I taught the first of six tango classes on Monday night. The class is great. It's a really nice group, 20 in all (though I'm gender-balancing it starting next week, so I'll have 22 in there). Enough people to be lively and few enough that I can see and help everybody individually. There are several people who introduced themselves as "slow learners". We'll see. I'll take that as a challenge to teach efficiently and clearly (with a good dose of silly, of course).

Our tango community needed someone to teach a weekly class; we haven't had many new dancers, and people who've been interested haven't had any place to take regular lessons. We needed someone to take a bunch of beginners, give them skills, keep them encouraged, show them how to love tango. I didn't really have time to do it...but I knew I would be good at it. I said I would do it, and I knew it would be fun. I just didn't expect to love it this much.

Last night I was at the practica dancing with one of my students. "Wow, you feel completely different!" I said. He told me he's been doing the posture homework during the day in his office. It shows. On Monday night he had said, "I have a body that doesn't move." In two days it's started to unwind.

I can't wait to teach the next class. Ever since I said I'd do it, I've been absolutely certain that the class would be great. I have no idea why; It's very unlike me. Somehow it seems to have come true. I've been happy all week, and focused, finally, after a couple months of feeling sort of aimless. I'm even back on track with the tiny house. This kind of teaching, when I get energy back from a group of students? It's magic.

Here's what happened: I talked to various people around school about what it would be like if a few of our programs were shared with CBHS (the expeditionary learning high school housed in our building). I had a vision of what that would be like--a great experience for students, for sure. More possibilities for collaboration for teachers. The thing I couldn't figure out was whether it was a vision that I could really throw myself into. I wasn't feeling anything about anything. That's bad for me, that feeling of ambivalence. Not something I want to be feeling about anything involving teaching kids.

What is clear: I was meant to be a teacher. No question. But...of who? And teaching what, exactly? I love my school, I love the staff, the students drive me crazy but I love them too. Teaching kids to sit in front of a computer all day? Even if they're learning cool stuff, it doesn't move me. Not the way teaching violin or tango does. Plus: my brain is healthier the more I dance and play violin. I'm using them to rewire myself. Can't do that with the computer. So: everything about the schoolteaching is fine, except the subject? Hmmmm.

Then I started thinking about administrative styles, about the jobs school administrators do, and then about management in general. What would our school look like if we tapped more of the resources of all of our staff? And then, how do you know what your staff is good at? In an educational system like ours, how can you create the freedom to let your staff be their best selves?

Then I was in a meeting at a local company. They mentioned that they use the Strengths Finder to help them figure out how to arrange teams of people and projects. I took the Strengths Finder test last year (all of TML did, actually). I went back and read over my results. Yup. Very accurate. I saw again why teaching is a good fit: Learner, Relator, Responsibility, Deliberative, Achiever. Learning is the thing that's the most important for me (says the test, and so far I agree). And I learn best by teaching. Great so far. The question is: do I want to learn what I'll be required to teach at school? Not so much. It's fine, but it doesn't make me brim with happiness. And brimming with happiness is what I would like to be doing these days. All day.

Then I thought, well, how do I get myself out of this rut of ambivalence/numbness and figure out what I should really be doing? Get online and make a library book list, of course (um, do you think I could be a "Learner"??). I went downtown and selected 3 from my list of 10. I've finished one. I haven't done the exercises yet, but I've used two things the author mentioned to improve tango and violin students.

Of course the usual thing has happened: before I even stirred things up today in our afternoon cluster meeting, somehow people could sense that I'm questioning. This morning at the end of a conversation with another teacher I wondered aloud, what if I'm not the only one who's walking around, teaching, feeling "kind of OK." What would our cluster be like if everyone were totally jazzed? This has struck a chord with a few people. Maybe there are more discussions to come. I hope so.

J. sent a link to this article. She writes eloquently about many things that have been swirling around in my mind.

I actually cared about every single one of those lying, cheating students. I loved them all. I worked myself to death trying to help them out only to have them sabotage themselves. I played priest, counselor, academic advisor, artistic mentor, surrogate mommy, and disciplinarian. I listened to them cry, curse, explain to me why they were in jail for most of the semester. Somewhere along the way, the worst possible thing that can happen to a teacher happened to me: I got sick of the endless conversations, the endless repetition of behaviors, the constant handling of student “issues.”

The ironic part is that I loved teaching. I loved it with a passion that I can’t describe. I’m more myself when I’m in front of a group of people explaining complicated concepts. I have a real knack for breaking things down into steps and parts; I instinctually understand how to present them. I’m a good counselor and mentor; I know how to encourage people. Unfortunately, I lost the ability to believe in the nobility of teaching. It became nothing but a constant burden. I couldn’t find the fulfilling part anymore.

I don't think I'll ever get there; the part of my personality that requires me to constantly be of service is one of the reasons I'm teaching where I am. The kids I teach are less likely to feel entitled, I think, and more likely to need me to love them. But I do feel the exhaustion of putting my life into my high school students and getting very little in return. The work of schoolteaching isn't work to me; I love the planning, the breaking down of ideas, and the art of explaining things. It's the one-way emotional side of teaching these particular kids that is sucking the life out of me. Other teachers must have more love in them to give, or must be able to not love their kids, or have figured out how to love their kids in a way that isn't draining. I don't seem to be able to do that.

The side streets in my neighborhood are still exciting to ride on from yesterday's snowstorm, but the main roads are pretty clear, so I biked downtown tonight to take a wheel building workshop with Percy. It was super exciting. There was just one other student there, so it was a nice few hours of chatting while lacing wheels. Also super exciting: the bike path over Tukey's Bridge has been plowed after the last 2 storms. Even the twirly bike ramp that leads down to Marginal Way. What an improvement over last Winter!

It was at the very end of the lesson that we started talking about getting a feel for spoke tension and I said that Percy reminded me of a harpist as he felt the spokes. He said that some wheel builders pluck the spokes to hear whether they're all the same tightness. Coooooool. I can't wait to try this (though the next wheel I will be building is for the Brompton, and those spokes are so short and thick I don't even know if they'll sound like anything).

Counting spoke noises, the current tally of Musical Apartment Noises is:
- doorbell in descending minor third
- gas boiler, when starting up, hums at a B just below middle C for about 10 seconds, then becomes a major second, adding a C#. Then it dies off.
- teakettle: major second: C and D, both an octave above middle C
- two ticking clocks, not ticking together, and not ticking in the same rhythm all the time, telling me that their respective batteries are dying at different rates. One is in the violin lesson room and is really distracting when the metronome is on, clicking at a different speed. May have to remove it.
- fluorescent lights in kitchen: B just below middle C, which should be in tune with the gas boiler, if it were possible to hear the gas boiler from the kitchen.

What next, I wonder? Will pluck spokes to find out...

Early this week I felt myself getting sick, and I resolved that I would not get sick. And I was just in the middle of a chapter in an energy healing book about meditation. OK, energy healing people, I thought, I will test this and meditate myself into not getting sick. I will stay well out of sheer determination. Bring on the meditation and the associated immune response!

Hmmmm. Problem: I haven't ever been able to sit around (or lie around) and meditate. I tried lots of times because it's supposed to be so good for people with MS. No dice. A while back I figured out how to sort of meditate while playing the violin, though. So on Tuesday night I lay down and put on the Magic Forehead. And then I listened to my gut.

Suddenly my gut is my gauge for many things. It has never in my life been this way, but about two months ago I hugged the Dessert Fairy for a long time, and was utterly astonished at the peace that settled over me. I felt calm and relaxed in the stomach for the first time in a year, maybe more. Now I'm having trouble remembering the last time my gut was truly peaceful. But it is now. And now I'm taking care of it, feeding it good things, often saying no to sugar just because I don't feel like eating it (!). Whoa. What happened?

And now I can meditate. Now I have stomach awareness. Put on the forehead, then check in with the stomach. It's amazing. After three minutes, I was relaxed and full of...well, some kind of energy. Coolness. Except that I felt warm. Extreme mental clarity. Peace. I fell into a deep sleep and woke up feeling wonderful. Not sick at all.