A Full Circle Moment

There are so many things I don't understand about this year. I find myself on a sort of emotional roller coaster, but it's a very different one from last school year.

A few weeks ago, I had a happy hour reunion with work wife. Together we walked down memory lane, and we both described a similar feeling--a longing for what was. None of this makes sense. I suppose one can romanticize the past because it's in the past. There is a distance. It takes no effort to remember the good and fun, but that's not the case when it comes to remembering the pain and the struggle. And maybe that's what we were looking for when remembering--closure with no effort--but when my work wife and I echoed the same statement simultaneously--"It was so wrong that it was right"--I paused.

Last year I pondered why I work in the environment I do. I questioned if I chose it because it so echoes my own circumstances growing up: chaotic, disorganized, passive/aggressive, and manipulative. Of course I could not have known all that was to come, but the choices we make aren't so accidental. My work wife comes from a similar background, and we both admitted to seeking out what is familiar. The children who attend our school, while a different race, are not so unlike us. We know their families without meeting them, and we know our kids' secrets without them telling us. Our schools operate like our dysfunctional families, and while we loathe them, we need them, but we still find a way to work around them. At the end of the day, we want ourselves and our kids to thrive, so we do all we can to make that happen. I think it takes a certain type of person to function in this environment, and I suppose that's why we feel this tug. I don't know if it's sick, or if it's normal, but I'm trying to embrace the fact that this year I'm not the victim--this is where I've chosen to be.

A big part of what's made this year so bearable is my kids. My AP class has become my pride and joy. They have a huge essay due on Monday, so several of them stayed this past week after school to work on it. Being surrounded by them--their thoughts, their curiosity, their spirit--felt like this is where I need to be. Watching them give some of my American Lit students--who stayed after school to retake a grammar exam--a speech on how they need to pick up their grades and take advantage of tutoring gave me this surge like what a mother must feel when she watches her child do something for the first time.

Yesterday Gabby and Hillary stayed after to work on their essays. Actually, Hillary stays late everyday. It's routine now that she comes to my class at the end of the day. Sometimes we read together, sometimes we work on an essay, sometimes she works on other homework, or sometimes she helps me grade. Her presence reminds me of my purpose. When I say a word like "dichotomy" or "periphery," she wants to know what it means and how to use it. She'll have me look at her essay ten times over because she's such a perfectionist and wants to get it right.  Hillary is so driven, so smart, so full of potential, and while I love those AP kids, Hillary has a special place in my heart. I want all my kids to get a 4 or 5 on the AP exam, but I especially want it for her. I think sometimes we, as teachers, encounter kids who remind us of ourselves, or remind us of who we wanted to be at that age. Sometimes we encounter kids with whom we click for whatever reason. Hillary is all of the above.

So yesterday, Gabby and Hillary stayed after school so they could get feedback on their essay, and my mind went right back to last year. Once again it was a Friday and everyone was gone but us, and once again we were working on essays. Last year, that was the moment I decided--though I didn't know it then--that I wanted to stay and that I wanted to teach them AP. I laughed to myself because the universe is so strange--that a simple thought could really manifest and become reality. I looked at my girls, and unlike last year, they really were working on their essays. They were so intense in their thoughts, trying to get the right word or phrase. They had matured in just a matter of months. Contrary to how I am these days, I stepped back and allowed myself to be in the moment. I said to them, quietly, "Remember last year, how you both asked me if I was coming back? Well, I didn't want to at the time, but you both made me change my mind. You two were the reason I wanted to teach AP. And you make me glad I changed my mind." Hillary was too focused on her essay to really hear. Gabby looked up, smiled, then said, "You should teach us next year too." Oh boy.

A Lonely Year

Time is getting away from me this year--more so than even last year, I think. AP has me on my toes at all times and chained to a desk with a grading pen. On the other hand, my American Lit classes have me contemplating if I know anything about teaching at all. Each day I stare at the blank, quiet faces and the contrasting peanut gallery, who apparently have never head the phrase "Shut up." I'm teaching my tail off in AP and chasing my tail in American Lit.

On top of juggling two academic worlds, this year is a lonely year for me. Whereas last year I'd decompress with my colleagues in our make-shift faculty lounge, or laugh it off with my work wife, I'm very much in my own world. It's me and the kids, and that's it. My school this year has a very different culture than my school last year. We were so broke in so many ways. I don't have to repeat the whole saga--you know the story. I think the conditions in which we lived each day is perhaps what helped grow the culture our school developed. We had nothing but each other. At times literally shoved into places way too cramped--and that's how we formed this closeness with each other and our kids. While so many things were so wrong last year, our culture was one thing that was really right.

The merger butchered that. I see it on the faces of the kids from my former school. They feel it too. It's a longing for this unidentified void to be filled. Because it's a feeling I've not really felt before, I'm not sure what to make of it or how to help my kids make sense of it. I suppose that's why I hold some of them close . . . more hugs this year, more talks, more wanting to be around them rather than being forced.

There's more to say on all this, but I'll leave it here for now.