Interesting Responsibilities
There was a time not long ago that I knew what the world responsibility meant. I was a teacher, and I had the lives of thirty kids at a time in my hands. I could shape their future, and draw conclusions for them that would last a lifetime. This was ultimate responsibility, almost god like. Except that I felt unequal to the task. I worried constantly. Was I misusing, should I even be using it? I had the best time with those kids however, or as I came to learn, those young minds. What I learned as that I did not have a responsibility to them, that it was a responsibility to myself, and one that would impact them, just as they had a major impact on me.
A man, especially for a Midwestern white one, has certain responsibilities for himself and his family. I grew up in a suburban environment, however, the roots of my heritage ran deep. From my Grandmother who still talked like she had a corn cob pipe in her mouth, to my father’s repetitious aphorisms. Unspoken though it may have been, I knew what my responsibilities were. I was to be kind to women, and people in general. I must always keep my word. I must go to church, and be charitable with my income. I was to tell the truth, even if it meant that I would face punishment or death. (There’s a reason why the dude with the pitchfork and the wife isn’t smiling.) I was to be a good man, one that was respectable, loved, and honest.
It was a very simple thing when all I had to do was homework and occasionally pick up my room. (I say occasionally because I wasn’t very good at it in general, so it showed a lot of responsibility for me to do it in the first place.) But that passed as I grew older. Suddenly being honest wasn’t quite so easy. I had to choose between my friends and the truth. Weren’t there some lies that you could tell? I didn’t like it when people told my how overweight I was. Wouldn’t I prefer it if they lied a bit to me?
Keeping my word was even worse. I agreed to do my homework, but when I got home it became too difficult, so much that I hated myself for doing it. How could I keep my word, especially when I hadn’t really given it in the first place? I was trapped by promises heaped on promises. I was honest and reliable, to a fault. If someone needed me, I would go, no matter what. I’m still that way today, but now because I choose to be.
Treating women right was never a problem, I was raised with Oprah, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison. I read the works of Jane Austen, and I loved them. The real problems lay in the implacable code that I was forced to live in. Especially when it came to church. I didn’t hate going, I just knew something wasn’t right for me. (That is a very long and complicated journey, requiring far more time than I intended to devote here. Suffice it to say, I made my way back to where I started, but much wiser than when I began.) I never realized just how trapped I was by all of these things, until I faced my classroom of middle schoolers five days a week.
As a responsible man I had to instill these rules in my wards. It was up to me to teach them right from wrong. Don’t cuss! Tell the truth. Don’t call her names! Treat each other with respect. All of these things fell to me, and I was alone and confused. I needed to be the upstanding paragon of truth, justice, and the American way, but I couldn’t even find my glasses so I could take them off. What I thought was responsibility was rules, what I learned was very different.
There is a unique feature that happens to every child when they reach the age of thirteen. A clock starts ticking, and they realize they are alive, they are human, and they are dying. I am an existential philosopher, so I hope you pardon the dreary imagery. They realize their own existence, separate from others. The rebellious teenager is really just trying to find out where she stops and the world begins. I was there, right when it happened. I could see their eyes change, here their clocks ticking away. There was a race, and I felt completely unfit to compete.
I strained my back, worked my legs until they burned, and still I was left panting in the dust. The harder I pushed, the more they slipped away. The first class I lost. (Though not really as I am finding out, but more on that later.) It was that intervening summer between my first and second year as a teacher that changed my understanding of responsibility.
I don’t have the responsibility to force the children into the mold I grew up in. I had the responsibility to be secure enough in myself that I could allow my students to grow, to try and fail. My responsibility was to stand back, to let them fly. I was there as a guide, a sounding post. And a sounding post does not push back, that’s not its purpose. Magic, there was suddenly a drive that I never knew they had. My responsibility was to myself, to care for myself, and to be a guide.
As time went on, I began to see that each of my students shaped their own ideas of responsibility, but they did so with me, neither in spite of me or because of me. When you set the course for a ship, you need a distant point to navigate toward. Tiny fluctuations make little difference over miles, but in a pond they are devastating. I learned that my responsibility as an educator was to be that distant point, and to trust. This was not so much that I left them floating along in the chop, with no rudder. I carried my supply of life vests, and provided safe harbor when necessary. But the hardest parts were the storms. Some lessons can only be learned when you weather your way through them. That is still the hardest responsibility I have ever had.
So it was not really the same ideas that I grew up with. Not all of my students ended up where I would have liked, but it’s only been four years, there’s still time. I am touched when I talk with them now, and they tell me how amazing it was to be treated like a person, to be given the room to grow. I thought I had the responsibility to save everyone of them. What I learned was that I have the responsibility to be ready to guide them, help them, or even pull them out of the water if they start to sink. But I can’t tug them everywhere. Like the dorsal fin of a killer whale in captivity, an unused life started to bend, sometimes so much that it can never be whole again.
I call these interesting responsibilities because they aren’t intuitive. They seem horribly neglectful, and definitely aren’t part of being a good man. These may all be true, but they are part of being a good guru, a sage and a guide. I am here to assist others, and that path is counterintuitive and incredibly difficult. Do not envy me, be content with yourself. It was a hard journey to where I am now, and I have so much further left to go. Along the way I have picked up some wisdom, and cut out some folly. In time, I may find myself even more lost then when I started, but at least I will have found myself. I suppose the most interesting responsibility, it that to be shaped by those around me. As much as I thought I would be molding my students, it was they in turn who molded me.
