Depending on your personal belief system there are a lot of ways to take this introduction. I’m just going to describe what happened and let you decide what to think:
I was at my desk correcting spelling tests one late winter afternoon this year while my students were out at recess. I came across one test littered with mistakes that were too indicative of the kind of work all of us in 5th grade had come to expect from that particular student, the sort of spelling test that has made a million teachers roll their eyes a million times throughout educational history. An existential shudder ran through me as I thought about the numerous challenges that student would face upon entering middle school and how woefully unprepared he would be to face them. My first reaction was to think, “God help that kid” and shake my head as I flipped to the next test in the pile. But for whatever reason, I instead added one mental comma into that thought and reframed it as “God, help that kid.” And in the following half-moment, quicker than I honestly think I would have had time to come up with it myself, a thought of response came to me: “That’s why I gave him you.”
With that I sat up a little straighter and thought, “Oh. Okay then. No pressure there.”
From that moment I began making a concerted effort to resist giving in to the several frustrations related to working with that kid, and consciously going out of my way to provide him with the patience and support he deserved. For whatever moments of disconnect from his work he showed or whatever lack of organization fed into the excuses he dreamed up, I made it my personal mission to keep him accountable for his learning and make sure he felt as happy, comfortable, and safe as he possibly could while at school. The sad thing is I had to force myself to put aside my frustrations to do what should have been automatic for me to be doing all along.
As I look back over the the time I’ve spent teaching, it’s too easy to think of the times I’ve failed: the moments I’ve lost my temper, the shortfalls that have led me to spend an entire weekend second guessing myself, things that have come out of my mouth I wish I could have taken back the moment they were said, the times I’ve selfishly cut corners on something just because it was easier or more convenient for me. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. I can think of many times over the years I’ve had to talk some of my colleagues back from the ledge when they’ve felt like they had redefined the word “mistake.” I think it’s easy for teachers to be too critical of ourselves because the stakes of what we do are so high and there is such a slight margin of error. Over my two decades of teaching I’ve seen or heard too many stories about former students that left me deflated and depressed: Addictions. Homelessness. Deportation. Suicides. Pregnancies. Abuse. Any variety of personal turbulence or educational crisis that I would never wish on anyone. When these stories get back to me I always wind up asking myself the same questions: Did I do enough? Could I have been that one person they needed to make the difference, but I side-stepped the responsibility when it was in right front of me? Did I give them the support they needed to be successful, or did I push them hard enough to ensure they would learn, or did I lazy my way through?
Logically I know I can’t own all of this myself, and for me to wonder if I could have been the one to make the ultimate difference in someone’s life takes a special kind of arrogance. I know that when considering the entire scope of all the lives that have passed through my classroom I’m just a small chapter in a school career or a life story, or one thread in the tapestry, or another brick in the wall. I know that no matter how critical things can seem in the moment and how often they truly are, there are just as many if not more times when all I’m able to do is plant the seeds and hope someday they’ll take root.
So much of elementary school is about the maybes. I feel it almost tangibly in 5th grade. In most cases when I send the kids home on that last day of school, I’m never going to see them again and I’m never going to know how their lives turn out. I can only hope that the time I spent with them made some difference. Maybe the boy who is so disenfranchised with school might listen to some things I say just because I can speak the language of video games as fluently as he can. Maybe the girl who writes notes to herself about what a failure she is will feel a bond to me if it turns out I’m the only person in her life that tells her she’s important and I’m proud of her. Maybe the kid who winds up in a different school after anger and depression overtake common sense will remember the running joke we had during spelling. And maybe any of the tiny connections like these will open up the window of opportunity I need to just give them the idea that they can be successful, or they are worthwhile, or they’re able to achieve more greatness than they themselves yet realize. All we can do as teachers is plant those seeds and hope that something will someday come of them. To try and to hope and to blindly trust is a lot to take on, but it’s really all we can do.
As a teacher you rarely know down the road if what you did made any difference. You hope it does. You still do it anyway just because it might. You keep throwing things at the wall with faith that sooner or later you’ll find something that sticks. You don’t know if that kid is going to remember you or anything you did beyond the moment, but maybe they will remember something you taught them. Maybe they will carry your thumbprint on the direction they follow as they move forward, without even realizing where their motivations came from. Maybe me biting my tongue and quietly releasing the all too frequent deep breath will eventually come together as something that influences that kid who needs extra encouragement just to get the day started. I’ll probably never know. And that’s just something I have to accept.
But you know, there are also lucky instances when sometimes I do get to see when the seeds took root and grew. Just today I found an envelope in my mailbox in the office. Inside was a photo card invitation from a girl about to graduate from high school who had been one of my students a lifetime ago and was inviting me to her open house in a couple of weeks. I smiled when I opened it, marveled at how much she still looks like her younger sister, and read her short message on the back: “I cannot believe it’s been seven years since I would cry almost every day of school from laughing so hard! Thank you!”
It’s nice to be reminded that sometimes the seeds you plant do take root. And even though there are always going to be times when you don’t meet your own expectations, there are also the times when you manage to get things right. I guess in the end that's what keeps us going.
