Ode to a Schoolteacher

Well, gosh. Some days you just get bowled over by people's generosity. Yesterday was one of those days--a day to make you smile, a day to make you feel good about something you haven't generally felt good about in a long while. Feeling good is a good thing, yes?

When flowers are delivered to you while others watch you receive them, it is a double delight. My teacher sent flowers to thank me for taking good care of his kids while he was healing from his surgery. I did not expect that. Of course, doing the unexpected makes the giver double delighted to do the good deed. It was a double-double delight Thursday.

I finished my short, long-term substitute teaching assignment yesterday. To say that I am relieved to be done with it would be grossly under-exaggerating how I feel. I feel free and unencumbered once again. The grind of the classroom stifles me, makes me forget all those creative and fun ideas I had for making literature and writing fun for high schoolers. I truly wish I could find the perspective and stamina required to face a classroom of unwilling participants five days a week for 9+ months. Sadly, I just can't. This latest assignment has taxed my self-worth more than I care to admit. I'm diligent, sure, but I don't have the spark most days to reach the majority. And settling for reaching the minority just doesn't cut it for me.

The changing of the guard (or in this case, the bestowing of the lanyard with keys) was a joyful ocassion for both participants. He, ecstactic and oddly nervous about the first day coming three weeks into the school year, and I, happily placing said lanyard over his head like a gold Olympic medal that was hard-fought and earned, danced through the exchange blissfully. We eased into the school entrance only after the crowd and busses were gone. We discussed the usual banalities that accompany recordkeeping and procedures, mid-project information (despite my fervent hope to leave things clean and fresh for his new start), and the early school year news.

One can never be too prepared for what might come flying at him in the course of a first day back when everyone else has had a head start. Leaving is easy. You simply forget every unflattering thing that was said to you and keep your eye on the horizon. But the Creative Writing teacher who stands in the place where I gave my best effort to get the students motivated needs to find that Zen place that will see him through the first moments of his return. It was my self-sworn duty to warn him of the pitfalls.

Having completed the chores of the afternoon, he offered dinner--his treat. I objected. He insisted. Finally, we resolved to try the not-so-new place with the reputation for outstanding food and wonderful ambience. He would pay the waitress, I would tip her. The diner down the street would have been fine with me, but he wanted it to be a reward for my jumping through the hoops which accompany the start of the year. There's always the computer glitches (there still are, no free pass there), the drop/add students who shuffle through and leave again, negotiation of putting your room back the way it was before they removed every last item from it, and implementation of all the new and improved dress code regulations, hall pass rules, seating charts, etc, etc, etc. It's truly a pain in the ass to get things organized again. He knows this is a job better suited to my abilities, so he's grateful. But I feel like the teaching is better suited to his abilities, so it's a good time to pass the baton to the anchor of this relay.

Dinner was excellent, conversation was lively and varied. For the most part, we kept school topics at bay, enjoying other topics instead. It was a treat, for sure. The likenesses of our nonconformist behaviors made us giggle as we traipsed through these last few weeks, but the hugely different approaches to our classroom routines brought each of us face to face with our own demons, too. I envy his ability to reach so many students in a way that looks effortless to me. He wishes the organization of the necessary agendas of the school environment was easier to implement. But his gift is in reaching kids who would otherwise slip through unnoticed. How he dances the allowable freedoms of thought without losing the school manners with the kids is beyond my ability. It is this technique which has made my own degree feel so obsolete. I had some low days trying to strike this balance.

The man whose shoes I did not so successfully fill took it upon himself to express gratitude for a job done "okay" while he was out. And he did it in a way that made me feel better than okay about the work I've put into it. In a moment of deriding himself, he told me he was glad he didn't get what he deserved. I laughed, but if the truth were to come out, his expression of thanks for my very average work in his classroom makes me grateful that I don't get what I deserve either.