Tomorrow the first four-year class graduates from my school. Four years ago, they walked in as freshmen, and I walked in as a brand-new teacher with NO idea what I was doing. Now they're receiving diplomas and setting off into the world as young men and women and I...well, some days I still have NO idea what I'm doing.
I was so scared the first time I stood in front of a class of students. I remember coming home in tears more days than not because of my horrific 4th period class that first semester. Seems now like weathering that should have prepared me for just about anything.
Quite a few of my kids from that year have fallen by the wayside--moved, dropped out, changed schools, gone to jail. But there are a few that have come through my classroom and into my life that never left it. I remember the second half of my first year, 4th period, two boys who had grown up best friends. No matter how bad my mood, those two could always make me laugh--usually by performing a nursery rhyme rap. One of those boys moved last year, but the other still comes by almost every day to give me a hug, just like he has every year since I had him in class as a freshman.
Another boy in the same class walked in as a scrawny kid who wanted to play football. I saw him the other day and barely recognized the young man he'd become--bigger and more athletic and much more confident than I remember him.
I followed that class from 9th to 10th grade the next year, kept some of the same students and got some new ones. That was my first honors class, and one of those girls is graduating valedictorian this year. Another from the same honors class is 3rd in her graduating class. I'm so proud of them!
I was so excited back then--I couldn't wait to set up my room, put up my posters, decorate my bulletin boards, sharpen pencils, assign textbooks and teach my kids. I knew back then that I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to matter. I was going to make a difference.
Then the first kids slumped into my room and threw their purses and backpacks on the floor, and I knew I was in trouble. Their faces couldn't have communicated more clearly--boredom, apathy, irritation, even outright hostility. Several of them could barely tell me their names in English. Most of them thought "Hey yo Miss" was the appropriate method of address for the teacher. One of them even found it amusing to throw a condom at me...which sent me to my principal's office in tears. It wasn't the first time my students had made me cry, and it certainly wasn't the last.
I like to think that I'm a little more in control now. Other than the 4 months I was out on maternity leave, I felt like this year was my best by far. I was much more confident and assured of myself and my knowledge than I've been in the past. But more than that, I've learned how to begin making a difference to my students, which I was so determined to do that first year, and at which I failed so miserably. I've also learned to let them begin making a difference to me. They often have just as much to teach me as I have to teach them.
I want to teach my kids to love language and literature like I do, but I'm realistic enough to know the odds of achieving that goal are pretty slim. Mostly I want nothing more than for them to be happy, safe, successful young men and women. I want to help them grow up, and help them remember that it's ok to still be a kid. I want them to be able to make mistakes and learn from them. I want everything for them that I would want for my own child, because they are my children.
It's not always about what comes out of the book. When that student comes into my room every day to say hi, or I hear my name across the courtyard from another of my former students, or one shows up in tears because he doesn't know who else to talk to--those are the things that matter. I get so frustrated with my job and my students, but it's because I want so much for them, and I have such high hopes for them--I love them. Even the kids that I want to smack--I'll go to the mat for them every time, and most of them know it.
So my babies--all grown up and ready to go out on their own--they aren't the only ones who have changed. If I could have seen myself then as I am now, I wouldn't have recognized me, just as I almost didn't recognize the young man that my skinny 9th grader had become. I've come a long way too.
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