By Derrick Brown (follow on Twitter @dbrowndbrown)
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Crossing the Finish Line (1465 Words)
(50th Day of School — October 17, 2025)
By Derrick Brown (Join Our Mailing List!)
I. The Rhythm of Fatigue
Friday arrived with its familiar weight.
My usual rhythm at the end of the week is exhaustion, but today that fatigue worked in my favor.
Weariness quieted every impulse to “perform.”
It left only the will to engage in what I now call fine fellowship ... the steady, human work of being present … without pretense.
Because of that exhaustion, I leaned in and leaned on.
I knew I would see my best classes … the ones that remind me why I remain.
II. 1B — Speaking Peace Through Levity
I began the day by telling 1B about the “tutoring” session that ended the previous afternoon. The story made me laugh.
Laughter, in this season, is data.
It means perspective has not been erased.
Even when circumstances appear absurd, the ability to find humor signals that mercy, grace, and patience still coexist with accountability.
That balance is the teacher’s equilibrium.
Without it, classrooms collapse into calamity.
I invited DW ... my most consistently reflective student … and the quiet
star of this year’s #SeeSayShow ... to listen to “Re’sume’ Say.”
She sat still,
attentive, and introspective.
When the song ended, she returned to her seat
without reaction.
“Did you not like it?” I asked.
“I did not not like it,” she said (with a smile).
“It said a lot.”
Her response conferred praise … but revealed even greater reflection.
I asked what she remembered.
She said, “Shuffle and she-ne-neh,” repeating the lines softly, as if tasting them for meaning.
Her openness allowed me to explain what those bars meant to me (because I would need to tell a few other students … who also remember that bar … but maybe not for the "right" reasons) ... the rejection of caricature, the refusal to shrink in order to soothe.
I told her that being perceived as only fit to teach “bad” students is as damaging as students performing the very stereotypes that diminish them.
“Shuffling,” I explained, is not the geometric dance of rigid transformations … it is the social choreography of appeasement ... an unspoken promise to keep others comfortable at the cost of one’s dignity.
“She-ne-neh-ing” is the twin performance … exaggerating an identity that is not one’s own because authenticity feels unsafe.
Both are acts of surrender … disguised as “style.”
DW listened carefully.
Her calm curiosity gave me courage to speak plainly.
I told her that I refuse to enable this patterned performance of “smallness.”
There is, I said, a more excellent, authentic way.
She nodded.
Her understanding steadied me.
I realized that my fatigue had removed my filter … but not my faith.
I was too tired to posture … therefore, I told the truth.
III. 2B — Accountability in Motion
Second block entered with a gentler energy.
The class prepared for the upcoming test and, for once, questions replaced avoidance. The room buzzed with focused motion.
KM, however, tested the boundary.
He slipped into his phone.
I asked him to put it away.
As expected, he deflected by immediately asking for help with the review sheet ... the familiar pivot from distraction to dependence.
His “cap” pattern speaks loudly … I am not working because I have not been shown what to do.
I named the pattern aloud … not to shame him … but to make it visible, then walked away.
Teaching sometimes requires retreat. The goal is not victory … but recognition.
IV. 3B — Confession and Clarification
In third block, absence and presence both mattered.
CM, KS, and JS remained, anxious about my visible anger during Thursday’s chaotic periods (that they witnessed).
Their concern allowed honesty to breathe.
I told them my anger was not directed at them … but was "collateral damage" from accumulated frustration.
I explained that I am an “empath” who bears invisible costs.
When energy is repeatedly spent on resistance instead of growth … even patience becomes combustible.
I admitted that I had felt divided ... fighting for young people while also fighting against the behavior and thought patterns that keep them stagnant.
Then I corrected myself aloud.
“We are not fighting,” I said.
“We are running a race."
"The challenge is to choose which race matters ... to decide which path leads toward peace … and which drains it.”
They listened quietly.
For the first time in days, I sensed that they heard my heart … not just my tone.
V. The Race Metaphor
The metaphor of a race reshaped everything.
A race demands pacing, not panic.
It requires strategy, breath, and rhythm.
To run well, one must decide which finish line counts.
The race I see before me has parallel tracks.
One is the institutional race ... grades, behavior logs, test scores, visibility, survival.
The other is the moral race ... growth, self-knowledge, endurance, dignity.
The two paths intersect … but never merge.
The paradox is clear … to “win” the institutional race often means to lose the moral one.
I told myself quietly, “I want to run with the DWs, not the JWs.”
The statement was not exclusion, but discernment.
I must invest energy where it yields transformation … rather than transaction.
VI. The Evening Performance
That evening, I attended the band’s “sneak-peek” performance.
Fatigue tried to argue, but duty and affection won.
I arrived and found the field alive with sound and motion ... my students in coordinated purpose, their joy disciplined by rhythm.
As I watched, I remembered my own days in the band … and the Most Outstanding Band Member award that I can no longer locate.
The medal may be lost … but the mettle and formation it gave me remains permanent.
Band taught me what few classrooms ever could ... that reading, memorizing, and performing music cultivates focus and collaboration better than any worksheet.
Music is mathematics with soul.
After the show, clusters of students surrounded me, radiant and sweaty, still glowing from performance.
Their energy softened every bruise from the week.
For a moment, the race felt winnable.
VII. Lessons from the Finish Line
1. Exhaustion
as Clarity
Fatigue can be friend, not foe.
When filtered through reflection, it strips away unnecessary reaction and
leaves authenticity.
Tiredness revealed truth that energy might have hidden.
2. Fine
Fellowship Over Friction
True connection begins when effort shifts from control to communion.
The less I strive to dominate, the more room there is for dialogue.
3. Music
as Memory
The day’s bookend ... from “Re’sume’
Say” in the morning to the
marching band at night ... proved that rhythm restores reason.
Where words fail, melody instructs.
4. Peace
as Endurance
Crossing the finish line is not about speed, but sustainability.
Peace is the breath that carries one from start to end … without losing
integrity.
VIII. Opportunities and Threats
The opportunity lies in exhaustion’s transparency.
When energy fades, pretense disappears.
Students encounter the real teacher, not the performance of one.
That authenticity invites mutual honesty.
The threat is the same fatigue becoming chronic … leading to emotional corrosion.
Without boundaries, compassion can turn into resentment.
The challenge is to pace oneself ... teaching as marathon, not sprint.
Another opportunity appears in reclaiming music, art, and writing as bridges between intellect and empathy.
When students engage these media, they glimpse their own potential for disciplined creativity.
The threat lies in institutional disregard for such practices ... the pressure to substitute quantifiable compliance for qualitative growth.
IX. The Paradox of Peace
Peace, I have learned, is paradoxical.
It demands surrender without defeat … restraint without indifference … honesty without hostility.
In this race, peace is both the path and the prize.
To cross the finish line is not to outrun colleagues or students … it is to outlast cynicism.
It is to arrive at the end of the day with conscience intact.
Each conversation, each song, and each boundary set along the way becomes a stride toward that finish.
X. Closing Reflection
Today proved that exhaustion can illuminate what enthusiasm conceals.
Fatigue slowed me enough to see nuance … to differentiate between chaos and growth … between noise and note.
I realized that I am not racing against my students … nor even against the system.
I am racing toward alignment ... between purpose and peace … between truth and tenderness.
I will continue to run with those who listen, learn, and reflect.
I will continue to rest when the body signals its warning.
I will continue to write as the record of every stride.
Crossing the finish line is not about winning.
It is about finishing whole.
It is about carrying grace across the threshold … and leaving weariness behind.
It is about teaching as testimony … not as test.
Selah.
(The "Follow The Leader (changED - Volume 2)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
(The "changED (Volume 1)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
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I am a “standup storyteller.”
I fuse rap, spoken word (poetry), oration (traditional public speaking), singing, and teaching into messages of hope, healing, and change that I write, direct, and produce to help people who help people.
Everything must change - and stay changED.
Tradition begins and ends with change.
Change begins with me and the renewing of my mind ... then continues through efforts to effect small-group discipleship (equipping others to equip others) with audiences that respect and embrace mentoring, mediation, and problem solving as tools of change.
I am the product of my mentoring relationships, peacemaking (and peacekeeping), and problem-solving ability.
My education began when I finished school.
After school, I enrolled in a lifelong curriculum that includes classes in ministry, entrepreneurship, stewardship, literacy, numeracy, language, self-identity, self-expression, and analysis / synthesis.
My projects execute a ministry that has evolved from wisdom earned through lessons learned.
I want to share this wisdom to build teams of "triple threat" fellows - mentors, mediators, and problem solvers.
We will collaborate in simple, powerful ways that allow us to help people who help people.
I now know that power is work done efficiently (with wise and skillful use of resources, interests, communication, and expertise).
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