When I was seventeen, I told everyone what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I wanted to be a teacher.
Now, my seventeenth year as a teacher approaches.
As this year came to an end, I spent a lot of time reflecting my career decision made so long ago when I was an entirely different person.
This past year was probably the most difficult of my career. The world of education is changing, dramatically and rapidly. Gone are the days when the general public respected and admired teachers, as they've been replaced with sentiment that teachers are lazy and overpaid. Gone are the days when learning when was the most important thing happening in a classroom, as they've been replaced by endless standardized tests. This year, I saw education get ugly and I did not like it one bit. I saw how "the powers that be" have a hold on what is happening to education as I knew it.
And though they think they have a hold on everything, they really don't. They have yet to reach that special thing all teachers know about, and only teachers know about. That moment when the latch of your classroom door clicks, and it is you and your students and your subject and the magical moments of learning occur.
Okay, okay, maybe true magical moments only happen once in awhile and not every single day, but there is magic within the walls of a classroom. There are people learning, sharing, growing, changing, laughing, and being in there. There is happiness and joy and heartache and struggle and wonder in there. There is life in there.
I remember when I almost left that life for good.
My husband was arrested on a Thursday. I did not go back to school on Friday. Or Monday. Or Tuesday. In fact, I'd set my mind not to go back. At all.
By Friday, my husband's arrest was in the newspapers and broadcast on one local news channel. It was entirely humiliating.
I have always been a teacher who shares her personal life with her students. They knew my children's names and birthdays and funny stories about them. They knew my favorite colors and books and the high school I'd graduated from. They even knew some stories from my days in eighth grade. Sharing things about my life outside of school had always been my choice. I believed it showed the students that teachers were, for lack of a better explanation, real people. We weren't people who slept in their classroom and ate breakfast and dinner in the cafeteria. Sharing my life with them opened me up to them and in turn, often opened them up to me.
After the arrest, I stayed home for many days. During those days, I'd find myself looking at the clock and noting what period of the day it was at school. I'd think of what students were in my class at that moment and what they'd be doing and saying and learning. More often, I wondered what they were thinking.
I was in close contact with several good friends at school, but had been incredibly too frightened to ask what anyone... adult or pre-teen... was thinking concerning my personal life. It was most definitely shocking and something to talk about.
Without going into great detail, my husband's arrest left me pondering the entire teaching profession. His arrest took something sacred about teaching away from me. Teaching is an art about relationships and knowledge and the power of those two things coming together to, well, sometimes, move mountains. This art is one you work at every moment and you never want to let slip away. It also opened my personal life in the rawest way for everyone to dissect.
I did not think I could ever face a school again. You see, school had always been a safe place for me. I knew where I stood with the administration, other teachers, and most importantly, with the students. With my personal life in an upheaval, I assumed my school life was, too. Soon, several things would happen that would tell me exactly where I stood.
When you are absent from school, you still must make lesson plans and grade and keep the fine cogs of your classroom machine running. So, because of that, one early morning in the beginning of my absence, I found myself at the backdoor of my school. I met two of my friends and gave them some plans for my classroom. They pressed an envelope into my hands. Without opening it, or them saying anything, I knew what was inside. Near tears, I quickly hugged each friend and dashed to my car. I barely made it around the corner before I had to pull over. With tears streaming down my face, I lifted the card out the thick enevelope and read the kind, positive and thoughtful words from my teacher friends. They wrote encouraging, loving things. In my lap, over eight hundred dollars of their own personal money had fallen.
I knew where I now stood with the teachers.
Still contemplating my job and my life, I continued to stay home. One morning after dropping the kids off at the sitter, my cell phone rang. An unfamiliar number flashed on the caller ID. Puzzled and slightly leary, I answered. A familiar voice said hello.
It was my principal. My arms stiffened and I braced myself for what he might say. Similar to the soothing sound of a placid river, his voice began. He spoke slowly, steadily and firmly. He told me he'd heard I planned not to return to school. He told me I could not do that. Without judgement, he stated, "Sherri. Now, you need to come back here. You are going to hold your head high. You have done nothing wrong and we are your family. You need to do this for your children." He then told me he expected to see me back in my classroom in the next few days. Sobbing, I answered that, yes, I would come back. How could I not have answered him that way? He spoke to me like he would his own daughter. He filled me up with safety and warmth.
I knew where I now stood with the administration.
Several more days went by and I scrambled to put my tattered personal life into some kind of order. I was almost sure I was going to go back to school to be there for the last few days. By that point, I'd received emails and cards and phone calls from many teachers and staff letting me know it was "safe". But, I had absolutely no idea what the students were thinking or how they felt. I worried about making them uncomfortable and confused. I worried that the magic had been lost.
One evening, I talked to a friend who shared the same students as me. Towards the end of the conversation, she sighed and said, "So, a student said something to me today." She hesitated before speaking again and my heart filled with panic.
She went on to tell me this: one of my most naughty (and most favorite) students had come up to her at the end of class. As the other students scrambled out of her classroom, he shuffled his feet and with his head hung low, stood waiting to talk to her. She asked him what was up. With reservation, he said, "Um, I wanted to ask you something. Something about Ms. Hope." She tensed up a little, not really knowing what he might ask... nor how she might answer. She encouraged him to go ahead and ask.
Awkwardly stumbling over his words, he said, "Well, is all the stuff they're saying in the news and everything everyone is saying... is it true?" He lifted his eyes to meet hers as he waited for her answer.
She told him it was.
Then, he let out a huge, loud sigh and bluntly declared, "That. Is really. Fucked up."
Just like that. Plain as can be. It still makes me smile today.
You see, that is my students. They are honest and raw and funny and bold and kind and caring. They are alive and breathe such life into me every single day. This student's blunt account of what my personal life had become was the final straw in my decision to return to school.
And, I am so entirely grateful that I did.
This post is dedicated to every single one of my students. Each of you have touched my life. You keep me young and happy... even when I seem to have lost all patience with you. You make me laugh and think and you inspire me to keep learning. Thank you for keeping that magic inside my classroom and safe from anyone who might try to take it away. Most importantly, you make me very, very proud. May the light of knowledge never leave you.
