Ghost of Christmas Future Is No Fun

Here's something that burns in my heart sometimes as I'm teaching.  I see the kids in front of me, and I know their potential, but I also see the path they are traveling.  And I see that path because I've lived it myself and lived it as a parent and lived it as a teacher.  It's a heavy load.  How frustrating it is to want to motivate students to change direction and to give effort after effort to try and help students change direction.  How frustrating it is to know that despite the hope and attempts, in many cases there just isn't anything more I can do. 

I think that weight accumulates over time.  I think one part of retirement I'm going to enjoy is the removal of that load.  Oh, I realize there will be other things I will try to accomplish and other things or people that I cannot help, but the heartache of seeing kids going down the wrong path and knowing their likely future won't occur as much.

In this way, there are times I'm working with students and I feel like Dickens's Ghost of Christmas Future.  What a fantastic power it would be to teleport students into what their future will look like if they don't adjust their course - if they don't change their path.  If I could just "jolt" them into avoiding the road down the path of substance use and abuse; if I could just "jolt" them into avoiding the road that includes no additional training and finds them struggling in life with two or three part-time jobs just to get by; if I could just shock them into avoiding a life without meaningful relationships that have love and care.

I think that's the superpower I would like to have.  I would like to be the Ghost of Christmas Future, and the students would wake up the next day and take a sharp turn from their current paths.  They would find a cleaner life, a happier life, a more comfortable life, and a life with more loving relationships.

And we adults try to say the right things, right.  We try to tell them and warn them and advise them.  But we are just dumb adults that don't know anything - the same dumb adults that I viewed when I was a teenager and knew everything.  And sometimes, words work.  Too often, though, words aren't enough.  A trip with Christmas Future would be more powerful...I would love that superpower ability.