It’s about that time to bid another farewell to another school year finished. Hands will be waved, bus horns will be honked, and shed of tears of some teachers and students will be quietly seen, but respectfully not spoken of.
To finish strong means we endure to the very end until they are off to summer break. You’ve done your part. You know and feel it more than anyone else could see it. Other colleagues exchange glances and nods from across the courtyard as the very last students board, drive, or walk off.
As teachers turn back to return to their classrooms, resuming finalization to close up for the school year, silence is embraced in what now is a quiet and solemn room.
You cultivated, sowed, and watered with as much sunshine to be found. Your heart, mind, body, and spirit all quietly take a deep breath and exhale. You are officially done for the year. Your own family awaits deservingly of your complete focus on them. You smile. You dare look back what you just finished and you know the summer break you’ve just stepped into to spend with your own family has been a very well-earned reward.
Teaching is easy until it’s not. Teach long enough within a community where children carry the sacrifices and challenges of their parents and guardians as those parents and guardians must face, endure, and do their best to handle the world’s burdens and impacts, easy could most likely have the short end of the stick. Sadly, the not so easy could come at you on the first day of school as if you were being initiated without preparation. That not so easy could last you the entire school year.
Being in the frontlines of education is hardly recognized if not thought to have some kind of valorous feat. For a teacher to dare think that teaching is comparable to nurses, doctors, and the soldiers training for or are fighting our frontlines to protect and serve is understandable with much respect.
School, I will say this with hopes of sending out a matter of fact statement, not argumentative, creates community order. From the early times of the day to the afternoons, school has created a safe-haven for our children.
Where else can a child be dropped off with the trust that not only will they be granted protection, but nourished in heart, mind, body, and spirit?
From the arts to the athletics, school is where children are given yearly promotion to grow not just physically, but mentally, socially, if not, spiritually.
My husband and I still speak of our days in school. From primary to post-graduate studies, our greatest times and memories of growth could easily be brought back to moments that occurred sometime and throughout our journeys in school.
While aware that our children would face challenges beyond our protection and control, we have put trust in our schools, understanding that greatest training in development could truly be only established within peer interactions within a school environment. Anything beyond our love and nurturance are left to their social and intellectual interactions outside what we are able to provide.
Becoming a teacher was at first an amateur and immature understanding of mine I could take days off whenever I wanted to so I could ease myself into holidays and summer break throughout a school year. And then, almost immediately, you grow up.
Upon looking at your own children you owe great leadership and modeling to and the eyes of each child in your classroom who depend on you to be there each day they enter, you wake up each school morning with this resilient strength looking back in the mirror to say, “If not me, then who?”
This craze that has long crept in you from the time your own children were born- looking into their eyes to all of a sudden understand greatest fear. You look into a child’s eyes and know that with all power in you, they would be given safety.
That greatest fear is fearing your determination to protect.
There is no verbal oath or solemn swear. A child is depending on you. That promise and sworn duty to serve that dependence is written in your heart.
You send your children off to school, modeling devotion to the time other parents and guardians have put their trust in you to care for theirs while yours are in the hands of someone whom you’ve entrusted to do the same.
You think in your earliest years, you plan lessons, you teach, they listen and learn, and then, you go back home to enjoy your own family. Some days, you find fortune in such smooth sailing. And then, you see that all those years you faced challenges in inner-city schools were training days for you to essentially face the very you other teachers may have been challenged or struggled with back when you were in the shoes of a student amongst all your peers giving them similar challenging obstacles.
I have arrived to admit several times now, “I used to think I was an amazing teacher. I now know I have just had amazing students.”
I should preface that it’s not as if I no longer have amazing students. Believe it or not, even the ones who have drained me of almost all that I possibly had just to make it through less than one hour with the student I still know are amazing. The difference is, some just haven’t found that amazing side of themselves yet. You are part of their transformation to get to that arrival. That tunnel is dark and heavy, but you hold this superpower to see a light illuminating in each of them.
Your own children have been amazing to you from the start, but with students, the toughness can be when you can’t do the same for them as you have for your own to pull the light out.
My own children have all they need to succeed. I strongly remind them they have no excuse but a responsibility to lead by example. My own children have been provided security and stability far more than what I could have imagined I needed and wanted for myself.
Other than incomparably loving my own children to an inexplicable level, I have come to notice I invest greatest energy into struggling students. I know deep inside it’s because I was that struggling child. This training to know such is not one that can be understood if all you see in a person is their present success. The road traveled- never seen. It is a silence even your own children you’ve protected and sheltered may never understand about you.
It were the teachers who planted and passed on the same energy to me who perhaps will have understood this like any teacher to understand today.
Mrs. Major got me a personal volunteer to help me read when she must have taken note I would raise my hand in 2nd grade to eagerly read aloud, but evidently struggled having just recently emigrated here.
In 6th grade, Mr. Skidmore chose me to receive the Citizenship award twice in one school year (where I got to leave school for ice cream-twice!) while ironically, I was almost regularly getting kicked out of science class by another teacher that same year.
Mr. Dwyer allowed my classmate, Christine, and I in another room so I could catch up in our advanced math class in 7th grade whenever I missed the bus and couldn’t get to school.
Mrs. Hundley, my Language Arts teacher that same year, helped me find my inner shine by taking me around with her small group she called Privileged Period to sing at retirement homes and even her church. I wore hand-me-downs and sewed my clothes. She stated for my heart to always embrace, “Honey, you could wear a potato sack and still be beautiful!” From Goodwill to Herve to my own makings, I do me to this day.
They all saw that light in me amidst my unwanted darkness. That light illuminating all through more challenges in high school, to my graduation speech, to my college university commencement, certified as a teacher- to pass on that same superpower to see within, something shining- they each saw in me.
That search to find not just light within each child, but most importantly, help each child discover within themselves they withhold such great possession is something else, however. Tiring can be only an understatement when a child tests your belief in them.
As the end of another well-earned school year approaches, you tell yourself, Only a few more days and I’ll officially be on summer break. Teachers must find a way to get this patience right or the last few days before school is out can be a grueling walk to the finish while summer break sadly may go too fast before another school year arrives.
When groups taught are homogenous, students not doing their class work or homework could be easily the talk of the day. For such teaching environments to grasp that is a norm for other schools such as ours would perhaps seem an exaggeration. Such exaggeration, in certain days, could merely be an understatement.
You’ll have those who humorously joke with you that teachers are always complaining about how hard they work, but get all these holidays and summers off. I laughingly recourse back and say it’s because we need all the time we can get to recuperate so we DO come back. By summer, it’s as if we get that unspoken message, “Take some time off. Get your mind to regather. You can start over with a new year when you return.”
Having new sets of students is what gets a teacher like me to be convinced what’s ahead will be easier than what was just done. New year. New beginning. New hope. A newly found excitement all over again.
This exhilaration is that much needed drive to get ready for yet another new year. You breathe in. You breathe out. Before you know it, you’re excited for the new sets of eyes that will be looking at you each day they walk in. You always positively visualize a great year. And, then, when you sense and come to realize that hope comes with thorns, you remind yourself to focus on the entire garden as you set yourself for another year to prune for betterment.
Day in. Day out. Till. Sow. Water. Repeat. Your position is strong in advance, hoping you are able to see oncoming storms while best prepared for the surprising ones.
Most of the time, like gazing upon your own children, the whole garden looks beautifully peaceful to look upon. You gather your tools to maintain the growth. You hum a peaceful song in your soul. All is well inside and out. Your heart, mind, body, and spirit are in joyous synchrony. The sun seems to be shining inside your room as you feel the beams of warmth ricocheting from all angles. Learning is fruitful. The sweetness is aromatic.
Then, that gray sky sometimes doesn’t even give time of warning. A storm can come uninvitingly crashing in. Scores of students coming in show many are not just one or two grade levels below, but several more. It’s Day 1 and children are already coming to classes late or not even present. Students quietly come in to find their seats until that one or two break the silence with loud voices as they struggle to join the rest. That sunshine just started to take cover behind incoming clouds.
Someone is having a bad day and your class just got picked as “it” to unload. The student comes in dragging, immensely tardy or if even on time, just given more time to let off some unwanted energy to have to carry alone. The student wants the rest of the world to share their heaviness. The problem is, no one is seemingly volunteering to take some of the load. The few that chime in with a chuckle, unfortunately, only encourage and heighten the unwanted disruption.
All of a sudden, you find yourself being challenged to teach a class simultaneously with an incorrigible student making a point to be heard and seen.
Incorrigible children are difficult to level with within every moment and time because every child is different. Every child has thus, crafted their very own way to have earned such merit.
At the biggest challenge level, such internally struggling child see themselves a victim of their own turmoils. You redirect, hoping to not have to reprimand. The student is unwilling to take in the cue. Disruptions to learning is the only choice the child sees fitting to the now, distracted and interrupted peers. The disruption has successfully drawn all eyes to the disruptive.
Just as soon as you arrive to the very challenge to point out what a student has done wrong, as this is the question uttered to suggest innocence, you simply understand you’ve been set up to get to that point. The center of attention has now been directed and given to the very child you were just hoping would settle in with the rest.
After a few more reminders and redirects, you find, for the sake of all other students who have already lost time to productively engage in learning, you quickly search within your heart a limited repertoire of next steps.
The child resists having to step out to talk. Calling home to a parent or guardian who most likely is at work and will thus, not answer, leads to mind this is not even a choice at the moment. So, you approach the matter with a forewarn of detention if the child were to decide to continue the disruption. Either the child eases down to your relief or to greatest unneeded drainage of time and energy, the child decides to continue, escalating to more unacceptable behavior.
You loathe to assign detention as a solution, hoping to instead build a relationship and understanding with the student, but you have run out of options. Detention is reluctantly given. Even then, your last resort concludes to a call to the office already handling other situations that must be made prior to yours.
All this time the student is loudly suggesting they have been targeted, having done nothing wrong. While you want to understand the child, the rest of your students wait. You are reminded that the rest of the students become your purpose for refocus. You breathe. You thank the rest of the students for their patience and teamwork to pursue and persevere and together, with the rest still with you, you manage to the bell.
Dismissal. Students step out. You take another silent breath, preparing for the next set to arrive at your door. You step out. You greet the next set. What just happened happened. Another take at learning resumes.
The confusion at the moment a student decides not just to act out, but be unwilling to reset and return to learning leads to drainage for an entire class. You manage. Everyone in the room must manage. It is that one out of the entire room, perhaps the entire day, however, that could strip you of any belief you have done well to serve the learning needs of your students. Your heart, mind, body, and spirit are in much need for recuperation, but you must shake off all that just happened for the next incoming set ready to have you uphold your role to teach and teach well.
You are spent, but luckily your next class come in with so much joy and eagerness to learn. They quickly ask you how your day is going so far as to hint they really want you to ask how theirs is so they can tell you. You breathe. You smile. You follow along with a, “Just fine. How was yours?” You listen. Somehow, you manage to have just let go. The ray of sunshine returns. You breathe. You smile. You thank your students for their greatness.
The more children you have come across, the more you see the vast array of mindsets that have to be addressed individually to create fairness. You truly envision a class to be filled with peaceful if not, joyful, students.
Any new teacher would be confused, perhaps asking themselves, “Did I miss something?” when a child refuses to simply sit down or quickly be redirected. Clearly the student was well aware of their disobedience or failure to cooperate. Yet, you are the one somehow to feel you’ve just picked on a child as soon as they question or object to your simple request.
We train to win amidst a challenge. It’s a damper to feel amidst a challenge, there is no winning situation. Assigning a child detention, calling home, or the office for a child to be removed only leaves this feeling of defeat. There is no win in surrendering to such resorts.
In middle school, you truthfully question yourself upon objection, “You’re kidding, right?” I mean, after several taps on the desk as a reminder to join in with the classroom learning or a quiet plea to have the student stop their disruption so the class could continue to learn, it would be at greatest wonder for any teacher who has never had to encounter such a moment as to why the student even deny their very own actions.
The simplest response would be, “I’m sorry” or “My bad” and class would resume following my praise of, “Thank you”. Teachers get life happens to all of us and thus, we all just need to be reminded at times.
You’ve taught long enough, you’ve been corrected having addressed the wrong child or student of a disruption.
You’ve taught long enough, you know the empowerment you give a child by being the better half of what could be an unwanted debate to be the one to say, “My bad” or “My apologies”.
You’ve taught long enough, you’ve simply apologized for the sake of peace, humbling yourself more than any of your students in total who have not for their own actions.
My greatest days are when I can accept my wrong and my students follow to do the same.
There are dictators and there are teachers. There are superheroes and there are those who are given solemn superpowers.
I guess it would be cool to fly around in a cape and be known as a superhero. However, as it’s been said in this era, Not all superheroes wear a cape.
I neither am a superhero nor do I wear a cape (unless you count Superhero Day during Spirit Week). I’ve just been given the superpower to see light in everyone.
I teach.
Now, give me my summer break so I can get ready for the next set of lights to dig out.
As I prepare to once again sign off, in the meanwhile, I shall leave with the infamous words of Arnold Schwarzenegger,
“I’ll be back.”
