DAY TWENTY-SIX - 26 November 2012
I hated high school. Hated the students, the environment, the rules, the work. I spent four very long years being terribly miserable as a given, occasionally happy, and often-times oblivious. There were a handful of teachers who provided me with lifelines, a handful of friends who weren't dragging me to hell, and a handful of family who forgave me enough to see past my self-imposed angst and to see instead who I was and what I could be.
One evening, in some long-ago manhandled journal, I tore into the page of the night with my pen, underlining, underscoring how one day I would be the adult working with kids like me- kids who didn't want to be worked with. I promised myself then and there that I would never forget what it was like to be the only quiet in the noisy sea of the hallway, what it was like to be the last seat at the cafeteria table and unfortunately surrounded by pom poms and big, feathered hair. I swore that I would some day give to some teenager that which no one seemed to be able to give to me; although at the time I was unsure of what that was, I am fairly certain now I know- rules, structure, motivation, and some room to be what I could be, not what I should be.
By no means am I sitting here patting myself on the back for what I do. I know I have erred in my classroom, sometimes more dramatically than others. I know there are students who have forgotten me, who have hated me, who have tried to hurt me, and who have threatened my very being. I also know that there are some for whom I was that adult they could trust, to whom I have been able to give what I never received, by whom I have been regarded as more of a mother than a teacher, with whom I have worked for hours to help them reach their highest goals, about whom I have cried when I realized that there was only so much I can do and, for a few, that just wasn't enough.
I don't love going to work, I don't love that alarm or the hours, and I sure don't love the paperwork, bureaucratic red tape, and political games that are played once I leave my classroom and head to the faculty lounge.
I do love, however, that I get to be a part of what is, for some of my students, the path of success today and in the future. Today I watched a student write a paper so carefully, so intelligently, that any outsider would look at him and at what he wrote and wonder how and why he was in my class at my school and not in an AP class at a traditional campus instead. His work is insightful, thought-provoking, and written on a level beyond that which I usually see in my freshman class. This is him today. Two years ago he barely wrote a word, said a word, read a word. He refused to put in any effort, make any gains, and, for all intent and purpose, presented himself as a complete and utter dunce.
I get to see this change, something that not the rest of the world doesn't always get to see. I get to smile inwardly as this student - the same one who would put his head down and sleep for days and then bitch about the fact that I woke him up - this student now questions what he reads, reads beyond the words, and asks for more so that he can truly understand. He is one of many who, over the years, I have had the good fortune to see embrace young adulthood and turn around for the better. He is one of the many who make my job worth the politics and bullsh*t, because the knowledge that he and the others like him will be okay is more than enough. I don't know if I have necessarily accomplished what those adamant pen-strokes intended back in the day, but I am glad to at least be able to say I am trying.
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