Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

I am very tired. I think it has something to do with walking around a classroom all day trying to coerce kids into writing. "What?" they shriek. "You want us to write three-fourths of a page?"
"Yes," I reply. "And no double-spacing on those wide rule lines."
I mean seriously. I'm not asking them to do anything hard, but I guess that asking them to do something besides sit and stare at me is unreasonable. It's days like today that make me wonder about this whole thing, days when I realize how much I'm counting down to the end of student teaching, how much I currently can't wait to be done and get my diploma so that I can do this forever. Yikes. I really don't know how I feel about that.
I have to admit that on those rare occasions when I get them writing and they're really writing - excited about what they've thought to write about, eager to share their ideas with me, writing twice or three times the requirement I set - those are good times. It's those kids who look at me like I asked them to drop their pants and walk into the front office who really get under my skin - the kids who scream wasted potential from the tips of their bleached hair to the soles of their inked up shoes. The kids who- when prompted by the promise of candy- give me really insightful answers and prove that some little part of their brain is getting it.
Yesterday I looked at some journals my 8th graders had turned in. One said, "I'm smarter than I act. I talk a lot and people don't think I'm smart, but I get all As and Bs." It makes me want to cry that in middle school it's a unwritten sin to act smart.
And I can't help but wonder what I can do to make learning more interesting, more exciting. Is there a way to make it something they want to do? I can't figure out how to make it more exciting, no matter how much I reference my textbooks and notes. Am I a boring teacher or are they just bored because they choose not to be engaged?
Meanwhile, there is a newly instituted bright spot in every week. My friend Kellie and I started having a weekly movie night and it has now grown significantly. She has several edited movies and we have a list of other things we want to see, and it makes me very happy to gather with other movie fiends to devour one incredible film after another. These are the same girls with whom I frequented international cinema last semester - now we gather in Kellie's living room. So far we've watched Pan's Labyrinth, The Motorcycle Diaries, and tonight The Shawshank Redemption. It's a bright spot of intellectual stimulation, where it's okay to watch meaningful, insightful and beautiful movies. (One of my pet peeves is the frequency- in a college situation, I might add -of comments like, "I'm too tired to think. Let's not watch (insert quality thinking movie title here) tonight." Which is inevitably followed by popping in some inane movie that I've already seen more times than is really necessary (once, in the case of some movies) and talking through it. Watching real movies doesn't make me nearly as tired; it leaves me uplifted and feeling more hopeful about the state of the world. Seeing them with other people lets me know I'm not alone on this, and for that I am grateful.