Change

There is nothing worse than being sick when it's nice outside, except for being sick and stuck working double shifts with 25 screaming, germy kids, having emotional explosions. That sums up the last few days: me well medicated and stumbling through a land mine of emotionally volatile children. Now I was a sensitive child, I had my moods and there were definitely some kids I liked better than others, so I'm not saying I don't feel some empathy for these kids, but sometimes I just don't see what the big damn deal is. I understand them getting upset because someone copied them or got on their nerves, but I don't understand the intensity of their response. The sobbing and stomping out of rooms. That to me is reserved for really important shit like if someone has physically harmed me, or if I feel betrayed...it's not something I whip out cause someone told me the game I made up was boring. I mean I watched a kid burst into tears because he didn't know snack had been served....keep in mind there was still plenty left and there was nothing stopping him from eating, but the sheer fact that he didn't immediately know that it was available to him sent him into a tailspin and ruined the next several hours. It's kind of freaky that someone so young could be so troubled so soon in life. It gets me thinking about change.

My challenge for this week, in addition to maintaining my own cool (I find illness makes me short tempered...I don't have a lot extra energy for pleasantries), has been to think about interrupting emerging patterns that have been manifesting themselves among the children I work with. One of the girls I work with often has taken to bullying....at the same time she is constantly positioning herself as a victim. If she gets caught bullying, she cries and either accuses the other child of lying (even if one of us adults witnessed her doing wrong) or she blames it on the other child saying they did something to provoke her-to her credit, sometimes they did, but 9 times out of 10 whatever they did doesn't not warrant the ferocity of her response.

So this week we had some long heart to heart talks. We talked about intention and making choices. I have been trying to get her out of this victim mentality which not only serves as an attempt to manipulate adults for sympathy, but also allows her to shirk responsibility for her actions. We also talked about empathy and karma. I am not the only one who has these experiences with this girl, and all the other adults in her life (with exception of her mother who is in denial) are in agreement that she needs some support and that we need to intentional guide her towards some better behavioural alternatives. But then there is the question of nature vs nurture. Is this just who she is? Or is this learned behavior that can be interrupted? How much change is possible?

I ask myself the same question in other parts of my life. Every time I go to the chiropractor and she tells me how much better my back is looking, I ask her how she can tell given that it still hurts in the exact same places. She cracks me this way and that, sometimes there are machines involved. At the end I feel my spine and neck lengthened, but within the next few hours I'm bunched up again. She says it's a long process, but that change is possible and that believe it or not, my spine is getting trained to straighten out. In the meantime my shoulders stay tight, the muscles between the blades are constantly knotted and my neck stays short. I try to sit up straight and relax more, stretch and roll my neck, but I still slip back into the same familiar positions.

I often find myself frustrated by the slow pace of change at my other job. Last year I came into this position all bright eyed and idealistic, full of energy and ready to make some positive changes...and I did. I did a lot. In fact I did more than had been done in 5 years, but the feedback at the end of it was "Wow, that was great. Now do less". After easing away from the bitterness and frustration of feeling unappreciated and like all my efforts were just treading water, barely keeping a program adrift in the ocean of status quo and mediocrity...I realized that I did not have to work so hard or struggle so vehemently when all those around me were perfectly content to do nothing. Sometimes change doesn't have to be my sole responsibility and sometimes change is the exact opposite of what is valued or desired by an organization. Truly I would have quit this job ages ago if it weren't in such a cool city and didn't provide fabulous medical, dental, and chiropractic care. But I've hung there and my reward has been meeting some pretty cool people and getting my faculty training proposal passed.

Today was the first day of my global learning seminar, where all the people whose proposals were passed came together to present our ideas. It is the first of five meetings. I had read blurbs on the other proposals, but it was cool to put faces to ideas and hear them fleshed out a little more. My proposal is all about creating a training for faculty leading short term study abroad programs on how to integrate US diversity into an international context. The one commonality between all of us is that we are all interested and working towards change, but as to how realistic / viable this change is....I'm not so sure. I have hope though. At the end of the meeting the lead facilitator pulled me aside and said not only was she excited to have me at the seminar, but that she has been actively searching for funding that would institutionalize my training. As for whether institutional change is an oxymoron or not, but I guess I'm ready to find out.