A Year of Not Middle School

I left my classroom for maternity leave feeling tired. Not just 39-weeks-pregnant tired. It’s the most insane kind of multi-layered tired that teachers feel from time to time.

It’s a joyful tired; it’s hours of joking with middle school kids, spending your lunch playing Bananagrams with competitive sixth graders, designing lessons and activities that are creative and fun (even though you could have just gone with what you did last year), getting hugs from former students who say they miss you.

It’s also a physical tired; it’s being on your feet for hours, running to the copy machine for last minute copies only to discover that it’s out of order and you have to run to the copy machine upstairs, postponing a bathroom or water break to finish an email or rearrange desks, it’s shelving and re-shelving books in the classroom library simply because you can’t wait to hear, “Oh my gosh, that book was SO GOOD!” Staying up late at night thinking about a certain student or parent and researching ways to help.

It’s an intellectual/emotional tired; it’s trying multiple strategies to help move a student forward and having difficulty seeing results, it’s managing a class of middle schoolers whose particular group dynamics are arguably academically toxic no matter what you do, it’s trying a new activity in class on the day your administrator comes in for an evaluation. It’s being told your lesson “was a mess” and being given a new book to read. It’s coming home to get dinner on the table before heading out to soccer practice and losing patience at bedtime with your own children.

When I left for maternity leave, I was at a place that my intellectual/emotional tired was much more pronounced than my joyful tired. And to me, a teacher and parent who is mentally tired more than he/she is joyfully tired needs to take a step back and find joy in his/her teaching, his/her kids, and him/herself. With a tiny human joining my family, I saw what I eventually determined to be a necessary opportunity to refocus and reenergize. I owed it to my students, my family, and myself. I decided to take a year off.

So today is the first day of not middle school. I’m not in my classroom anxiously waiting for sixth graders to walk through my door. I won’t have name tags set out, and I won’t walk anyone to class. I won’t give high fives. I won’t be memorizing names. I won’t be looking around the corner for my now-seventh graders who are coming to say hi after a long summer. I won’t be calling any parents, telling them that their once-nervous new middle schooler had a fantastic day. I’m somewhere between an identity crisis and a slow realization that I’ve won the lottery (only this decision to stay home this year has been very expensive). I have this feeling that I’m at an important crossroads - I’m able to explore myself as a mother, as well as put some time into figuring out what my gifts are and how to use them meaningfully. Why is it that a year off from teaching is what it takes for me to really be able to do this?

In some ways, it feels like I’m standing on a cliff of “what ifs.” As a teacher, by nature, I plan things, and the next 180 days or so are largely...unplanned. So, what if I realize that staying home with my daughter is something I’m not “good” at? What if, despite my intentions to renew and rejuvenate, I actually feel more isolated and confused? What if I love teaching so much that I have trouble enjoying being away from it? What if I love being away from teaching so much that I don’t want to go back?

I guess I have to go with what my gut is currently telling me. This time right here...it’s a gift. I know a hundred teachers who love their job intensely, and yet crave time to nurture their creativity and personal talents. They wish their buckets were more full for their families. That’s me. So I’ll put my hands over my eyes, take a deep breath, and step over the ledge, trusting that the breeze will carry me to an unseen destination where I can take root in new soil. When I get my bearings, I think I’ll look pretty much the same, but with a new view. With any luck, I’ll see that the landscape is friendly, the air open, and the fruits ripe for the picking.

To My Daughter: Divorce Happens. Except When It Doesn't.

Dear Gracie,

One night not long ago at bedtime, you asked me, “Mommy, why do people get divorced?” I had a feeling that you were inspired to ask based on the many people in your life who have experienced divorce in some way. I also felt a tinge of anxiety in your voice. I think your brain was holding onto a follow-up question: “Will you and Daddy get divorced?” I wanted to answer you honestly and compassionately without inadvertently oversimplifying marriage and divorce. It was pretty hard to craft an answer that fit my aforementioned personal criteria in the weary last minutes of our bedtime routine. I said something to the effect of, “Sometimes people get divorced because they can’t be happy together. They try hard, but they can’t make it work for some reason.”  My explanation satisfied you. I knew I could do better.

I can’t sum up for you quickly why a marriage could end in divorce any more than I can sum up why a marriage could NOT end in divorce. To understand divorce, you’ll have to understand marriage. Understanding marriage fully pretty much requires you to participate in one, and participating in marriage does not make one a marriage expert. Suffice it to say that I am not a marriage expert. The only way I can think of to educate you on why divorce may or may not happen is to speak about my personal experience.  

When you start considering what marriage might be like, I’m betting you’ll start with the dress, which will quickly evolve to flowers, bridesmaids gowns, venues, cake. The wedding day is a pretty spectacular way to celebrate the vows you’ll make to your partner-to-be. On that day, the “I do” is signed, sealed, delivered. Champagne glasses clink. But there’s an asterisk at the end of the church bells and champagne that refers to a tiny, yet significant clause: *The undersigned do understand and agree to saying “I do” hundreds of times per day, in hundreds of different situations that don’t involve flowers and cake and string quartets of happiness. “I do” will be when no one is watching. “I do” will take place in your fat pants. “I do” will smell like a sippy cup of milk that disappeared in the house somewhere last week. It’ll sound like a drawn-out exhale just outside of the laundry room. It’ll taste like leftovers. Feel like crumb hitchhikers on the bottom of bare feet in the kitchen. “I do” is an unending series of choices. Yes, Gracie--marriage is a choice, and so is divorce.

When I was exactly your age, my parents called me into the living room of our two story house. My dad sat on the beige recliner and my mom lay on her side on the couch, shiny wet lines on her cheeks. Dad lifted me onto his lap and explained they were separating. I suppose it was partially my naivete, and partially shock and denial, but I began to cling to the idea of having two of everything like the main character in the book series I was reading. I remembered that chapter two of every book in the series featured the character sharing about her parents’ divorce--notably that she lived in two houses, had two pairs of roller skates, had a cool new stepdad, and a new stepsister who was running a bad ass babysitter’s club. Separation sounded okay to me, but I didn’t understand why my parents were doing this. It was easier for me to focus on twice as many presents at Christmas than it was to know that my parents at one time had promised to be a part of a family with me, and then had determined by their own choosing that they had to break it apart for reasons unknown to me. My parents actually chose to not choose each other. They chose not to choose us. I never saw it coming, and inside my soul, there’s a part of me that won’t fully recover.

My parents’ divorce didn’t stop me from choosing to marry Daddy, though. But to tell the truth, in the beginning of our marriage, I had the same question you’ve asked hiding inside me. Why do some people get divorced? Will it happen to me? I suffered real anxiety about my marriage to Daddy vanishing into thin air one day without warning. When I finally had the courage to confess this to him (multiple times), he wrapped me in a tight hug and told me that he loved me and that he’d never leave. Never. He repeated this to me as often as I needed it, until his words became part of my inner voice. Daddy reminded me that marriage is a choice, and he will always choose me. What’s silly about this is that he told me this in so many words on our wedding day. But I had to hear the “I do” every day for awhile to really allow his commitment to be my truth.

“I do” is our lifestyle. It’s our creed. And it’s not always easy. We choose “I do” by going to the grocery store and scrubbing the toilet. We choose “I do” by washing the dishes when we’d rather be watching TV. We choose “I do” by saying “I love you” every night before bed, even if we’re annoyed with each other. We choose “I do” by fighting fair and owning mistakes.

Except when we don’t. The reality is that every potential “I do” is accompanied by an equal and opposite potential “I don’t.” Sometimes Daddy and I choose the “I don’t.” We choose convenience over consistency, or selfishness over service. We choose egos over humility. Really, it’s the “I don’ts” that test the character of the marriage.

I’ll repeat that I’m not a marriage expert. I feel I am an expert in Daddy and me, though. We’ve made it to ten years of marriage because we pay attention to the “I don’ts.” We don’t pretend that our marriage is free of them. When “I don’ts” start piling up, we choose to repair rather than retreat. We choose to love each other despite the “I don’ts.” We make sure that all of our arrows are pointing to “I do” eventually. We refuse to give in to “I don’t.”

So why do people get divorced? They choose it. For their own reasons, they choose it, and sometimes they are happier for it. Sometimes not. Sometimes choosing to divorce is heavily influenced by a partner who chooses an emphatic “I don’t.”  I feel immensely blessed that I can sit next to you, look at your brown eyes, and tell you sincerely that I chose to marry a man who chooses me day in and day out. It’s a true gift that I can tell you with confidence that Daddy and I will always be together, that I can redesign the story that started in my two story house when I was eight. We can rest in the comfort of knowing that I’ll never have to tell you that our family is splitting apart. Daddy and I have chosen each other, we’ve chosen our family, and we’ve chosen to shape the future together into something of which we can’t quite conceive yet. I pray that when it comes time for you to consider marriage, that you do it prayerfully and take seriously your power to choose. Choose with conviction, and know that Daddy and I will be in support of you.

Love,

Mommy

The Sculpting of a Middle School Teacher

The last time I was at a school function, I was chatting with a board member. She remarked that she felt she had watched me grow so much as a teacher over the years since my second year when I had taught her son (in my record book, she was the first parent to really yell at me, and in her record book, I am the only teacher of the distinguished line of her children's teachers that she has ever yelled at.  Historical for both of us).  Anyway, the board member came back to me later and said she hoped she hadn't come off as condescending--that she really meant that she has enjoyed journeying through my career with me, and that my "growth" she was referring to was not in the, "Our baby has grown up before our very eyes" sort of way, but rather an appreciation of the careful sculpting of a teacher.

I didn't take offense at all.  Back then, I was one teacher.  But now, I'm twenty teachers.

I see myself really as a ball of clay that gets bigger and changes shape each year.  I started out as a small square of gray clay, fresh out of the package ten years ago.  I was smooth without a single fingerprint on my surface, but also flat and monochrome. Then gradually, I met other teachers, other unique shapes who had once been brand new, like me, but who had since been molded with other teacher clay, resulting in a whole medley of colors and shapes.  Some were soft and warm and marbled from years of working and kneading.  Others were lumpy with blotches of color stuck to the surface, not yet totally blended. Each teaching experience united me with other shapes and colors, twisting me in and making me new. I am never going back to flat and monochrome, because I am now twenty educational colors and textures.  I am twenty teachers.

Therefore, I'm going to make an indulgently long list of what I know so far in my career about how to win at middle school.  Often, best practice isn't written in a policy or professional development book somewhere. Every item on the list has been learned by taking pieces of some outstanding educators in my lifetime and carefully patting them into my skin.  I wear these teachers every day, continuing to let myself twist and fold and blend with them until they all seep in and embrace my students with me, or talk me off the ledge at the end of a hard day.  Enjoy, but more importantly, consider who else has seeped into your skin over time, rounding out your edges and changing your shape.


1. Strike these words from your vocabulary: balls, erect, sack.
2. Keep spare bars of deodorant in your desk drawer for those Spring days when the children reek.
3. Keep Kleenex for drying tears or for gently breaking it to the nose-pickers that people can see you doing that.
4. Have a plan of action to restore calm in case a kid farts loudly and a) everyone notices, b) you think it's funny, or c) a combo of a and b.
5. Appreciate when a classroom door has a mechanism that prevents dramatic slamming during a teenage tantrum.
6.  Become well-versed in planner/binder/locker organizational systems.
7a.  Become well-versed in Tiger Beat titans, XBox games, the latest "I'm a teenager fighting authority" trilogy, and those new songs that remind you of a mix between Color Me Badd and Jay-Z.
7b.  Listen to their stories with sharp focus and sincere interest.
8.  Be a friend.  "No one will even notice that zit, I promise!  It's miniscule!"
9.  Be a parental Life Coach.  "He won't always be this way, I promise!  You're doing a good job!"
10.  Fib when necessary to preserve self-confidence.  See numbers 8 and 9.
11.  Answer every question with patience as if no one asked it already.  One minute ago.
12. Know and accept that in your students' lives, friends are most important.  They need time to practice socializing and handling conflict safely.
13. Encourage play whenever possible.
14. Plant seeds knowing that some will sprout right away, and others will sprout two (or four, or ten) years from now.
15. Hold the bureaucracy at a distance.  Hold your students close. Sometimes a full-out hug is necessary.
16. Watch those Youtube videos your students recommend.  What's not funny about a ten-minute montage of cats licking lemons?
17. Ask them how their days are going.
18. Don't let them congregate at the drinking fountain.  Trouble ensues!
19.  Save their poetry.
20. Get to know their parents.  If you do nothing else, let them know how much you love their child.
21.  Look for the voices that aren't present, whether among students or parents, or whether in the texts our children read or the viewpoints they study.
22.  Don't assess everything.  We shouldn't physically be able to keep up with the writing, thinking, and discovering that our students do.
23.  Make mistakes, be open about them, and celebrate them with your students.  Be open to and celebrate their mistakes, too.
24.  Your sense of humor is the key to your survival in middle school. Even the most irritating situations with thirteen year olds are most likely hilarious to someone.
25. Pretend you have swag.  Then decorate your room accordingly.
26.  If you have pillows or cushions, wash the farts out occasionally.
27. Find embarrassing stuff from when you were in middle school/junior high, like old notebooks or diaries, or school pictures, or even recall stories, to share with your students. Try to make light of the most difficult period of their lives by showing how ridiculous you were (and yet obviously, you survived to be cool now).
28. Beware of creepy dads.
29.  Find a coworker to whom you can ugly-cry.
30.  Don't be afraid to derail your own lesson plans (or someone else's lesson plans) because you learned something exciting that you can't wait to share with students.
31.  Open up your space to students without fretting over supervision.
32.  Realize that your connection to your students and colleagues is divine. More than you know.
33.  Wear weird outfits. Costumes. Wigs.
34.  Work harder than your students.
35. Don't work so hard that you lose your connection to your other support system outside of school (in my case, my husband, children, and friends).
36.  Bake for your students if possible.  Or give them little inexpensive gifts, like notes.
37.  Clean your desk. Just in case you're absent the next day and someone has to look for some sort of lesson plans or class lists and ends up finding your yogurt spoon from last quarter.
38. Take your students outside.  Explore, climb, play, and cheer. Fight for opportunities to do so.
39. Find ways to make sure your students are questioning more than answering, investigating more than memorizing, and creating more than copying.
40. Instead of complaining about the way things are, listen, study, and change them.

What can you add?