Can you identify with this? I can.

They resisted the work, resisted me, and resisted the system that had them in such a foreign place. They resisted and behaved badly because they were afraid of failure, because they had so many other pressures placed on them, and because by behaving badly, they could gain a little respect from their peers by not appearing “stupid.” Yet we all knew what was going on…. we all knew about the resistance and the face-saving. The students and myself, we all knew. And we all knew that many times they just played me. They sometimes played me because they are in a system where everyone is played in some manner because someone has to win and someone loses. That’s just the way it is. They put on a face that allowed them to survive a difficult and foreign system and that face was one of belligerence and defiance. But I wore a face, too. My face was one of the educated, of the elite. They would never see themselves in my face because they couldn’t see through the mask. Look how we all lost.