There's Hope...

Sometimes, after getting used to the ways of the city, it takes a bit of time to readjust to being back in my surroundings on the coast. The manners and mentality of the people are different and I sense myself noticing the differences. Although I have gotten used to being stared at while walking around town (as it's something that people just do not do here), recently I have had several instances of being pleasantly surprised by the members of my home community.

Yesterday was the first day I had been back in the high school to sub, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I taught mainly freshman and usually (and yes I know it's bad to make assumptions) freshman are all over the place behaviorally and tend to exude an air of immaturity. However the 100+ students I had yesterday, for the most part, behaved well, were respectful, and got their work done. They outshone the juniors and seniors that I usually teach. They were researching the upcoming political candidates and I was impressed by how they approached the topics and with how they processed the information. It left me feeling that there is hope for tomorrow after all.....

I also ran into several of my other students throughout the day yesterday. Coming from a "redneck" community, lots of students in this high school can be found wearing head-to-toe Carhartts and camo hats and have a "self" mentality based in rural Republicanism. However several of these students impressed me with the growth they had exhibited over the course of the last six months. Their ability to discuss more indepth subjects and to look at topics objectively was something that had been missing in months past. They also seemed more motivated and aware that their education was something that truly would be worthwhile for them in the future. Again I felt hopeful...

And then lastly....I had a conversation with a fellow teacher-one of my former teachers actually and the advisor to the KEY club. In the front hall of the school were at least 100 boxes containing food from the KEY club's canned food drive. (However since so much food had been donated, each grade had donation sites located in different school buildings.) And he described to me how most of the food that I was seeing in that hall had actually been donated by community members over the weekend while KEY club members sat outside one of our local grocery stores. We then talked about how it seems that ever so slowly society is in a period of change-one of consuming less and giving more, of thinking about self less and about others more. And again I felt hopeful...