Since I keep having recurring dreams about school experiences, I can only conclude that my years in school - first as a student and then as a teacher - were somewhat traumatic. In the first nocturnal vision I am an overworked, harassed college student who finds myself, on graduation day, one unit shy of a degree, due to a clerical error beyond my control. No amount of pleading and cajoling with the powers-that-be will change the dismal number situation, and I am doomed to another semester in collegiate hell. The second dream, which reoccurred just last night, takes place at yet another school, this time elementary, where I am a veteran teacher loving my students but totally frustrated by the growing demands thrust at me by the county, state and fed. Tired of the uncompromising bureaucracy and, frankly, exhausted by the stress of it all, I realize that early retirement is the only way to keep myself from being carried out of the classroom door on a stretcher, permanently incapacitated and never able to return. I complete the mounds of paperwork only to find that I've been denied. Denied! I will not be allowed to retire. Not now. Not ever. Once again I am stuck, this time in underfunded No Child Left Behind hell.
I always wake up with a start once I slam into that brick wall of despair, relieved to discover that I am once again in night terror mode. What does this say about my relationship with schools? In both scenarios I find myself in situations where I have completely lost control of what is happening; and, now that I think about it, that was the reality, especially in the retirement dream. Thank goodness that hopeless, trapped feeling is now behind me, except when it infrequently revisits me while I sleep. When I spring awake, I remember that I am finally free and my own boss.Lucky me.
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