Another new substitute teacher update: It has been a hard week of learning for me. I don’t always know it is about learning when those regular feelings of struggle come up. The gap feeling of not being enough, not being able to find the words, I actually seem to slow down, stutter and glitch as I respond to the wildness in front of me. It’s a painful experience, combined with a remorse for how this will never change, I will always be this way. In the midst of it all my energy is low, I don’t want to do the things that make it better, instead want to search for answers on the internet, google my problems and see what the influencers have to say. I was trying to urge surf that response and trust that the practice of going into schools themselves will give me the tools I need for future schools. I had the wherewithal to take a shower, stretch and meditate to settle myself before hand, but it took some effort to switch gears, and as a reward, I drew an animal medicine card before I went with the idea that it could inform my perspective as I went through the day. So Otter was the tool I took with me and I didn’t think of it again.
I returned to a school I had gone to before for a partial shift in a new classroom of 3rd graders. This was just my second time. The teacher had sent me notes in advance, introducing me to students and her classroom layout, a sense of the flow of the day. And then when I got there, I had a few minutes to see her with them in action. She had taken care of me with ways to reinforce the students when they were all doing their job. And good directions on work to do and what they will try to get away with.
It wasn’t until I got home and I was processing my day that Otter became informative.
I may have told you this before, my friend Kara described teaching kindergarten like bringing a handful of corn inside the pen of goats at the petting zoo. They all come at you at once. Each classroom is different, but some version of that metaphor holds up across the ages. I stand there, palms open, while the kids bump against me with whatever it is they need, whether it is fun, status, attention, affection, to learn, structure, to help me out. Realistically, the biggest problem is the ones who want to help me out, because it is the most distracting. Even I am getting caught up in my own overwhelm.
Otter is said to be woman energy when it is well balanced, the playing of raising community with the elements of earth and water, always flowing to the next task, and curious of what will work best for the flow of life. Balanced energy is joyful and will not fight unless attacked, essentially Mudita, the Buddhist practice of celebrating the accomplishments of others. And knowing that will benefit the whole community. The classrooms I have been in are all different, 1st, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 5th grade, in different schools with their different supports and responses. And many times it is the girls that are hardest, their need to help me out, whispering advice and grabbing my arms, while I am trying to direct the whole class somewhere, get everyones attention at once, until I am overwhelmed with decision making.
And then there are the disagreements within the girl groups themselves, the invites and the turing down of invites, the ones feeling left out altogether. I am privy to much of it in the moment of sorting through all the inputs and left to guess which fires to put out and which I can ignore. Recent experiences rolled through my minds eye as a filmstrip and suddenly I could see all the ways Otter medicine informed my days at school. The petty disagreements and grasping for control that blocks our flow as a group, or my own flailing as I grasp to control what is next in the river of Otter’s life.
Otter medicine is not just for women, all of us have a female side to balance with the masculine, but the history of the school system, and our greater present culture, has privileged the male sides and blocked these otter attributes of a well-balanced community. It was freeing to replay these snippets of recess girl-fights and view my own worries as things that are blocking the flow. How the practice of play and joy could heal. And I could see how something in me had moved, become easier and more free. We shall see how it plays out the next time I go to a classroom, but I felt the aha moment of breakthrough and have a sense how I would respond to those girls if I had been back in the situation again and activities I would want to bring back into classes, next time I went.
I don’t have a lot of ego doing this, this work, like most of the work I have chosen to do, is not very pretty nor orderly. I prefer the one on one work where I get to coach the kids into getting their thoughts on the page so that their teacher can read them, instead of standing up and speaking loudly to a whole class. But when I spoke about my lack of skills, and therefore confidence, to the principal where I was doing most of my work, I got a helpful comment. Trust yourself, he said. And it has haunted me a bit. How do I do that? But it was Otter Medicine that answered the question. Keep a Hawk-eye on your ego, it said, and maintain total trust. It is an instruction and a practice, not something that is already there. I can embody those things while I am a substitute teacher. After all, my mission is simple, keep students safe and as occupied as possible while their teacher is away.