When it’s Dust

“We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are.”
― Parker Palmer

Parker Palmer– teacher, sociologist, social reformer– inspiration a-plenty for me. He wrote The Courage to Teach. It’s the single teacher text that speaks to my teacher heart. His commentary on education is opposite of what we, as educators, seem to produce the most of: the technical, the distant, the abstract… the majority of our sacred texts are written this way. They are helpful. But Palmer insists that we teach from the essence of who we are, and if we want to grow as teachers, we must learn to talk to each out about our inner lives.

My teaching coat has two pockets: one full of gold, one full of dust. Many days I reach into a pocket and grasp a handful of gold. On these days, I am in tune with myself and my students. I teach from an inner place of love, service, compassion and capacity. I meet the day’s challenges with wherewithal. On these days, I’ve gathered the hurdles, hurts and the chaos of the classroom into my purpose. I am undaunted; on solid ground.

There are, though, the days I reach into my pocket and grasp a handful of dust, which I want to talk about now. Let’s talk about the dust bowl days that leave me listless, resigned, uninspired, weak and mostly… insecure. I can feel the wind blowing through the hole that once housed my confidence. I knew who I was yesterday, I felt the gold in my pocket; what happened to today?

I am curious about the sudden (and also the creeping) insecurity of the dust days. This pocket full of dust, why is it there? And why do we still have it after decades of teaching?

Pocket full of dust:

Learning that I’ve only got enough prepared for a 30 minute block and I’ve got 90 minutes ahead of me. Projecting a slide and I’m unable to interpret it (Sunday evening prep, much?) Sweaty armpits (mine). Bored looks. Looks.  Tech’s not working. Criticism. Broken hearts sitting in my seats and I know it. Their burdens. I’m speechless. I’ve forgotten how to pray.

Rewind a bit further. Rough morning leaving the house. Littles wouldn’t get in the car. I yelled. I apologized about yelling. It’s been about 15 years since I woke up and I just got to my classroom and unloaded my things.

The pocket full of dust and all it’s disappointment, sewn there lamely, opposite the solid gold. Is it about the real under-belly of life or do we take it to mean something personal, something about us? If it is our soul, our whole selves, that we bring and mirror to our class each day, then I believe as teachers we naturally spend a lot of time confronting ourselves… our true selves as well as our shadow side. We are a whole and integrated being whether we like it or not. We teach with our whole selves, whether we accept it or not. We arrive each day with a pocket full of gold…and… pocket full of dust.

In the pocket of dust, the three I’s lie mixed in, they are feelings of:

• incompetence
• impotence
• insignificance

Watch out for these three I’s, dear teachers, for they are the birthplace of more dust: detachment, despondency, disconnect. They’ll urge a tight fist around a handful, requiring a few extra days to recover.

The three I’s can help us know what we are grasping.  Always rooted beneath the presenting issue, we have to look twice to find the three I’s at work.

A student confides a depression so deep it’s swallowing him up.

Enter: impotence.

Bored looks.

Enter: incompetence. Oh wait, make that incompetence and insignificance.

It happens so fast… to all of us… for as long as we teach. If we’re honest.

But that pocket full of dust… dark and shifty as it is, it makes us better. It reveals our limits, humbles us, calls us to hope. Calls us to long for that pocket of gold. As we touch the dust and remember it’s there, it’s clear that our call to teach isn’t all hardship. It makes the pocket full of gold, the true-self days, that more shiny.

The cool thing is: each pocket, gold and dust, true self and shadow, are etched with the paradoxical glory of vocation– when our great joy meets the world’s great need.