YOURS

I like to write poetry from time to time.  There are no rules, no limits, no reason to give all the details. It packs a punch. It allows white space and things unsaid to be loud, loud, loud! So anyway, I write it when my gut tells me that too many words will kill my idea. Ironically, I'm about to launch into a small introduction before sharing my poem.

I wrote this poem at the end of last year--probably my hardest year of teaching to date.  Teaching felt thankless, like I was continually whipping up the meringue and it still remained slimy and flat.  I wanted to see the results of my work.  I needed to know that what I was doing was impacting my students.  Even just one student!  Every teacher struggles with this, by the way.  Any teacher who denies it is still a miracle-worker, but a liar. The reality is, though, that we don't get to see the benefits of our work, even within one school year.  Our work builds on the work of others--mom and dad, other teachers, society at large.  Skills learned in our classes weave with other classes.  Social/emotional/physical development impedes or enhances our efforts. It's a cocktail of factors that sometimes manifest into something beautiful before your eyes, or not for three more years. And it's always the hardest kids that take a few more years to bloom.

So, it occurred to me one afternoon after I felt like I spent more class time correcting behaviors than inspiring educational enlightenment: I was a pain, too, in seventh grade. How did my teachers do it and remain sane? In fact, my favorite teacher seemed to handle me with grace and care. I am betting that by the end of the year, she wondered which students she had really impacted. I wonder if she knows that here I am, seventeen years later, a rather normal human being who thinks of her fondly? Even more so, I have thought of her often when managing my classroom. I wrote this poem initially with that tough kid in mind, the one that I was waiting to see bloom before my eyes.  But strangely, it also evolved into an ode to a teacher who influences me still today.  

I sent it to her with more powerful results than expected.  Turns out, teaching has its victims whether you're seven years in or twenty five. She said the timing was impeccable, which I'm gradually learning is the case with teaching.

YOURS

You know how you’re explaining an activity

and that one kid

is kind of talking to that other kid

and you ignore him for a second

and then the talking continues

and you look sideways at him real menacing-like

and he doesn’t notice

and then you “Ahem” the heck out of him

and then he still doesn’t notice

and at this point the rest of the class

finds his ignorance hilarious

and so you have to walk right up to his desk

 and practically slap him with the words,

“Pay attention!”

and then your only reward is

these half-annoyed-half-amused

eyes that say, “What?”

indignant that you interrupted his conversation,

and then you give him the ol’ verbal one-two,

“Listen up or you’ll have to complete the activity at lunch”

and he’s like, “What activity?” 

And then all the other kids in the class

swell up like wet sponges with delight

in the power you just gave that kid

when you were trying to assert yours? 

You know?

Well,

Yesterday, I sat down after class

Instead of calling the parent of the aforementioned child

asking her to join me on my quest for a life preserver

during her child’s class,

Instead of doing that,

I wrote a letter to my seventh grade teacher. 

It started like this:

Dear Sweet and So Under-Appreciated Savior of the World. 

You are a god.  

I have to ask you,

teacher to teacher:

was your journey teaching us sometimes

like walking barefoot on a bed of coals you ignited yourself? 

On some days,

with painstaking effort,

you’d set our hearts aglow and

would nurture us until

we were brilliant and orange. 

On those days, did it feel like

you could walk across, as if the laws of physics couldn’t touch you?

Did it feel like we were all untouchable? 

But then on other days,

no matter what you did,

did your little bed of coals become weak and fading?

On those days, did the walk burn your feet? 

Did I burn your feet? 

Because I want you to know

to this day,

you are my favorite teacher,

despite the fact that you had to teach

quite possibly

the worst version of me I can think of. 

Wouldn’t you know,

I don’t actually remember a lick of content

that you taught me,

but I remember that being in your classroom

felt like home.  

You looked us in the face like we deserved your attention. 

You enjoyed us. 

I don’t remember a nanosecond of your struggle—

just that you were a human being

whom I might like to resemble some day. 

And now I do what I do

because of you.   

But you know those days

when that one kid forgot his pencil for the 45th time this semester

and that other kid made an awful choice to hurt another child

and that other kid is reaching for the stars

but his circumstances are pulling on his shoulders like a 50 lb weight

and America wants to know when kids will do better on their tests? 

I know those days. 

They burn. 

So do you think,

maybe,

on those days when I’m jumping across the coals,

do you think my students won’t notice

my singed toes or the beads of sweat dotting my forehead?

Please advise.  

I sign the letter,

YOURS

in all capitals

because I understand now

that to a teacher, her students are always hers. 

I always was hers,

just like they are always mine,

and I can’t think for one second

that that fabulous seventh grade teacher

isn’t still walking with me in the flames. 

I’m going to tell that kid

When we drive each other crazy,

I’m going to tell him this:

You and me,

we’re walking together through these flames,

Don’t you think for one second

That you’re not mine.

In the flames,

above the flames,

we are the flames. 

 When I’m in front of the class

Or behind my desk

Demanding your attention

Or giving you mine,

Every minute since August

Until seventeen years from now

When you’re sitting around

And think of your seventh grade teacher

In a fleeting moment,

Ahem

Pay attention:

For you, on my heart

Glows this word:

YOURS

On Boogers and Being Loved Anyway

I went against what felt natural this morning. We were reading a book and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gracie absentmindedly stick her finger in her nose. I paused to give her my standard response in this type of situation ("Gracie, don't pick your nose/touch your booty/sneeze without covering your mouth and nose, etc. It's yucky and it spreads germs"), but I didn't get it out before she deposited whatever was previously housed in her nostril into her innocent little mouth. I am not naive; I have seen her do this once before, but know that she does this probably especially when there's no mother around to nag her about it.  "Gracie," I said, sort of lingering on the "cie" part for emphasis, "do not put that booger in your mouth! Where is the best place to put it?" She grinned and reached over the back of the couch.  "No!" I responded, half of my mind retreating to other parts of the house that probably had been determined to be great booger resting spots at one time or another. "In a tissue, and then in the trash can," I stated with authority.  By this time she was already playing with her stuffed pony, just as unaffected as she's been every other time I've told her to stop picking her nose. Thinking I needed to motivate her to stop doing what every human on earth does when they think no one is looking, I said, "Gracie, if you keep picking your nose and putting your boogers in your mouth..."  What?  What is the consequence that is big enough to override the convenience factor of both unclogging and disposal without having to leave the room? "...other kids won't be nice to you."

It felt unnatural to say it.  Unnatural because I spend every day teaching my kids to be kind, be forgiving, and stand up for themselves if something is unjust. I try to avoid teaching them that they should act in a certain way purely to keep mean people from being mean. I recognize that matters of hygiene are a bit different; it's not like we should skip the showers just to ruffle feathers. It just felt strange to admit to my daughter that people are judgmental, and judgment is painful, not to mention it can have larger consequences.

Take for instance the time in PE when I was ten. Presidential fitness test: sit ups. The boy alphabetically behind me sat on my feet as I huffed and puffed my slightly pudgy upper body from the floor to my knees. Fiiiive *huff* Siiiiix *puff* Seeevveeennn *FART* Yes. I puffed a loud toot right out on my eighth rep, or thereabouts. Thank you Dwight D. Eisenhower for starting a physical fitness test of elementary students that took place after lunch and required maximum effort--the perfect conditions for gaseous explosions under the watch of Coach Beekman and his stop watch. Anyway, the boy sitting on my feet first guffawed, then sneered loudly, "Unn! She just farted!  OOoohhh!  That smells! (Cough cough) Daaang!" It got worse. Since the boy was stuck sitting on my feet, and I was stuck at the mercy of the stop watch that wouldn't rescue me with its beep of relief, the air bubbles in my stomach continued to find their own relief with every contraction of my tummy. Niiine *PFFFT!* Teennn *Rrrrip!* Eleeeevvveeen *RAT-A-TAT--* Tweeeelve *TAT!* With every flarp, fpbtbt, and bzrbzzt, my cheeks got pinker, and my betrayer perched on my Keds got even more exaggerated in his repulsion. By the time I was back at my desk in my classroom, I imagined that everyone was mentally labeling me a freak, never mind that every single one of them, including the kid who had the closest encounter with my taco salad, had farted earlier that day, just more quietly and without anyone sitting in the danger zone.  I just couldn't stop thinking about the Gross Kid--the kid who received the brunt of our immature cruelty on a daily basis at our school. He farted loudly all the time in class; had done so every year since kindergarten, and he never lived down the claim that he had to take gas pills, the very idea of which was hilarious to us when we were bored. I didn't want to be that kid. Being the Gross Kid follows you for a long time. Just ask my girlfriends which kid used to pick his nose and eat his boogers at their school in kindergarten.  They can tell you at age 30. No kid wants to be the Gross Kid, and no mother wants that for her kid either.

Unfortunately, being a teacher, I not only carry around my own personal experience with the judgment of classmates, but I see it every day at my job which probably exacerbates my fear that my children might be targeted by their classmates some day. There are always kids that are more prone to being judged cruelly than others. Trust me, my classroom has seen (or smelled) its fair share of escaped farts from all types of bodies, from all types of cultures and backgrounds. But the kids who are less physically attractive, or less athletic, or dressed poorly, or have a certain disregard for social codes (that continually evolve throughout school, might I add) are more likely to be shunned for their gastrointestinal enthusiasm, or for snagging the errant booger from a nostril during reading time, or for accidentally bumping into someone in the hallway, or just speaking up in class...As humans, we develop very specific social codes in our cultures. They bring us comfort and structure.  As kids grow and develop, so do their social codes; in kindergarten, it's "don't eat glue" and "don't pee your pants." In fourth grade, it's those things and "don't fart too loud in PE." In seventh grade, it's those things and "wear the right clothes" and "don't enjoy school too much." On and on and on, and we figure it out as we go along. Eventually as adults, we have a certain amount of comfort in our own skin, so we don't cling so desperately to all social codes. However, kids take comfort in knowing the rules and exercising their ability to call someone on it if he/she doesn't conform. Kids pass judgment quickly so that judgment can't be passed on them, and there's very little adult intervention that can keep this from happening. We can only counsel kids through it, and promote an environment of acceptance. That's the truth.

So, Gracie sits on the couch immersed in our story.  She does some nasal housekeeping, and I cringe--not even because of the hygiene thing, but really, it's about whether or not it's time for me to teach her about cultural social codes, and the consequences of not following them, regardless of how beautiful she is, finger-in-nostril and all. I want her to know that she is not defined by our cultural standards, and yet she's confined by them whether she likes it or not, and whether I like acknowledging it or not. Still, for now, I think I'll keep other people's judgment out of our house and keep telling her that boogers belong in a tissue and not on the couch and that her whole self--boogers and all--belongs to our family, no matter where her fingers have been.