Thursday, September 22, 2005

Out of the mouths of teenage babes




It is amazing to me how much the kids teach me. I think there are two schools of people that work with kids. One is the person who know they have a lot of information to give and go in to give it. And the second is the kind of person that goes in knowing that the kids probably will school them before they ever get to school. I'm pretty much the second person. Today, I got schooled.

One of my boys, Braulio, has really been such an interesting kid to watch grow. In two years he has grown tremendously. It is only after being dismissed from our program that he really made the leaps that I always knew he could make. He came back and he's been kicking ass ever since.

Today he had asked me for help with a scholarship application, we were chatting and then he says "Hey Karla, I'm sorry I was so hard headed when I was a freshman." At which I laughed and joked with him. Then he says "You know I don't regeret it. I know that I learned from being that person. I would never know how to talk to people like that if I hadn't been that person. I mean life is a maze right? You don't like the patch you chainsaw your way through another place where you can be happy. Otherwise, you just follow the maze. No reason to feel too guilty. You spend so much time feeling guilty you can't get better. I was spending a lot of time telling myself I sucked."

I was listening to Braulio and I started thinking about how much time I spend saying that to myself lately. The assault didn't do it as much as the workshop. The USC workshop had me really feeling guilty for my inability to get past the assault to be the Rap Director I know I can be. I know its silly, it was a week after the assault, I was still in shock, I should let up on myself. It was just still hard for me. Its not about being perfect, it was more a doubting of how strong I actually was.

I actually mustered the ability to call Derek soon there after. I owe him and Oudete a phone call. I apologized for having charged into certification when I wasn't personally ready, for not having been able to clear my filters enough to hear the feedback being given to me, for shutting down. I don't know what I expected to hear Derek say honestly. I think something along the lines of "we all have hard workshops, we have to just keep cleaning out the fliters so we don't get in the way of ourselves." but really I didn't expect what I got.

He told me I needed to not "flip the script" on myself. The long and short of what he communicated was that what I did under the cicumstances I did it in was testament to who I was. There probably could have been more opportune times to certify me, but I got to show myself what I was made of that week. Hearing him say that was so freeing. I wish I could get myself to the point where I can do that for myself or see things that clearly for my own preservation.

It is a process gosh darn it. This has had ripple effects on my whole life. I heard what he said, it will take some time to process and digest it as fact. But I heard it, and I guess thats really the first huge step.

Thank god for my students yo. My life and my growth is so influenced by them, I wonder if they even know how much. How grateful I am for the lessons they teach.

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