Floating, Steering

 I'd been so disgusted when I'd returned for the new school year on Thursday, I'd taken Friday off and gone to Duluth to visit Marz over the Labor Day weekend.
I came home, 

and the next morning I quit my job.

Lake Superior
Me

_______________

Marz & Friends at the Duluth Farmer's Market

I'd helped Marz arrange her apartment, below. She'd moved in the night before classes started, and she was still living out of boxes.

We went to a garage sale, and she got the comfy chair ^ and the flag of India in the window. The circle on the flag is the Ashoka Chakra, as you may know--the wheel of dharma.
"The chakra shows that there is life in movement and death in stagnation."

 

So, there ya go.
Did that--life in movement--inspire me to quit my job?
Maybe? Mostly though, I just could not bring myself to get on my bike and go to the first day of school yesterday. I tried to positive-talk myself into it, by my self was not buying it. I tried to lure myself––by waving money––but I would not take the bait.

The idea that one's soul has signed up for The Earth Challenge doesn't mean we have to stay where we land.
On the contrary.
Our soul got legs; we can move!

(Tracy wrote me: "Life seems to be a tricky balance of floating and steering, and we're doing our best to figure out which to do when.")

One example sums up my dislike of the school:
They lock the doors from the inside.

"For safety," it is said.
Uh-huh.
It is a prison.

Krista commented that K-12 schooling aims to produces docile bodies. I hadn't heard the term, but it's perfect for what I saw.
It's from Foucault.

"Docile bodies refer to individuals who have been subjected to various techniques of discipline and control, resulting in their submission to authority.
Ultimately, Foucault invites us to critically examine power dynamics in society and to actively engage in the pursuit of freedom and self-determination."
--from Easy Sociology.

 

 Easy Translation: Get a different job.

I emailed Admin and a dozen of my coworkers:

"Sorry to be so very last minute about it, but I am not returning to be an SEA-ASD [special ed assistant–autism spectrum disorder].
I love the kids, but high school? Not so much.

Best of luck to you all, and thank you for any kindnesses you have shown me--they meant a lot."

Admin wrote back a sour note, "If you don't give two weeks notice, you can't work for the school district."

I do not want to work for the school district.
"Thanks, understood. Go ahead and process my separation papers."

One coworker wrote back. 
"We will miss you. You had a great impact on our kids and the team. Good luck in your next adventure."

Otherwise, crickets. It was the most disengaged workplace I've ever been in. Pod bodies?
It's not like I dropped them in it by leaving so abruptly. Three assistants (and a teacher) remain . . . for six ASD students. (The ratio has to do with federal mandates, I think. Meanwhile the city is reducing the music program because of budget cuts.)
Another reason I didn't like the job--I didn't feel needed, usually. Because I wasn't. Not that I didn't give and receive Good with the students.

Will I miss the students?
Honestly, not really. They were lovely, I'm grateful I got to know them, but 3.5 months in that setting with them was enough. If I had to work in the schools, I would want to be a teacher--they can set the tone in the classroom. But teaching was never my vocation.

What now?
I have no plan--except the plan I already had to make lino-prints, watch Criterion movies, and read The Economist.
Luckily I have savings (thank you, dead ancestors), so it's not an emergency.

This morning I'm applying for a part-time job at an art store--that'd be great. And then I'm returning keys and ID badge to the school.

All done.