The Final Frontier

I work with crazy children. No, let me rephrase that. I work with challenging kids. They are tough to deal with because of their normalcy, not their disability. Many of the students who walk through my door every day are designated "Emotionally Disturbed" or have some sort of learning disability. However, it is not their learning challenges that give me the most trouble. No, no. It is their behavior.

I work in what's called a self-contained program, sort of like a holding cell with other people who are still waiting on a final verdict. And many of them behave in just that manner. Angry. Often. Sometimes at no particular person. Sometimes in a very specific manner. Yet, my challenge lies in teaching the pupil whose too far dilated to focus on the truth of what really has them upset. How do I train the mind that won't let go of some negative idea which threatens to consume all the positivity inside of them? I can't imagine having to bare that kind of burden every day. But my kids carry it all the time and they know its weight very well. The heavy sagging of an impulse that keeps your leg tapping in class because you have excess energy in your body and your nuisance of a teacher makes you sit in a seat for extended periods. All that electricity flowing through one conductor must feel like a powerplant that's about to overload on unexpelled juice. An electrical wiring throughout the classroom seems to be the issue for many of the learners. While some get jolts here and there from electrical misfiring, others' configurations make them natural resistors. They store their electricity for many periods. They absorb the shock and blows sent from other lightning rods around them. They are equally dangerous because once they have enough juice stored up they, my little circuit breakers, could blow a fuse that could incinerate the entire room.

Bumping, bumping along. They go about their business and meet the Static who cannot get enough juice to be either the circuit breaker or the power plant. Thus, he goes around giving minor jolts here or there. No, he is not toppling over with electrical current. But with enough borrowed energy he could be. However, the static needs enough particles from the air about him to warrant a legitimate reaction. And even then the reaction is not all his own. He is just the transference of energy.

So this is my classroom. A bunch of busy bodies that I tame into a chair with pen or pencil and notebook in hand. Some control their wattage long enough to hone in on what I am saying for a minute but they are quickly overcome by the mounting within. Some of the really gifted circuit breakers show their peers how to channel their ohms into levitation from electromagnetism. A very nifty trick I must say, but in the amount of time it takes some of them to discover this new trick, we lose track of where all our energy is flowing to.

I, being the head lightning bolt, am forced to strike in order to dissipate the electric field. I work at a Power Company. And it is my charge to give my little spark plugs, vector. That's magnitude and direction. I am not always successful. And when I am not, I have to gage where my shockwave should be channelled to stun an entire field of electrifying rivals. I, the teacher, have to --metaphorically speaking--be the neutral and positive nucleus which herds all the negatively charged electron clouds into one direction that revolves around me. Not an easy feat.

I got my classroom because the last nucleus achieved fission. For those of you that have become lost in my physics metaphor allow me to explain. In science there are atoms floating about. They are made of three particles. Electrons--negatively charged particles--float around the outside of the atom. Protons--positively charged particles--pair with neutrons--particles with no charge--to form the center of the atom. The center is called the nucleus. When one achieves fission it means your atom splits from the inside. From the nucleus. From the stuff with all the positivity. The process is not a mellow happening. Back to my metaphor.

The last nucleus achieved fission, in that very violent way that the process always occurs. My little lightning bugs overloaded her, my predecessor. And now I stand boldly to take her place. I've been told that from our school the kids only go two places: high school or a hospital where they are sedated and a private teacher instructs just them. Imagine, my little lightning rods having to give up all that roaming freedom for a rubber room. I maintain my resolve to break through their resistors and jumpstart their sparks in a positive way. But I am here today soliciting donations. Jumper cables, Power strips, thick-soled shoes. Whatever you got, throw it at me. I'm doing alright now, but something tells me I'll need the boost soon. I'm the Final Frontier trying to redirect lightning to aim for the sky instead of strike down every tree in its path. Wish me luck.