Can I do it?

Written during Monsieur Diallo’s class at l’ecole primaire, 20 avril 2008

After working in a school like Legacy Private Academy where there are high learning standards to fit the WASC accreditation and wonderful support from the parents and community and coming to a school like this: 60+ kids in one class, a horrible female to male ratio, and no apparent curriculum one thing comes to mind. Life is so unfair.
It’s almost perfect to start out at a school like Legacy because it truly is the opposite end of the spectrum. I’ll be pushed, tested, and challenged to form something that seems impossible. To raise awareness in a community that has been trying to jump over the foundation. Jumping to cell phones and satellites where there aren’t land lines or running water.
I want to yell and cry out about how unfair life is as I look at the crumbling, poor excuse of this institution of education. I remember walking through the warm halls of Legacy and looking up at the crystal chandeliers and I wake up to this. A place that the teachers don’t even show up on time or at all.
Can I do it? I doubt myself and feel overwhelmed. But then I find a little courage to look out into a sea of dark faces and as my eyes meet theirs I see light. That light is all I need.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.” -Nelson Mandela