As I sit here over my morning coffee, I am mourning the end of my summer break. School starts on Monday the 12th for me. My classroom is almost done being set up so I can welcome a whole new set of students. Eleven and 12 year olds will stream through the hallways with shiny new shoes, a new backpack and will stop traffic as they stop in the hallway to hug old friends.
When I say I am mourning the end of summer, ask any teacher and they can explain the feeling to you. It's not that we don’t love our job (at least most of us), but teaching is emotionally draining. We become attached to our students and their trauma becomes our trauma for the next nine months.
Every teacher may as well be a first year teacher no matter how many school years you have used your license. When I say that, I mean it is the first year you will have the new students. There will be new expectations and a new load to carry. Something most people don’t understand is that the minute the kids walk through your classroom door they are yours. Most teachers don't say 'my students” when talking about our classes, we say “my kids.” These kids are not just my kids for the one year. They are my kids forever. You go to graduations, weddings, baptisms and you get hugs almost every time you walk into Walmart. I have lots of kids and they are spread all over the world, two of them live right here in Oklahoma.
I got my teaching license in 1993, do the math on that one. I have had classes with 50 kids and classes with 12 kids. I have taught kids who speak English, Spanish, German and Cantonese, Navajo, Tewa and Hopi. I have taught at a school where we had kids who are Navajo, Pueblo and Mexican. I taught in one school that my own children were the only white kids in the building. Those kids I taught were actually my teachers. I learned new cultures, new legends, new everything. Each year is a whole new year. Just like Forest Gump, school is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
My first year in a new school and a new town taught me a lot. I had a student named Jimmy. Jimmy was that cute kid who could not stop moving and talking. I really loved that kid, but one day he annoyed me to the limit. I told Jimmy that if he didn’t straighten up I was going to call his mom. To this day I can remember how he looked at me when I said that. With his hands on his hips he raised his head to look straight into my soul and said, “Well you better call her between three and five on Wednesdays because that’s the only time she is allowed to get phone calls!” Jimmy’s mom was in the New Mexico Prison for Women. That one statement changed my whole perspective on life. What you see, or who you see is not always what you get.
Jimmy was in my class when my youngest child was born. I would sneak Alexandra into my class when she was sick. All of us teachers who had kids did it. We would make a bed on the floor under our desks and hide them just in case the principal came into our room. Jimmy would crawl under the desk and take care of Allie. Even when she had chicken pox. She became his sister that year. His reason to come to school, just in case she was there.
Against all odds Jimmy broke the mold of his broken family. He graduated and went on to auto mechanic school and he became very successful. Throughout high school he would come see me at the middle school during his lunch. He never failed to bring me a small box of chocolates. Jimmy had become one of my kids. The day he died in a motorcycle crash crushed me. I lost one of my kids. My teacher, Allie’s protector and a pain in my neck. I never got to say goodbye.
One of my kids died this past week. Like Jimmy she had gone a long way from middle school. She was a flight nurse on an airplane. The plane went down near Chinle, Arizona on the Navajo Nation. They were on their way to pick up a patient. She left behind two very young children and a husband (who was also one of my kids). My heart hurts for them. For their biological families and friends, and co-workers. For my own daughter Courtney, who was a friend and classmate, and sent me a text and called to talk.
In just a couple days I will open a new box of chocolates. I will have a new class of students. I will be a “new teacher” once again. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow so hang on to today. Don’t look back and use the past to set your attitude for the future. Someone may walk into your life who changes you, molds you and accepts you for who you are. Accept them for what and who they are no matter how bad the cards they were dealt are.
I will hug my new kids; it may be the only hug they get. I will hide food in my desk and feed them when they are hungry, when their parents can’t afford to put money on their cafeteria accounts. I will secretly add money out of my own pocket so they can eat. I will listen to their corny jokes and cry with them when they cry.
I will tell them, “I am supposed to be the mean teacher, so don’t tell anyone I was crying.”
I will watch them walk through the door of my classroom as students in August and watch them leave my classroom in May as “my kids.” There will be more graduations, weddings, and babies, and unfortunately, there will be more funerals.
To all the teachers and parents with “kids” starting school have a great year. Hug, high five, or give knucks to your kids because… you never know what you're going to get.