I am ecstatic to get away this weekend.  It is Teacher Convention weekend.  I scoured the program for good workshops.  However, there were none that really appealed to me, as usual.  The rates for the hotels in DC were way too high for me to even want to pay to go there.  So we are going to Philadelphia.  There is a photo exhibit in DC I would love to be able to see, but I don't think I can fit that in.  There are a couple of really good ones in Philly though.  So I get to go see some stuff I would have loved to see anyway.  I had posted the information on my exhibitions board in the classroom and now I will be able to tell the kids about what I saw.  Not that they will go, but I keep hoping my classroom boards will someday inspire....

I also made all purchases and reservations for another trip to Amsterdam.  A friend tipped me off that there is a retrospective of Hieronymus Bosch's work for the 500 year anniversary of his death.  It is in his home town, a mere train ride for Amsterdam.  The exhibit closes in May, so I had to make sure we made the trip before then.  Springtime in Amsterdam?  Sure, why not.

The best part about these two trips?  I will not have the imposed guilt of having to constantly check my messages.  I am not anyone's babysitter/free counselor anymore, and it feels positively liberating.  All my life I have been made to feel I am a selfish person.  My sister read a note a student wrote to me in my first years of teaching.  The student was thankful for all the selfless things I did for her.  My sister asked who the kid was writing about, followed by a chuckle.  Well, my experience has taught me that the most selfish people are those who are most adept at portraying others as the selfish ones.  A selfish person is very good at playing the victim and portraying oneself as selfless.  My sister and my family now know they were wrong and are appreciative in meaningful ways.  But trying to escape encounters with manipulative selfish people of my generation is hard.  I sometimes wonder if it is a geographical or cultural thing.  Meeting and socializing with family or people from other areas of the country or world makes me think that is the case.  People can be giving, compassionate, and truly caring without being demanding or selfish.  I just don't find that around here.

One of the biggest things in my classroom is respect and cooperation.  When I see the concern my students have for each other, I glow inside.  We had a couple of deaths in student families last year.  Kids get sick, need surgery, have other issues.  When classmates figure out something is amiss, the concern is genuine.  You can hear it in their voices and see it in their eyes.  That comes from a respect for each other.  If you respect someone, you inevitably care about them.  That care might differ in type or intensity from the care you have for a close friend, partner, or family member.  Yet, it is there and it is not selfish and fleeting.  I have space issues in my darkroom - 12 enlargers, 21 student cap on the class.  This necessitates partnering.  The students learn they must cooperate with each other in the darkroom.  They are patient waiting to process the prints.  They help each other clean up.  They are now at the point where they are comfortable enough to seek out each other's advice on a print and give each other praise.  They brag to each other about a great print and they cheer each other on.  There is no jealousy.  There is only friendly competition and support.  I love that.

I wonder if this is what teachers were doing all along.  I don't recall this when I was in school, but I wasn't really looking for it.  So, if the teachers were using the classrooms to incubate this kind of cooperation and respect, what happened to my generation?  When did my peers lose it?  And if this is the case, will the students we have now, the ones who show so much care and compassion, lose it too?  I want to think that our kids will take this with them forever.  I prefer to think my peers and I are part of a newer breed in the past 20 years and reflect a new type of whole person education.   I would hate to see some of these kids deal with the selfishness and competition I have had to deal with.  Solitude is so much better than daily encounters with selfish people, but it would be nice if the next generations are better people than my peers in my generation.  That way, my students will never be alone.