Hope Drove Me to School - Conclusion

Here is the last part of the essay from the previous post.

I always know, intellectually, that I’ll survive. I've managed to overcome a lot of terrible things in my life, and I know that I can handle whatever comes my way. I’ve been in situations where I have told myself again and again that I just need to be patient because it will get better. I have told myself to have hope. But, to feel that? To sense in my body, in every fiber of who I am, that I will be OK? I felt empowered and liberated. I stopped feeling frustrated with myself, and just let myself go. I gave up control, and I found hope.

Was I magically cured of these feelings of loss and uncertainty? Absolutely not. They were still very real and very present, but I figured out that was OK. In a day or two, or more maybe, it would get better. It would be more than better because somehow, among this fear of loss, I had gained something powerful.

During my drive to school, I acknowledged that I don't do things half way. Nothing in my life gets less than 100% of my attention and effort. That's who I am, who I've always been, and who I'll always be. Most of the time, this particular quality serves me very well. Emotionally, though, it can take its toll.

It’s easy, and appreciated, to be a person who invariably follows through. It's exhausting to be a person who goes all way with her emotions. For me, being a good teacher means that I have to give all of myself all of the time. For 180 days every year, I let myself fall in love with my job. I work to teach my students about literature and writing, but I try just as hard to teach them about relationships and people, to teach them about life. Teaching them about life means letting myself care in ways that can hurt. It means building relationships with them that can get lost in the end.

When a student in my class deals with death, I don’t just cry for him; I cry with him. When a student succeeds, I don’t say, “congratulations”; I celebrate with her. I open myself up to my students in every way I can, and that makes me a better teacher. It makes me a better person. Letting my students see that I’m a human, and engaging with them in meaningful ways requires me to let myself get attached, even though it might hurt in the end. But, when a student runs up to me at the movies in the middle of July to say hello, or throws her arms around me on the last day of school to say “thank you,” I know it’s worth it.

This ending didn’t feel different than any other I’ve faced. It isn’t different than endings I will face in the future. Endings are sad, and then we move on. And, in the car I realized that my job is perfect for a person who has difficulty with endings.

Every year I get to fall in love with my job and my students all over again. I say goodbye in June, and I mourn that ending every year, thinking that I will never find the same sense of connection; thinking I will never have a class I love that much again. Then, at some point, usually in the late fall, I get that back. I share experiences with students that are different than before, but just as special and just as gratifying and just as important.

I'm not going to say that I'll never feel hopeless again, because I will. There are certain types of pain that take away the epiphany I had in the car because you can't quantify them. However, that old cliché, "this, too, shall pass" became absolutely clear to me in the car that morning.

It brought me hope.

With every chapter we finish, or window or door we close, we hope that the next to open will be provide something brighter. We hope there will be more. We hope it will make us better, make us happier, make us stronger. As teachers, when we close the door of our classrooms in June, we hope for a better class the next year, or that our budgets don’t get cut. The best teachers hope that we are making a difference.

Part of life is recognizing that our desires, expectations, and goals might be unrealistic. Maybe hope is deciding to embrace those expectations anyway. And, if we’re very lucky, maybe hope will carry us through the summer until September, when we walk into class and see a new group of anxious, endearing faces.

Hope Drove Me to School - Part 1

As I drove home from the gym tonight, I began thinking about this blog. I tried to remember when the last time I posted was, but couldn't. So, once home, I checked. I fail - big time. It's been over two weeks since I posted, and the last post was nothing but a link.

I've been super busy lately, and so I haven't had time to come up with a new post at all. As such, I've decided to share a little something I wrote this past summer. I took a class, for my master's degree, call the Northeast Writing Institute (NeWI). Basically, for one whole week, I got to work on my own writing. I chose a piece, and worked on it tirelessly, getting feedback from classmates and instructors (one of whom was my favorite teacher in high school). I got pretty frustrated over the course of that week, but it paid off hugely. In the end, I was left with an essay of which I'm proud. It says a lot, I think, about me as a person and as a teacher. So, here is the first part of said essay (the rest shall follow shortly) ....
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Hope Drove Me to School

Endings aren’t always happily ever after. They’re not always sad, either. They’re change. When something ends, we adjust. We move on. We modify our lives to fill in the hole that’s left behind with something different or new or better.

The spring, a time of renewal and beginnings for most, is a time of endings for teachers. We close our classrooms, pack away the supplies, and reflect on the year we have just finished. In late August, we start all over again ready to present fresh, improved lessons and ideas to our shiny, new students. We don’t know what will succeed, what will fail, or what will leave us feeling completely lost. We take chances, and amidst all of the tumult and uncertainty, one thing remains constant. Hope.

Every year, the end of school is especially hard for me. Many people don’t understand that. Some teachers count the days to school’s end along with their students, and people who are not educators often joke that we teach just for the vacations. At the end of the year, though, I have to say goodbye to the students I’ve grown to love, and to the communities built with them, and it’s hard.

When I pulled away from the Old Town High School parking lot, having just finished my third year teaching English, as usual, I was in tears. I could feel everything changing, and although I expected it, I was somehow surprised at how helpless it made me feel. I sat in my car, glad it knew where to go, not wanting the year to be over. So many wonderful things came out of the year, and I was afraid this closing would end them completely.

My dear friend, and our literacy intern, would no longer be at Old Town High School three days a week. Our verbal banter, and the feeling of comfort his presence brings, would be gone. The sense of support and the reminder of the summer institute where we met would be gone as well. I would no longer be able to walk into the literacy office and see him there, or joke with him, or trade teaching ideas with him. My biggest fear, though, was the fear that I would lose the potential that this relationship offered.

The writing center I had worked so hard to open was now closed for the summer. The supplies were all tucked away, the bulletin board cleared of any notices. None of the fabulous student-tutors were sitting behind tables ready to help. This place of activity and enthusiasm was now dull and vacant.

None of the students to whom I had grown so attached would be mine anymore. They would move on in September to new teachers and new classes filled with new and different students. I could no longer call them “my kids,” and despite, or perhaps because of that reality gnawing at my insides, I was forced to move forward.

Perhaps my biggest anxiety as I drove away from my second year at Old Town High School was the loss of connection with new and wonderful colleagues, and friends. Would I see them enough to maintain these new, developing friendships? Would next year be the same? Would we have things to talk about now that our classes, classrooms, and students were changing? Would they all even be back in September? These questions circled my thoughts, and leaked out of my eyes. They were all I could think of that night, and into the next day.

When I left school, crying, I felt frustrated with myself. I knew intellectually that most of my fears were completely unfounded; that they may be emotionally legitimate, but that in all actuality many of them would never transpire. Emotionally, though, I was terrified that these fears would be realized, and it made my stomach turn in on itself. I felt helpless and alone and desperate to feel secure again. I felt lost, and like a child. I needed, and I wanted, someone to comfort me.

The truth, though, is that I’m a 26-year-old woman. I don’t have a Mom at home to hug me and brush the hair from my eyes. I don’t have a Dad there to take me by the hand and lead me through the hurt as unscathed as possible. I have me, and in these moments I needed to be enough. There was no one to understand what I was feeling because it was personal, specific to me and who I am; it was a hurt all my own, and one that I needed to work through myself. This reality made my drive home even more tough, more lonely, and more disorienting.

I slept with these fears, wanting them to dissipate, knowing they would be right there with the alarm. I got ready for a day of curriculum work slowly, thinking about my fears. I dried my hair, got dressed, fed my dog, ate my breakfast, and began the drive to school all while replaying, over and over again, the sorrowful endings creating a jagged hole in my chest.

I had felt incredibly bad the night before and that morning. Songs I usually belted along with brought me to tears. Then, on a straight, flat stretch of Interstate 95, my foot on the gas pedal, and Next to Normal blaring through my car speakers, I realized something that I've never given much thought. Without thinking, I said to myself, "It’ll be better in a day or two." Those eight words actually made my eyes pop and I shook my head. Eight little words brought me hope.

In that moment, I gave myself permission to feel bad for a while, to cry even, because I knew, and I felt, that I would feel better. I thought of other times in my life when I’ve felt desperate or helpless or inconsolable. I thought of the day my mother died, of the betrayal of my best friends. I remembered all of the other goodbyes I had said, and I knew. I knew I had made it through those experiences, and that I would make it through this one too.

Show and Tell

I wanted to share this. It was sent to me by our school's literacy coach, and my dear friend. It's pretty powerful stuff.