On Friday, a kid left our school. The kid was a handful, often challenging, usually draining, really loud or completely withdrawn, a bundle of nerves. At the end of the day, after the kid had said a final goodbye, a few of us stood in the hall talking. It was mostly rehashing old complaints and expressing relief to be free of the kid. I stood thinking that this was the kind of kid for which our school is designed. As they talked I felt a courseness developing within me.

Thoreau wrote:

As I go through the fields, endeavoring to recover my tone and sanity and to perceive things truly and simply again, after...dealing with the most commonplace and worldly-minded men, and emphatically trivial things, I feel as if I had committed suicide in a sense." (The Journal, pg. 80)

I left the group and went into my classroom and be alone. I'm not sure I recovered my tone or sanity, but it was a step in the right direction.

I noticed again how often the right direction is away from the crowd and trivial affairs.