How is it possible to live in a community of 100,000+ and still feel isolated? I haven’t written anything in a week, because within my headspace I felt pretty isolated. I felt isolated by many overwhelming factors within my life. There were things on television, work life, home life, and out in the world that made me seek isolation within myself. All I wanted to do was build a wall around myself, where no one could find me.

I know some of this was caused by seasonal depression. Watching the sun set earlier and earlier in the Northern Hemisphere and then falling back to standard time with the sunset arriving near 5:00 p.m. always fuels a seasonal depression as the outdoor world goes to sleep. Trees lose their leaves, frost arrives, certain animals hibernate in their dens, and this always saddens me. I enjoy seeing life all around me…

Then we have the mid-term election. I don’t understand a whole swath of American citizens that bitch and moan about their taxes, and cry foul about minorities preventing them from having their best life. My stepson was whining about his taxes recently. I told him, “I am happy to pay more taxes, as I make more money.” I pointed out where his tax money was being spent. He started complaining about the poor condition of the roads in his county. I pointed out, that is a product of the party you support cutting taxes. He still moaned about his taxes, and the roads, and he can’t understand that A+B=C. His lack of knowledge regarding how things work isolates me behind walls of ignorance. I love my stepson. He is a good young man. He has excellent skills when it comes to visualizing a repair, or manipulating a piece of metal for fabrication. Skills I never practiced or developed as my interests were elsewhere. He just maintains this unhealthy viewpoint that his view of things (within human culture) is just as equal to my knowledge (view) of things. Dunning-Kruger Bias creates this wall between us…

Then there is the rampant discrimination prevalent by the ruling party in D.C. and Des Moines, and the other segments of our society that isolate me further. How can one feel they are more privileged than anyone else? I engaged with a Republican from Southern Iowa who made a disrespectful comment about trans-Americans. I asked him how trans bathroom laws were any different than the bathroom laws that permeated this country before the Civil Rights Act of 1964? All I got was some religious bullshit… I pointed out the hypocrisy of that too… Then they claimed I was marginalizing religion…. All I did was point out facts related to the hypocrisy of his whole position… Their bias isolates the intelligent. It isolates the victims… It isolates this country from our neighbors… How does selfishness help anyone? Who gave these racists, and bigots permission to celebrate their bigotry in the open? Their violence (metaphorical) towards others is not welcome here… I’m tired of their isolated views… …making me feel isolated on an island by myself… (metaphorically)

One of the biggest feelings of isolation this week occurred within my workplace. Despite my protests it continues without respect or dignity towards my expertise. I am a music teacher (not a specials teacher.) My standards are based on students participating and creating in real time a product that only exists in the moment. I do not have any physical artifacts for show and tell. My assessments are informal as I am checking in with the group and individuals to see where they are in the process of developing their skills. I continually feel like my discipline is being forced into the general education paradigm without accommodation for why the discipline exists in the first place…

Since I am the only person who teaches music in my building they also place my colleagues in art and physical education into the “Specials” category. I am called a “Specials” teacher. We lose our instructional time for our school-wide incentives. The core curriculum never loses time, but we the non-testing disciplines, “Specials” always lose our time. Then we get stuck hosting the angry students that did not get to partake in the reward incentive (a form of capitalist reward for accomplishing a goal.) This sets up these students to despise the fine arts, through psychological conditioning. This makes for a very isolating feeling in my workplace. I do not feel valued as an employee or professional when things like this happen.

I teach music. I have never taught a special. When I was a college professor teaching music as part of the humanities I was a humanities professor. The arts were embraced within the college curriculum for their humanity. Over the last 36 years I feel our nation has made being human or studying the humanities optional as we are turning everything into a transactional capitalist process. Every time I hear, see, or read “Specials” I see one more nail entering into the coffin of the arts as we replace it with some capitalist transaction within education. I feel less human every time it happens. This makes me feel isolated, and in turn makes me hesitant to leave my workspace (classroom) to engage with my colleagues in anything. I feel more isolated than ever within my profession. It wasn’t this way when I entered the profession in the early 1990’s.

I love teaching. I enjoy creating a safe space for expression for my students. I enjoy creating a community and opportunities for releasing some of their negativity in a positive way. I do not enjoy unfunded mandates that remove humanity from education. Nor do I enjoy being a pawn to capitalist procedures within my profession. Humans are not a commodity. I am tired of this form of isolationism with the education profession. I am tired of being a “Specials” teacher. I teach music. I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Music Education. I have 36 hours towards a PhD in music education. I am highly qualified, if not overqualified, to do my job. I do not have a “Specials” degree. Nor am I a specialist. I am a teacher whose expertise is music, and my professional development strategies are geared toward teaching children music through sociological and psychological lenses. By recognizing the issues at hand, I can accommodate music teaching strategies to meet the child where they are at, rather than where the “norm” should be…

This past week my headspace has been pretty isolated. I perceive that many people around me fail to see how “what they are doing,” is impacting the “how we are doing.” The greatest curse for me is seeing how every variable around me engages. It inhabits my daily reflection… it crushes me sometimes… This ability to observe things differently, see multiple outcomes or possibilities, feels isolating. I have moments of dread as I look at possible futures if certain variables fall a certain way. This coming election has me on edge as it will directly effect my (our) life (lives) in so may different ways. All politics are local. I feel retirement may soon be on my doorstep as capitalism continues to invade the humanistic profession of teaching. I don’t see it as voluntary (my choice.) I see it as an involuntary choice outside of my control. I can visualize that my district may push, encourage, promote, or demote many veteran teachers out of the profession simply as a cost-saving move. Vouchers are killing public schools all around the state. All of these possibilities make me feel isolated.

Despite these feelings, I know there are so many things beyond the control of my bosses, and the school board. Government mandates and box checking cripple their ability to be flexible when problem-solving. I can empathize with them. If only they could do the same as I… …but is there any room in their head spaces for those feelings??? I doubt it… It is easy to be overwhelmed by all of the information… …and lose sight of the people through the process.

There you have it. In all of its isolating grandeur. I know some of this is related to depression, and a psyche trying to protect itself. Some of it is emotional, in response to things I can’t control. The rest are actually the processes in play that do not recognize nor appreciate the humanity of everyone involved. This is what paralyzed me all week. It kept me from writing. It kept me from engaging positively. Thankfully over the past couple of days I was able to process, articulate it, and then write about it (today) somewhat objectively to help myself escape the overwhelming nature of these isolating feelings… I feel better for having done it, and I sincerely hope I didn’t offend anyone involved… …despite being able to see possibilities of offense…

Now imagine someone who does not have the ability to articulate their isolationism… What does that do to them? They need our empathy and kindness… Let’s hope we see an electorate turn out on Tuesday that wants to deliver that empathy and kindness… …we are all in this together… so it goes…