Community

Some of my earliest memories involve me trying to connect to someone or something. I'd walk up to anyone and start talking because, simply put, I loved being around people and sharing experiences. I knew no strangers and I held no shame. This characteristic terrified my grandmother because she was convinced I'd be kidnapped, but my mother countered with, "Well, if she was, that person would bring her back because she'd talk his ear off." It was true. And if there wasn't anyone to talk to, I'd improvise. As a toddler, I talked to my Holly Hobby doll as I fell asleep at night, and as a child, I talked into a red Panasonic tape recorder, recording questions I'd later play back and answer. These examples and others earned me the nickname "Motormouth," but this would not last. Time and life experiences would eventually wear away at my gregariousness, making me much more introverted, but they would never remove my desire to connect. In fact, this need to connect is a primal need. In many ways I think that's why I started this blog. Even if I didn't feel a sense of camaraderie at my school, I could could feel it with my readers through relaying my stories.

It's not surprising that all the jobs I've held outside of teaching have involved me helping and serving people, nor is it surprising that teaching is the profession I finally chose. What is surprising is that it's a lonely job. Yes, I'm around people all day. No, I mean ALL day. My cup runneth over with people, and sometimes I don't mean that in a good way. I love that my kids ask questions, but I never thought I'd get sick of hearing my name. I'm happy they want my help, but sometimes I feel like a pack of wolves are dismembering me. I want my kids to take ownership in the classroom, but I don't want sixteen-year-olds telling me what I should do. And the whining. Oh the whining. There's just no positive spin on that. So yes, I'm around people all day, but it can be and is depleting at times. 

Last year I didn't really have a sense of community. It was just me and the kids, and if you read my blog last year, you know how that went. While there were many moments in AP when things went right, there were many, many, many moments when things went wrong with my American Lit class. In those times, I didn't really have a place to turn except to those good moments. Each day I felt myself becoming more and more introverted because I was so angry, so depressed, so bitter. Who would want to be around me? I think I could have had more of a community in some of the teachers, but I punished myself because I felt I didn't deserve it.

This year, I have a community. The new teachers don't know me, so I can be who I want to be. So I can have a second chance. Slowly at first, my guard dissipated. I answered their questions, tried to appease their fears. But their vulnerability became mine. I talked about who I was, and when the year started, I made a conscious decision to continue to talk about it rather than act on it. 

The first-year teachers don't know any different, so of course they're full of hope about what this year can be. I have hope about the teachers they are becoming. Wanting to be a good role model, I am trying to be a better teacher for them. But their hope has become my hope. Now I just want to be a better teacher. 

This community I've found is soul-enhancing. We have lunch with each other every day, even if that lunch is just ten minutes. Some days we grade together, brining our stacks of papers to one room. We have happy hour together. We come to one another for help or advice. We hug each other. We laugh together. We cry together. We carpool together. Each interaction repairs an old wound or prevents a new one from developing. 

They are my adult tape recorder, sharing and allowing me to connect, and my adult Holly Hobby, listening and being present.  

A Second Act?

In-between my first post in August and now, a lot has happened. I guess you could say some of these events were fate, destiny, kismet. Maybe, maybe not, but the point is that these events have changed my outlook.

The first event is reuniting with a professional organization I've distanced myself from quite a bit over the past three years. I suppose I felt like I didn't deserve to be around these inspiring educators because I had strayed so far from their mission. I wasn't implementing the curriculum or walking the walk, so to speak. My anger had become this wall that protected me but inadvertently kept the good out too. I didn't want to be cheered up, I didn't want to be told everything was going to be okay--I just wanted to be left alone. Spending a weekend with many of these individuals, however, I felt my shell start to crack, and the love, the acceptance, and the call to action found a way in. In the same way ivy grips onto concrete and breaks through, something forced its way into me.

The second event is more like a fact, and this fact has shifted everything. Our teaching staff has changed considerably. Some teachers left the state, some left the school, others transferred to a different school in our charter, and that leaves the face of our campus entirely different. Many of the new teachers are just that--new teachers. Having so many first-year teachers brings a source of energy that is refreshing and contagious. I suppose I've forgotten what it's like to be fresh out of college and so sure that I can change the world. While I now see that as naive, I also see it as necessary. If everyone is jaded, nothing will ever change.

These teachers are amazing, sweet, and inspired. It feels so good to tell them they did a good job when they handled a difficult situation well, or responded to a student in a positive way, or that it's going to be okay and they just have to trust themselves.

Like Holden from The Catcher in the Rye, I find myself wanting to keep these new teachers innocent. I don't want them to see and feel some of the things I've seen and felt. I wished, as a first-year teacher, that I could have had a mentor or someone to look to for advice. I certainly don't see myself as the sage teacher on campus, but I've certainly experienced a lot for someone entering her seventh year in the classroom.

Three have already cried in front of me. There's sort of a miracle in that. I guess the miracle is how raw they are. For so long the feelings I've associated with teaching are anger or numbness. To see their emotion, to feel their energy is empowering and has pulled me out of the slumber I've been in for the past three years.

Almost two years ago, I blogged about the teacher I will never be again. I still believe that's true--I can never go back to that person--but now I can see my profession through someone else's eyes, and that's refreshing. What strikes me so is that I've been complaining about feeling so unsupported and alone, and now I find so much meaning in giving others support. In a strange way, I feel like the support I'm giving comes back to me in a sense--a feeling that we're thinking and feeling the same thing, that we're all in this together. We may cry for different reasons, but we cry because it hurts--and it does to be so vulnerable--but at least we're vulnerable together.

I feel reborn, like I'm entering my second act.