids there need to be hugged and given love, that's all I can do for them. Part of me wishes I could do more, but that's all you can do. We all just want to be loved.
Work is a complicated thing. It is called "work" rather than "having fun" because we are working and not, after all, having fun. It's what we do in order to keep ourselves financially afloat rather than sitting around doing nothing or, in fact, having fun. In one of my many jobs in my working history, I answered an ad for a position with a social work organization that would lead down a path towards teaching. I got a job working in a preschool in the city which is attached to a social work organization. My title was that of "teacher", but I was really nothing more than unskilled labor to them. I was a sub floater, in that I was to literally float between the four classes they had to provide relief to the lead teachers. The lead teacher had to leave the room for a bathroom break, or they wanted to work on paperwork, etc.; hence, I would be there to be with the kids. It's a living. Always loved being around kids, it gave me an excuse to play with dolls and toys, and it keeps you young to see their innocence. Always practical in my wants and needs.
One thing that I was not ready for was to see the mental illnesses and problems in the education world, couple that with being with a social work organization you see another slice of life. Sometimes I'd like to strangle the white liberals, they have no idea what the world is truly like. The hardest thing was finding out what was going on in the lives of the kids outside of the place, like it always is. Illiteracy, apathy, sickness both physical as well as mental, and the kids being raised by others rather than their biological parents. One dropped out because over the winter break his father beat up his mother and she was laying low in a shelter and had to pull her child out because of it. I don't debate issues or topics, I just sit there and go with the flow. The problems are so big and so depressing there is nothing you can do about it. It's hard to say what is bigger or more depressing, the fact that the problems are so big in themselves or that the problems are so old. I traded all the stories with others who had been in the social work / education fields, and they all said "I've heard that before." The kid who eats nothing but chips and pop. The child who is barely six years old, hears voices and clawed his face raw in the middle of an anxiety attack, and whose mother could either care less or doesn't want to hear it. The long standing Bill Cosby routine (no pun intended with the amount of trouble he has been in for the last few years) that said his dad used to swear so much he thought his name was Jesus Christ used to be so funny. And then you meet the kid who thinks his name is Jesus Christ, and that's not funny and you will never laugh at that joke ever again. The best of the best is from a buddy of mine whose mother survived teaching kindergarten in the city for thirty years, and on an information form under child's date of birth in the blank she filled in "in the spring when the flowers bloom." Truth.
My time there is over with, I am moving onto the next chapter in life. I might return if I get the phone call, anything to make a buck anymore. And if the kids there need to be hugged and given love, that's all I can do for them. Part of me wishes I could do more, but that's all you can do. We all just want to be loved.
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