Like every other mantra I've tried, even the God mantra didn't work. My students still rebelled and I could do little in response. They complained that my classes were random and didn't make sense, that my quizzes were unfair, that they couldn't do my essays because I hadn't explained them. The principal listened to their complaints never agreeing but never dismissing them either. She wouldn't pass judgement without actually observing me teach like a captain listening to his foot soldiers complain about their lieutenant and waiting a performance report to determine whether or not they should follow his command. She even had a noon hour meeting with my disgruntled Grade 12 students. I could be crap but I doubt it. What is relevant to what I have say is that I suffered a debilitating migraine on Thursday and Friday of last week and then Monday through Wednesday of this. (Friday was a professional development day without students.) The God Mantra didn't work.
So, I resolved to observe myself in the third person making my way to class, teaching, marking, answering questions and I would honestly wonder what I would do next. I felt under so much pressure that I couldn't think beyond the present moment. Like a movie, only in my movie I felt, intensely. And that's when I came up with the idea that there may not be a universal mantra (at least for me.) Perhaps there a mantra that makes sense at particular moments and places in the day, like a persona that works in some circumstances and not others. We shall see.
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