Crashing Ashore, or a Teacher Turns Inward to Build Classroom Community
What are the conditions that foster diverse communities rather than isolated individuals? The question is very complex for mosses, let alone for humans.
I’m currently listening to the audiobook version of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann, a nonfiction tale about an eighteenth-century British man-of-war that shipwrecks on an island off the coast of Patagonia and the horror that her men endure, both at sea and on land, to survive the ordeal. The HMS Wager was part of a fleet that had left England in 1742 during a secret war with Spain in pursuit of a Spanish ship carrying so much treasure, it was called “the prize of all the oceans.”
Before crashing ashore, the Wager’s crew was already hollowed out and desperate after months at sea battling what is now known as scurvy, as well as hunger and thirst from dwindling stores of food and fresh water. Grann spares no detail as he describes the effects of starvation and the toll that sailing took on men’s bodies before the invention of modern medicine, and the story contains much death and even some gore. After all, each boat required a dedicated amputation table.
But what struck me most while listening was the absolutely dogged determination of these sailors to fulfill their duty to King and Country in pursuit…of Spanish ships, of fame, of honor, and especially of money. They faced disease, death, and starvation, but kept going because they were promised a kind of treasure. They were willing to die for this treasure, or at the very least, wreck, maim, and tear apart their bodies and maybe their souls for it. My thinking was, wow--we haven’t changed. Hundreds of years later, Americans, as British offspring, are still wrecking our bodies on the rocks of capitalistic pursuits and promises that fulfillment can be sought out there, by an external good: fame, money, or both.
But we know this doesn’t work. Or at least, I know it doesn’t, because I have tried. I have tried to find almost all aspects of life outside of myself, for almost my whole life. Not unlike the Wager’s sailors, I have always lived in pursuit…of top grades, the most prestigious college degrees, the ideal weight and clothing size, parenthood, the adoring gaze of my parents, a strong relationship with my sister. Even my own mental health has dangled in front of me like a carrot on a stick for years as something I must acquire, or gain, from someplace else.
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Like I learned in The Wager, captains can have a tipping point when a decision they make, or a natural event like a storm, sets the ship on a path to destruction, and the ship, because it is broken or abandoned at that crossroads, is never the same again. This summer I completed a social work internship for my Masters degree in social work at a pediatric hospital here in Dallas. This internship was fantastic--I worked with excellent mentors, met world renowned doctors and nurses doing miraculous work with physically challenged children, and I was firmly planted in service work for a few months, which is the very best thing for us.
But I emerged from summer with the sense that I had made a decision, or maybe a series of decisions, that led to my ship breaking apart at the seams, and by August, I felt like I had lost control of my perspective and was unable to think rationally. My mind was foggy, I was physically tired, and I had descended into a pattern of thinking intrusive and worrying thoughts in loops, with no ability to break free from them.
Because I am a student by nature, I’ve spent a small fortune studying and looking for the answer to why I have anxiety and relentless catastrophic thinking. I’ve read books on burnout, rest, the enneagram, trauma and the body, meditation, women’s health, you name it. I go to therapy. I have even pursued an advanced degree in social work in part to be part of the conversation on mental health. But nothing prepared me for thinking that the only way I would ever be free of my mind was to cease existing.
Well, I want to keep existing. So in August, setting out to identify a goal for my teaching year provided me with an opportunity.
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In The Wager, the crew takes pieces of the ship that wash up on shore and rebuild new ships to take them back to the mainland and civilization. The metaphor is cliché, and clunky, but this is my goal: to mend and piece together my ship. I know that teaching is my sacred earthly task. But now I think my other sacred task is to stop living in pursuit. Nothing outside of me--no book, human relationship, job, or purchased object is going to heal me. I intuit that what I am truly seeking is belonging, or a feeling of wholeness that I have longed for my entire life. To believe that I live in community with others who are just as anxious as I am. In other words, that I am ok as I am, and not fundamentally broken.
And belonging is a concept we use often in our school as a peak experience for our students; we want our students to feel like they belong in our classrooms and our community. So, my question is, how can working on my own sense of belonging through care for who I am model authenticity for my students and therefore help build a classroom community that is rooted in kindness and presence? What are the action steps I need to take to feel more connected to others and to my own life that will allow me to see my classroom culture, one that I have perhaps taken for granted, through a new lens? As teachers, what is the relationship between who we are in our personal lives and who we are in our classroom?
I obviously have no answers, so I will be exploring these questions this year through research and reflection. Some of my action steps/topics include:
My social media fast and the impact on my time and attention
Replacing time online with time working with my hands
Self-advocacy and saying no when it is quite hard to say no
Writing as prayer and the impact on my teaching of writing and reading
Navigating OCD as an educator
Re-examining what makes a classroom community in 2024
In The Wager, Grann notes: “We all impose some coherence—some meaning—on the chaotic events of our existence. We rummage through the raw images of our memories, selecting, burnishing, erasing. We emerge as the heroes of our stories, allowing us to live with what we have done—or haven’t done.” As I sift through my story, I hope I find that heroic voice in me that can feel communion. But, as I tell myself each time I attempt to run over a mile: even if you stop, it’s ok—just keep going and moving forward.
Kate Schenck is currently reading The Book of Witching by C.J. Cooke and growing pumpkins in her backyard.
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