Education, etc.

I should have been at your wedding…

When I started my teaching career, I never dreamed of caring for my students beyond the year they were in my classroom.  I loved my content.  I wanted to teach students to love science and I cared very little about loving the child.  I got into teaching through an alternative route having never had student teaching or any education classes.  I was a chemistry major, a science nerd, and I wanted to guide others to love science.

It did not take very long into my first year to learn that I would love my students whether I intended to or not.  I would lay awake at night because I would want to make the content real and relevant for them.  I would go to games, concerts, competitions and more.  I poured myself into my students in an attempt to teach them better.  I quickly learned as I learned them more to teach them better, I loved them more therefore I did teach them better.

I celebrated their gains, their wins, their growth, their maturity and their accomplishments with them.  And I mourned their losses with them.  I sat in the emergency room until early in the morning to be with kids as they waited to see if a friend/classmate would survive the night.   I have had numerous students return back to me after I taught them to show me their progress reports, report cards, acceptance letters into college, their military uniforms fresh out of basic training and even their teeny tiny babies.

A little after 10 years in the classroom I started to realize that I would eventually attend the wedding of a former student.  I had those kinds of relationships with my students.  When they call me from college for help with a homework problem, it is not a far stretch to assume a wedding invitation will come in the mail one day.

But before that day could come, I received the worst phone call of my life.  While driving home from an evening with family, I got a call to let me know that we had lost one of my former students.  Not only would this be the first time I had had to walk through territory I was fully unprepared for, she was a student that I was very close to.  I had taught her for 3 years.  We had laughed and cried, I had attended senior night, I wrote letters of recommendation, I was excited to see her move on with her life past high school.  But that was not meant to be.  Instead, I attended a visitation that I could do nothing more than stand in the parking lot.  I could not go in the chapel.  I was not ready.  I sat in a large church sanctuary with classmates, peers, loved ones and friends.  I hugged children who needed a shoulder.  I left with tears on my shirt, some mine, some those of students I taught.  There might have even been some snot, I did not really investigate.  We said our goodbyes, but even so, over a year later, I am not done grieving.  I am not done wishing I could have done more, wondering if it would have made a difference.

I have tried to move forward in my teaching career.  I have tried to tell myself that I am making a difference, that I have done all that I could do, I was starting to exhale.  It had been a year, a year and 10 days…

And then I got a text message.  We had lost another one.  This time it was a fun loving, full of life goof ball with a crooked smile and messy hair.  This time it was the athlete who played all out but drove like a grandpa on a Sunday afternoon sightseeing tour of the countryside.  This time was different, this time I felt robbed.  I told a fellow teacher and friend that I could not do this again.  But it was not about me.  There was a family grieving their son who needed to be paid respects, needed to be loved on.  There were children who needed to see that I still cared and my shoulder was once again available.  We shared tears and questions of why.  We are still asking why.  I attended the visitation and the large church sanctuary funeral along with hundreds of people.  Again, we said our goodbyes, but I still grieve.

I did not become a teacher to go to funerals.  I love my students, all of them, even those that are, at times, a little unlovable.  As for these two, I should have been going to their weddings one day instead of going to their funerals. I will take with me what they have taught me: to challenge the unacceptable, to embrace life and live it fully, to love with a whole heart, to show kindness to others, and to remember that we never know the burden someone else is shouldering.  I will soldier on in the classroom, daily, and continue to make a difference in the lives of those lucky (or unlucky) enough to land on my roster just like so many other teachers.  Because teaching is not just about content.  Teaching is also about relationships.

In loving memory or Madyson Thompson, Levi Knop, Bryan Addams, Ty’Kireya Crimley, and Tyla Joseph.

*There have been others over the years, some I taught for a year, some I taught for 2. But having taught the first two, for 3 years each, and having been woefully unprepared to face the death of a student, I do not know that I will ever be as naive as I was when I first entered the classroom, when I thought all my students ever needed well delivered content. I now realize what they needed more was encouragement, support, and a little tough love.