Writing is Easy
I do this thing, when I read: analyze the first of line of a story--hoping that it intrigues me enough to keep reading, hoping that it inspires me enough to recognize talented writing, hoping that it's worth my time; this thing, in writing now, I am becoming hyper aware of--attempting to reach you, the reader, and implore you to keep going, attempting to keep this one initial sentence long enough that it strings you along and intertwines you in the narrative and the storytelling before you even barely begin it, attempting to get you to wonder where it is all headed, attempting to convince you that what I have to say it worth reading at all in the first place.
But all that writing is easy; what needs to be written is not.
It's a little past five in the morning. I am sitting in my classroom the dark--LED lights fading in and out of different colors--in a corner I have deemed to be the place I sit to reflect, find comfort, and prepare for the day. Next to me is a cold brew with pumpkin cold foam because I have never once denied myself a pleasure. Gotta get that serotonin somehow. The air is crisp; the smell of the heater is coming through the vents; my classroom is as quiet as it will be all day.
I sit here and wonder about the day; about the students; about how I am going to keep up the act today; about when I will need to use--and have a chance to use--the bathroom; about how I am going to afford to go shopping for some personal necessities after school; about how I need to change a secret location through which I have been providing secret snacks to a student because somehow things keep getting stolen from it; about how one student has some "hard things" he wants to talk about, but will only tell me the "easy things;" about how the hardest working of kids on my debate have yet to find the success they deserve and feeling terrible I cannot adequately congratulate those that are; about how my to-do list is being expanded infinitely in my head as I sit here enjoying a hobby, a joy, a goal of my own.
And none of that list even begins to cover what will actually happen or what will actually matter today. That simple fact alone is what teaching feels like: preparing and preparing and preparing for something you don't even know is going to happen.
I was having a conversation with a student a couple of days ago--an exhausted conversation in between dozens of math problems he needed help with after a long day for the both of us:
"Have you ever had a student kill themselves?"
"My very first year of teaching."
"Oh."
...
"Did you know her?"
"Not as well as I feel like I should have; she was in my study hall at the end of the day."
"Do you think about that a lot?"
"There are certain songs I can't listen to anymore without thinking about it. There are certain things that come up that remind of that."
"How did you find out?"
"We got an email to meet in the principal's office after Parent-Teacher Conferences. I walked down with a coworker, and we were laughing about how we thought we were gonna get 'in trouble' for something. We were talking, laughing--kinda loudly--as we walked into the office. We opened the door to nothing but a room of silence. All I remember is seeing lots of people crying and being told the news. I left pretty quickly after sitting in the silence for a minute."
"Wow."
...
"How do you, like, deal with that?"
"Unfortunately, in teaching school, my professors had to prepare me for this. I had very good professors who told me how teaching was going to be. They warned that I would qualify for food stamps. They warned that I would be crying in my car over the pressure. They warned me that I have to be prepared in shootings. They warned me that I have to be ready to consul children who come from dark places, unsafe homes, situations I barely have any knowledge of. They worked very hard to prepare me for that, and, apparently, in my head, all I said was: 'Okay, great. Sign me up.' And here I am."
I tell this story for a myriad of reasons:
1). The goal I am trying to get across with all this is the fact that, sure, this is not an easy job, but you know that. Everyone knows that. If I get one more "Bless you" or a "wow, you're a great person for doing that," or some other naturally emphatic and positive thought after telling people I am a middle school teacher, I'll probably throw up. It's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment; it's just that, like, they don't get it. More on that later, probably.
Anyway.
The goal here? Showing how much of myself, my care, and my heart has to be available at each and every moment. Because every day I sit in this corner, and my heart aches from the thoughts and worries and care that echoes in my mind for the upcoming day.
2). Students will always surprise me. I wasn't planning on having that conversation in the middle of math homework, but it happened. It was mature, well-mannered, profound in some ways, and perfectly genuine. Teenagers get a bad rap. I always tell them that people are afraid of them; you can't tell me that you have never seen a group of teenagers in the store, on the street, at a park, at a whatever, and haven't actively worked to avoid them or give them a dirty look or turn the other way.
Teenagers are unpredictable, honest, blunt, and trying so hard to fit in and find themselves that the bounds for their actions are so largely undefined that they surprise even themselves. That's what makes people scared, turn the other way, avoid them at all costs, continually tell me that they "could never do what you do." Teenagers are scary.
And I have learned more from the students I teach than any other source of learning in my entire lifetime. Because you know what else--something that everyone who had been through it knows? B E I N G a teenager is scarier.
3). I like stories, and I need to tell them. And I want to write more of them down. And I want to share them to the world in a way that is accessible, meaningful, and entertaining.
As a kid, I used to sit in the car as my parents would drive around to various things--the grocery store, soccer games, school, across the country--and I would just wonder. I would wonder about the stories happening in the other cars driving by. Where are they going? How are they feeling? Are they sick? Are they happy? What's happened to them today? Who are they talking to on the phone? Where are they going? Why's that baby crying? How do they have the confidence to blast music that loudly with the windows open?
None of those stories, though, concerned me, really. As I have found a passion in teaching, stories concern me more than ever. In order to do my best job, the stories of my students are at the forefront of my mind each time I step in front of the classroom. How can I teach and get them to learn if I don't try to understand where they come from, if they ate that morning, or got yelled at by their parents for their clothes, or had a relative pass away, or switched to dad's house last night, or was pushed down the stairs by their siblings, or spent 1,000 dollars on shoes, or didn't get any sleep. All of those things make a difference in how they show up in a classroom.
I am no longer a new teacher--as weird as that feels to say--and I have had the delight, joy, pressure, anxiety, fear, worry, love of experiencing these stories first-hand.
I have been waiting for the perfect time and place to start telling them. Before I forget them. Because someone should. Because true and honest stories of real teachers and real students deserve to be heard, recognized, and valued.
So, here I am again: sitting in this dark corner of my classroom, working to prepare myself for telling these stories. Sure, I can write them; writing is easy. I worry, though, that I am not going to do these stories of this profession of these students justice; writing what needs to be written tends to be that way.
That's what this book is about: a teacher anxiously fighting to represent the thousands of lives I have been a part of since the beginning of my career.
