Approaching the end of another semester that did not go as planned

One of my favorite statements about teaching and life comes from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," the 1939 Frank Capra movie that ends with an example of how the "standing, talking filibuster" really COULD produce something positive. The lost causes line comes much earlier in the film, when Jimmy Stewart's character, who had been appointed to replace a senator who had died suddenly, is commiserating with an old family friend.

That friend reminds him of what his father used to say: "Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for."

Famous lawyer Clarence Darrow evidently said something like that long before the movie, but like most quotes from a less curated past, there is confusion about origins. The author is not nearly as important as the sentiment.

I am constantly reminded about this sentence, with the latest prompt being this column in the New York Times, written by a journalism teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. She asks the rhetorical question, "Will My Students Ever Know a World Without School Shootings?"

Her column is more descriptive than a direct answer to the question in the headline but we all know that the most logical response to her question is "no." That is both a bit depressing and a bit cynical, but it is difficult to see that answer changing any time soon in an America that prefers extreme positions.

The positive spin, for me, is that despite the unlikely chances of significant gun safety laws or more general compromises among the population, making schools safer is clearly a worthy goal. For our nation, this is as much of a reach as world peace. Still, increased gun safety is worth pursuing.

In teaching, a much less fearful lost cause is education itself. We will never get everyone up to the "proper" reading level and we will never even get all students to see the difference between "its" and "it's." We will never see the day when all deadlines are met, no matter how reasonable. We will never attend a truly worthwhile faculty meeting (sorry for that snarkiness, but any teacher knows what I mean). 

We all have our lost causes, of course, but they mostly produce humor and self-deprecating jokes, not depression and cynicism. Educators start each year thinking THIS will be the semester when lesson plans really click, when students become self-motivated learners, and we handle all the tricky situations bound to occur in a diverse classroom with perfect balance and wisdom.

By the end of first hour, those dreams are dimmed. 

But we go back second hour and try again. 

It's the ultimate form of idealism: the "cause" is too important to abandon, no matter how unlikely any changes are.