Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with a former student with whom I have kept in touch since my foray into social media seven years ago. One of the great joys of being a teacher in the 21st century is seeing where your students go beyond graduation. You stay in a classroom, which is exciting and fun, but oh, the places they go...
Teachers want to be, as we say in the Twitterverse, #eduheroes. We want to make a difference, obviously, and we know we do. Sometimes. As a high school teacher, I understand the logic of adolescent psychology. Often, the gratitude that my students have for my work is recognized and expressed several years after they've been in my classroom. Motherhood has definitely helped me appreciate that gratitude comes in slow drips. I myself didn't experience total gratitude for my own parents' labors until well into my twenties and thirties (this might make me a brat, but at least I'm an honest brat!).
As I prepared to meet with my former student last week, I reflected on the year in which I taught him. At the risk of sounding like Sophia from The Golden Girls...
Picture it: a brownish gray, fluorescent lit high school classroom in northern New Jersey. September 1998. I'm scared, 23 years old, it's my first year teaching at a public school, and I'm barely one chapter ahead of my students. I'm hired to teach an 80% schedule, and those four classes feel like five. In some bizarre twist of fate, I am assigned four honors classes. (Administrators, if you are reading this, please make a note NEVER to do this to a rookie. It makes it really tough for the newbie to make new teacher friends when she gets assigned all the coveted classes. Please shuffle up the master schedule over the summer.)
Two months into my new teaching gig, my boyfriend of two years dumps me like yesterday's trash. The good news: I don't eat for weeks and manage to take some weight off. I throw myself into my new job and my masters thesis full throttle. Teaching consumes me. Writing consumes me. Anxiety consumes me.
I survive my first full year in public school and celebrate by completing post-masters credits in Oxford where I secretly hope to find a sandal-and-sock wearing academic named Nygil who will sweep me off my feet and propose with an originally composed sonnet on the grounds of Tintern Abbey. Instead I correspond by e-mail with the ex-but-soon-to-be-restored boyfriend. We end up reconciling.
I return to America, 15 pounds fatter but with a comprehensive knowledge of Chaucer and middle English, and with a flashy British haircut that's hard to maintain in America. I make many more huge mistakes. But the one place I can get things right is in my classroom. In my classroom, second chances abound.
I remember all of this now, and it's helpful. Because it's easy to say that earlier in my teaching career, I "sucked." That's the easy narrative, but it's not the truth.
The truth is that there are many areas of teaching that I was good at from day one.
The truth is that while Rome was not built in a day, I am not an ancient city. I am me. I was a good teacher, even when I was just starting out.
The truth is that teaching and writing and anxiety still consume me, but only to the extent to which I allow them to do so.
The truth is that after I became a mom, I sucked at some things for a while, as a mom and as a teacher. We all find our way, but for me it's easier to do so with my family as my compass.
The truth is that during many of the most heartbreaking and joyful times in my life, I have had the true north of a classroom. I've had young people who expect me to be a steward of their learning.
My former student shared a great question with me this week, one that he and his partner in a startup would ask each other with some frequency: "How can I impress you?" It's a valuable question to reflect upon as a new year begins. I wonder what my own bosses might say if I asked them this, or what my students might say. It's also a tough one to answer to oneself. I will try nonetheless...
Slow down.
Listen empathically.
Ask questions.
Be more decisive.
Take risks.
Get feedback.
Any of the actions above would be worthy of pursuit in this new year. I'm going to start with the first and see where it takes me.
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