Fate
ocurrirán
cosas malas.
Bad
things will happen
Your
favorite students will call
you
derogative terms in a language
that you
partially know. Your alarm
will go
off and you will set it for thirty
minutes
later. You will start your pot
of
coffee and forget to fill your cup.
You
broke up with your girlfriend or boyfriend
and
she/he will come after you for
two
hundred dollars because your
friend
broke her/his guitar hero drum set.
You will
forget your belt and your fly
is
unzipped when you come out of the bathroom.
You meet
with a friend for a drink. Or two. Or three.
Or you
will get sick and lay in bed—or decide
your
health can wait. Another pot of coffee
left behind.
Breakfast
will become absent as you are
getting
the days presentations and activities
ready.
Your favorite student will go back to
jail
because he can’t handle school and it’s demands.
Another
one of your favorites will get
kicked
out of his foster home and move to another state.
You will
over plan—you will under plan.
Your
pipes will freeze and your blood will boil
when a
student asks you what the assignment is about
when you
have explained it thoroughly. Twice.
There is
an ancient greek myth about a father
Who is
betrayed by his son. Fate had bestowed
This
betrayal. The son will kill his father
And
eventually marry his mother. Fate had
made
Him a
king and a hero. King Oedipus
Will
follow fate and this makes him a hero.
He
gouged his eyes out and wandered in embarrassment.
So
here’s the light in the blindness of life, the token
of
epiphany that leaves you dumbfounded.
Your
pedagogy will be questioned and tested. You will
go to
Vegas and spend your grocery money
for the
next few weeks. You will forget your
phone charger,
and
phone in your hotel. You will break down in the middle
of a
lesson that your building principal observes
but he
pulls you aside and reminds you
“We as educators
are not super human
and sometimes
we just let fate run its course,
just don’t
kill your father and sleep with your mother.”
