Once A Teacher

There is much that is wrong and bad in education.  It fills articles and podcasts, and quite frankly I don't really need to read any more of it.  That's why I don't take to social media to air my problems.  Actually there are several reasons I don't take to social media to air my problems, chief among them that I am an adult.

Yet we all have days when a thousand different cuts begin to threaten death and we need to reach out to someone, and there is no one better than a colleague to understand what you are going through.  You do need clear perspective, though, and complaining to a colleague in your school can prove counterproductive.  It can lead to a general session of whining that brings you both down, or worse, it can help spread ill will throughout the school.  This is bad and should be avoided at all costs.  If a building-level colleague can be a proper support for you, then lean on that person and offer the same in return, but if your conversation is merely to rehash old grievances, it does little good and more likely brings harm.

Enter colleagues from a distance.  Colleagues at another school, in another district, or in another state know what it is like to be a teacher.  They understand the core issues we all face, but not being involved in the particulars of your situation, they can provide some balance, some perspective.  This invaluable, and it is why networking is so vitally important.  I am deeply grateful for colleagues across the country and around the world.  Whether we talk frequently or infrequently, I know that they can listen and provide the kind of feedback I need to get up off the mat and back into the ring.  Hopefully I can offer the same to them.

And then there is a special circle that few get to enter, the circle of colleagues who were once your own teachers.  A few years ago I had emailed one of my former high school teachers who is still teaching Latin in another state.  Apparently my messages were grim enough to concern her, for as my family arrived at a restaurant on a Friday night, I felt my phone go off in my pocket.  It was from Marcene.  She wanted to talk, for she was worried about me.  She gave me some practical advice (have student helpers alphabetize your tests and quizzes so the grades are easy to input, saving you time), but most important was the love and care she showed.  She was worried about her former student, now a teacher, and wanted to call.

I am writing this post because it just happened again.  I had messaged Marcene yesterday with a few of the thousand cuts that were starting to bleed me dry.  This was even before the day stretched into a fifteen hour monster thanks to back-to-school night and I arrived home utterly exhausted and having sweated through every stitch of my clothing five times over.  This afternoon I was working on a letter of recommendation when my phone lit up.  Marcene was video calling me.  Once again, she was concerned for her former student.  Now, I have been teaching for more than twenty-five years, but that made no difference.  She was there to offer advice and to remind me of the higher calling that has nothing to do with foolish things like tests and evaluations and administrivia.  She did not use these words, but she was reminding me to mount up with wings as an eagle, to run and not be weary, to walk and not be faint.  She did this because she is a teacher and my friend.

Who plays that role in your life?  For whom do you play it?  Hamlet may have felt he could be the king of infinite space even when bounded in a nutshell, but the four walls of a classroom can become, well, just a tightly bound nutshell.  We need our colleagues if we are to run our race to completion.  I hope you have someone as special as my former teacher, now colleague, Marcene is for me.  If not, find that person, and be that person for someone else.