What I Learned as a Teacher

Being a public educator can be challenging, heartbreaking and gratifying work. Here are some thoughts on how I learned to balance those realities, which I presented to my colleagues during the last week before my retirement.

I'd like to start by proudly introducing you to my daughters, Rachel and Maddie. These brilliant and beautiful women have grown up into their young adulthood right alongside my growing up into the work of education. They are the best thing I've done in my life (mostly by role modeling and stepping out of their way), and wanting to do right by them is part of what kept me going on those days when I looked around and wondered whose idea it was for an introvert to spend all her working days in a building of a thousand 12 and 13-year olds!

But, they aren't the only thing that kept me going. I'll get to that.

First, though, I just want to say I've spent a lot of time this last year thinking about all that's changed in the 32 years I've been here. The funny stuff that's changed really mostly has to do with technology.

Let me give you a couple examples:

• Back in the day, copies were done handwritten on a double piece of paper, one of which was completely covered in blue ink. Long story short, you had to lay the newly inked paper over a metal drum and turn the crank. One turn for every copy you needed.
• Movies were these little rolls of film negatives. You needed a filmstrip machine, and you had to thread the roll into the machine just right or the film started jumping around, and the white guy narrating about the ancient Aztecs got all hiccupy and started repeating himself.
• I haven't been in the classroom for a few years, but I'm pretty sure kids don't still hand write their gossipy drama on little pieces of paper, fold it over ten times and then toss it across the room when the teacher's back is turned to write on the chalkboard. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they don't do that. Or, at least if they do, they probably have to ask for a pencil first.
• First hour attendance was written out on paper, tacked to a clip on the door frame, picked up by hall monitors, delivered to a secretary who compiled all the information in time for the hall monitors to bring back to every teacher - by mid morning - their own paper copy of a complete list of every absent student in the building. Teachers would use this to take attendance for the rest of that day. 

I could go on, but I won't.

The thing is, attendance and gossipy kid drama, worksheets and a white guy narrating other people's history are all things that still happen. It just looks a little different on the surface. 

But, we're learning. And that brings me to the really substantial things that have changed over all this time.

When I was a new teacher here, only 5% of our school's population was students of color. I suppose the unfortunate truth is that we thought we didn't really have to notice what was missing from our curriculum or our view of the world until the way the world really looks started showing up on our doorstep.

Several years ago, when the 8th grade celebration was still called the "Presidential Awards Breakfast" and wasn't entirely inclusive, I was asked to give the address to the students and their families. One of the things I talked about was how much I love that our community invites us to interact with so much cultural, linguistic and racial difference. And, then I gave them a warning. I said:

"Some people out there would have you believe that the differences in our community cause us problems. I think they're wrong! If I don't understand why someone talks or dresses or sings or laughs the way they do, and I decide to sit with them and hear their story in order to find out what makes them who they are - I learn things that make me a more interesting and compassionate person. And, I believe that kindness and new ways of seeing the world create joy, not trouble."

A few minutes ago I referenced 'growing up' professionally, because another substantial change for me in the past 32 years has been my own growth and development.

I had been teaching Spanish for about 15 years when my principal invited me to be on the school equity team. That was another part of what has kept me invested in the challenging work of educating middle schoolers. She recognized in me a potential for leadership and a passion for social justice and offered me a way to stay engaged in the work from a different angle, as have the administrators who came after she left.

The opportunities I've had to change the way I do this work include facilitating professional development, helping to create a World Cultures course, and becoming one of the first members of a now fully functioning and excellent behavior team, and these have all broadened my view of what education looks like.

Classroom teachers, we have every good reason to keep our focus on the kids in front of us, and, with our few spare minutes, to make sure we get some protein and a chance to pee. A drawback to that reality is that we can easily lose sight of the partnership being offered by our administrators and support staff.

Admin and support staff, we have every good reason to keep encouraging classroom teachers to lift their focus from the paperwork and reflect on innovative practices and the sometimes stuck ways that their hearts play out in their interactions with the students who challenge them most. A complication of that view is that we can easily lose sight of the drain that 180 souls passing daily through their personal space can take on one teacher's spirit.

Moving out of the classroom enhanced my vision of the possibilities of our work. I began to feel a little like a liaison, but it took me a minute to stop swinging wildly back and forth between the two worlds of classrooms and office spaces and to find the sweet spot where I could steadily see both sides at once. Doing restorative work helped to cultivate that skill for me.

• I learned that truth is a complex reality called someone's story, and that we all have a truth that is very real to us.
• I learned exactly how hard it is for humans to see each other's truths, and if we can see it, to really, authentically honor it, especially when it appears to contradict our own.
• I learned that everyone's innate need to tell their story, down to the last detail, can be a vehicle for learning how to honor the complexity and contradiction of someone else's truth, and that listening will make us more interesting and compassionate people. This is especially important for children and youth.
• Maddie taught me, when she was 5 years old, that "because I'm older than you" is not a legit justification for anything. It's a cover-up for "be quiet" and creates isolation and loneliness. We have to listen to the children, or we forget what it's like to be them.
• I learned that if I share a wise thing I learned from Maddie, Rachel might be wondering what I learned from her.
• In community, everyone needs their turn to be noticed and uplifted.
• Rachel taught me that bypassing the teachable moment in favor of punishment lets people off the hook, because their anger over what is being imposed on them is an easy distraction from having to think about their actions. 

This year in SEED one of our themes was how to build authentic and reciprocal relationships across difference. We did some journaling on this during the last session, and I listed some things I want to continue to practice as I move into the next stage of my life's work. Here's what I wrote:

I want to keep practicing...

• humility in the face of the tension and complexity of equity work
• staying alert to my own potential to hurt others and my capacity to grow
• listening to the impact of my actions instead of focusing defensively on my intent
• resisting the inclination to "fix" things about people that don't need fixing
• continuing to correct behaviors that come from my biases
• noticing the enrichment that difference brings to life, and 
• living consciously in order to stay strong in the work

I'll end with gratitude, because I would not know how to do (or even that I need to do) any of these things without having worked among you for all this time. You have all been teachers to me along the way, role modeling compassion and humor and resilience and innovation and vulnerability and persistence and open-minded, open-hearted dedication to a thing that lots of people would never consider doing for all the money in the world. 

I mean, do all your hairdressers and house painters and dental hygienists also call you saints when you answer the inevitable question about what you "do" for a living? Because mine always have and still do say something along the lines of "oh my god, bless your heart" when I tell them I'm a middle school teacher. I usually brush it off, because it's not like I would rather be sticking my hands in someone's mouth to scrape the plaque off their teeth. I think SHE'S a saint, frankly!

Secretly, I do accept the compliment, though, because I know how tired it has often made me to endlessly repeat the most basic set of instructions for an assignment, or to count to 10 so I don't go off on the kid who just can't stop tapping a pencil on the desk, or to talk down the same set of students from the same name calling conflict that has been going on all trimester!

I also know how gratifying it can be when a parent thanks you for a positive call, because they never get those; or a student you thought hated you comes back to thank you for being their best teacher ever. Or, maybe they don't, but it doesn't matter, because middle school is seed planting business, and you know that somewhere in high schools and jobs and colleges out there, many young people are blossoming in part because you nurtured them in one of the tenderest times of their development! 4500 students or so later, I am proud to have been in this work. Kudos to me, and kudos to us!

But, it is someone else's turn now!

Thanks for the lessons and the memories!