By now I've unashamedly accepted the stunted trajectory of my teaching career. It will inevitably be for the best, I'm optimistically assuming.
However, this knowledge has enhanced each moment with the knuckleheads, whether it's one that boils my blood or does quite the opposite. You see, my time as a teacher abruptly went from the indeterminacy of another year to the inescapably finite three months left. This has, more than anything, brought me pause in moments that would have otherwise brought me nothing but the moment.
Because I know I only have a handful of weeks of these moments left, each one bears more significance than ever. Each detail is treasured rather than discarded. Each bombarding emotion is explored rather than effused or suppressed.
With luck, an effect of this mindset is that these memories will be singed to my psyche. This, in turn, may allow me to share them with you more effectively.
Let me try.
Thursdays are notoriously nasty days. However, last Thursday started out fine, perhaps even slightly better than most days. But the vibe swiftly deteriorated, as it so often does, as the hours plowed onward.
My second-to-last class was bad, but my last one was fraught with all the dire and deleterious energy of Hell itself.
Before my class even started, a strong feeling of foreboding permeated my being as students ambled about in the hallway.
And then to make matters incredibly worse, hoards of irritated bodies came rushing toward me–it was a great wall of children fleeing from something, bumping past anyone in their path, and behind them our security guard pursued, wailing on his whistle, his eyes wide as great white orbs.
Fuck, I thought. Word on the street is that the cause of the commotion was a group of students from upstairs, from the eighth-grade floor, who had come down to watch and record a particularly troubled youth be initiated into a gang by pummeling one of my students. Luckily the boy wasn't successful, but the uproar they caused was contagious, bleeding into the moods of the students in my class, and as I shut my door, my eyes alighted on pockets of melodramatic cliques discussing the details of the hallway's action.
I made my first initiative to get every child into the correct assigned seat. I started with C., a student whom I knew I could prevail against even in these harshest of conditions. I told him to find his seat, and he responded in my favor, albeit reluctantly.
As he moved toward his seat at the front of the room, he exuded every semblance of rationality and order. But then something snapped; he became enraged, smashing his Gatorade bottle onto the table and vigorously kicking the chair he was supposed to sit in. He turned, blood aflame, and started walking toward the door. I stood transfixed, unable to calculate how such a student could do such a thing.
Then, midway to the door, C. abruptly stopped and snatched a chair. As if his previous actions hadn't shocked me enough, what he did next paralyzed me. He slung the chair up, as you would a sack of potatoes, and then let its momentum continue over his head and toward the students that were sitting in front of him, innocently, expectantly, unable to move.
And I became immutable, watching the scene as if in a dream. I may have muttered something, but I couldn't hear what I said over the fear of the impending pain coming to one of my students. Until that point, I had never experienced such a violating surge of fear.
Fortunately, he released the chair very late in his motion, and it careened across the floor, grazing a student's leg but not causing serious injury.
This is what a negative atmosphere can do to an otherwise kind and genuine kid.
...
A day after that incident, my students were taking a vocab quiz. With a few minutes before lunch, a focused calm befell the room. The first fifteen minutes of the quiz had been marred by the whispered conversations of disregard that are so difficult to stymy. But then the Calm, as if opening my classroom door and isolating each student with thin but effective veils of determination, pervaded.
I was at the front, surveying, and it took me a moment to recognize what was happening: each student, united in the task yet inordinately independent as they adhered to my rule of silence. All of them, quiet; all writing. Even L., a tireless insubordinate, was fully engaged in my quiz.
As the calm continued, and I cherished it, two twin sisters locked eyes. I watched as they communicated, wordlessly, as only siblings can.
J, sitting at the back of the room, widened her eyes ever so slightly, perhaps to say she was struggling. J-2, from the front of the room, twirled a horizontal index finger, making small circles in the air, motioning to her sister to continue, to not give up. J smiled at the encouragement. Then J-2 gave her a thumbs-up. It was beautiful.
...
S., a student who I was most concerned about during my first evaluation way back in October, used to harangue me with words like these, "You're not even a good teacher. This is probably your first year. Why are you even here?" Those words, I admit, got to me.
S. was a student who refused to write even her name on my worksheets. She was, in all honesty, one of my least favorite students, and one who I thought I had little hope of ever convincing not to hate me.
S. tried out for the basketball team. She was one of those fringe players teetering on the edge of being cut and making the team. I, in my selfish wisdom, cut most of the players I didn't teach and kept most of the students I did teach, hoping to build rapport with those who were in my classroom. And that's exactly what happened with S.
Six months ago, S. would cuss me out if I redirected her. Today, she obliges without comment. Six months ago, she wouldn't spare me a glance outside the classroom. Today, she smiles at me across the cafeteria as she puts away her tray. She smiles at me, the knowing, closed-mouth kind of smile that is borne of familiarity.
I hadn't really thought much about her transformation before I wrote this, but come to think of it, S. is two different people in my mind, the one who loathed me and the one who loves me.
Teaching is difficult to describe; when I'm doing it, I hate it. But afterward, when I write about it, it becomes difficult to hate. For example, right now I'm trying in vain to write a conclusion that expresses that hate–the fact that I despise having my emotions seared and stretched and hammered on, day after day, with no remorse or pause for recovery. Such a feeling is consuming, and it feels debilitating when it's happening, but yet here I am, with a story that started negative and uncontrollably morphed into positive.
But I do know that time gone by adds prestige to memory, so while I think I'll miss teaching when it's gone, I won't let nostalgia trick me into loving it. Because for every S. there are four chairs thrown into unassuming students (figuratively speaking).
However, this knowledge has enhanced each moment with the knuckleheads, whether it's one that boils my blood or does quite the opposite. You see, my time as a teacher abruptly went from the indeterminacy of another year to the inescapably finite three months left. This has, more than anything, brought me pause in moments that would have otherwise brought me nothing but the moment.
Because I know I only have a handful of weeks of these moments left, each one bears more significance than ever. Each detail is treasured rather than discarded. Each bombarding emotion is explored rather than effused or suppressed.
With luck, an effect of this mindset is that these memories will be singed to my psyche. This, in turn, may allow me to share them with you more effectively.
Let me try.
Thursdays are notoriously nasty days. However, last Thursday started out fine, perhaps even slightly better than most days. But the vibe swiftly deteriorated, as it so often does, as the hours plowed onward.
My second-to-last class was bad, but my last one was fraught with all the dire and deleterious energy of Hell itself.
Before my class even started, a strong feeling of foreboding permeated my being as students ambled about in the hallway.
And then to make matters incredibly worse, hoards of irritated bodies came rushing toward me–it was a great wall of children fleeing from something, bumping past anyone in their path, and behind them our security guard pursued, wailing on his whistle, his eyes wide as great white orbs.
Fuck, I thought. Word on the street is that the cause of the commotion was a group of students from upstairs, from the eighth-grade floor, who had come down to watch and record a particularly troubled youth be initiated into a gang by pummeling one of my students. Luckily the boy wasn't successful, but the uproar they caused was contagious, bleeding into the moods of the students in my class, and as I shut my door, my eyes alighted on pockets of melodramatic cliques discussing the details of the hallway's action.
I made my first initiative to get every child into the correct assigned seat. I started with C., a student whom I knew I could prevail against even in these harshest of conditions. I told him to find his seat, and he responded in my favor, albeit reluctantly.
As he moved toward his seat at the front of the room, he exuded every semblance of rationality and order. But then something snapped; he became enraged, smashing his Gatorade bottle onto the table and vigorously kicking the chair he was supposed to sit in. He turned, blood aflame, and started walking toward the door. I stood transfixed, unable to calculate how such a student could do such a thing.
Then, midway to the door, C. abruptly stopped and snatched a chair. As if his previous actions hadn't shocked me enough, what he did next paralyzed me. He slung the chair up, as you would a sack of potatoes, and then let its momentum continue over his head and toward the students that were sitting in front of him, innocently, expectantly, unable to move.
And I became immutable, watching the scene as if in a dream. I may have muttered something, but I couldn't hear what I said over the fear of the impending pain coming to one of my students. Until that point, I had never experienced such a violating surge of fear.
Fortunately, he released the chair very late in his motion, and it careened across the floor, grazing a student's leg but not causing serious injury.
This is what a negative atmosphere can do to an otherwise kind and genuine kid.
...
A day after that incident, my students were taking a vocab quiz. With a few minutes before lunch, a focused calm befell the room. The first fifteen minutes of the quiz had been marred by the whispered conversations of disregard that are so difficult to stymy. But then the Calm, as if opening my classroom door and isolating each student with thin but effective veils of determination, pervaded.
I was at the front, surveying, and it took me a moment to recognize what was happening: each student, united in the task yet inordinately independent as they adhered to my rule of silence. All of them, quiet; all writing. Even L., a tireless insubordinate, was fully engaged in my quiz.
As the calm continued, and I cherished it, two twin sisters locked eyes. I watched as they communicated, wordlessly, as only siblings can.
J, sitting at the back of the room, widened her eyes ever so slightly, perhaps to say she was struggling. J-2, from the front of the room, twirled a horizontal index finger, making small circles in the air, motioning to her sister to continue, to not give up. J smiled at the encouragement. Then J-2 gave her a thumbs-up. It was beautiful.
...
S., a student who I was most concerned about during my first evaluation way back in October, used to harangue me with words like these, "You're not even a good teacher. This is probably your first year. Why are you even here?" Those words, I admit, got to me.
S. was a student who refused to write even her name on my worksheets. She was, in all honesty, one of my least favorite students, and one who I thought I had little hope of ever convincing not to hate me.
S. tried out for the basketball team. She was one of those fringe players teetering on the edge of being cut and making the team. I, in my selfish wisdom, cut most of the players I didn't teach and kept most of the students I did teach, hoping to build rapport with those who were in my classroom. And that's exactly what happened with S.
Six months ago, S. would cuss me out if I redirected her. Today, she obliges without comment. Six months ago, she wouldn't spare me a glance outside the classroom. Today, she smiles at me across the cafeteria as she puts away her tray. She smiles at me, the knowing, closed-mouth kind of smile that is borne of familiarity.
I hadn't really thought much about her transformation before I wrote this, but come to think of it, S. is two different people in my mind, the one who loathed me and the one who loves me.
Teaching is difficult to describe; when I'm doing it, I hate it. But afterward, when I write about it, it becomes difficult to hate. For example, right now I'm trying in vain to write a conclusion that expresses that hate–the fact that I despise having my emotions seared and stretched and hammered on, day after day, with no remorse or pause for recovery. Such a feeling is consuming, and it feels debilitating when it's happening, but yet here I am, with a story that started negative and uncontrollably morphed into positive.
But I do know that time gone by adds prestige to memory, so while I think I'll miss teaching when it's gone, I won't let nostalgia trick me into loving it. Because for every S. there are four chairs thrown into unassuming students (figuratively speaking).