For a Time, Time Stood - Chapter 1

For a Time, Time Stood

I thought that private tutoring would be a good part-time career option, because I didn't want to try to teach the masses in the public school system anymore. I theorized that teaching one student who wanted to learn would be a dream come true. Tutoring one can be a nightmare.

Before September 11, my first private tutoring job was only one of the worst, most horrifying, humiliating experiences of my life. My level of Middle East political knowledge was as vague as everyone else's in 1999. I can see how I brought problems on myself, to a certain extent. But how I could have been so cautious at the time, and end up feeling so foolish, naive, and humiliated personally after the fact, justifies questioning everything.

When you cross a cultural line, you enter into unknown and dangerous territory. For a period, time stood--not still, just stood.

Sometimes all you can do against time is stand it. After teaching 13 years in the Texas public school system, I had burned out. I couldn't handle the emotional stress of feeling overly responsible for all the bad things that happened at school.

The last five years I taught, three of my middle school aged students died tragic deaths. You always wonder if there was some small thing you could have done that would have changed everything. In addition, eventually I became more involved in personal student issues I couldn't solve, except to experience students' pain vicariously, and be too sympathetic for as much discipline as was needed in the classroom. But how do you tell the eleven-year-old girl who was sexually abused by her mother's former boyfriend that she can't interrupt the class every time she has to go to the bathroom. I just couldn't seem to explain the concept of being discreet.

Before it got to the point that I couldn't explain anything, I quit. I walked out on a contract. School districts hate that. However, by then it was a medical issue, and it was best for me, and the school, that I walk away from teaching.

Although I had a degree in English and experience in the workplace, I had no real world skills. I'm of that peculiar age that thought computers weren't going to catch on, mostly because I was afraid to have to learn something new. I took courses at the local community college and got a part-time job at a vet clinic. Working around animals improved my attitude about life, and I started a pet sitting business on the side. I was doing okay, but it wasn't really the career change I needed. Picking up massive amounts of dog feces on a regular basis will keep you humble. I needed desperately to feel less humble.

My mom passed on an ad she'd read in the classifieds of the Dallas Morning News that read like a personal invitation for me:

Person needed to teach English
6 hours/day, 5 days/week.”

I need to try to write this in third person. The story continues, only somewhat fictionalized in "A Cultural Crevice”.