While Another Flame Starts Burning
After more than a decade in the classroom, it’s not often that I go home with headaches. Maybe a handful of them in August, sure, trying to set routines and deal with new challenges. But midway through October, I’ve had to concede that this is not like other years, nor is this group like other groups. This is a group that’s hurting. I mean really hurting. And they’re often, daily, hourly, taking their hurt out on each other. Snipping. Sniping. Kicking. Pushing. Accusing. Blaming. The list goes on. I haven’t had a day in weeks that didn’t involve at least an hour’s worth of emotional firefighting, putting out one flame in one part of the room while another flame starts burning somewhere else, another couple of kids fighting and arguing with each other toward petty and pointless ends. And to be clear, putting out fires is more than just telling kids to stop. Once kids are crying, there’s the aftermath of discussion, apologies, emails home, and follow up emails with parents, the assurance that we’re working on being better. It also involves coming up with a new plan for the next day, every day, trying to ensure that you solve yesterday’s problems tomorrow. So when I say I’ve been leaving with headaches, I’ve been leaving with headaches.
But today, I received a simple little note from an old student, a “Wish Well” Wednesday message that said, “Thank you for being an amazing teacher.” And it got me thinking, not about myself, but about all of us. We see so little grace and kindness in our world today that I think we presume once kids, once adults, once every human being is taught civility in first, second, or third grade, that it’ll stick forever. And if it doesn’t stick, if they turn cruel, and rude, and ruthless, then they must have had a few crappy teachers and a set of awful parents. Not so. The world and its people are far more complicated than that. People don’t learn how to be kind, then see a bunch of people being unkind, and somehow hang onto the kindness they once learned. Cruelty doesn’t strengthen our better angels, it suppresses them.
And it’s our job, those of us who know what kindness is, to teach it, to model it, to BE it.
When that old student wrote me a kind word, a single sentence, I’m almost certain he was in a class where students were encouraged to write an old teacher, to satisfy the work of “Wish Well Wednesday” at our school. But that’s precisely what I mean when I say we have to teach it, model it, and BE it. As I said earlier, my homeroom students are hurting. Many of them have lost someone they love in the last few weeks. Many of them have been broken by a series of problems at home, or in a world they can’t ignore. And it’s my job, it’s your job, it’s all our job to help them find what they’ve lost, no matter how much Advil we might need to chug. Because if we’re not helping to restore their decency, their heart, their grace, then we’re contributing to their growing animosity, which will only get worse in the absence of people who care.
So teachers, parents, caretakers… keep doing what you’re doing, headaches or not. If you want to see goodness in this world, please don’t ever quit on your kids. Thanks for all you do.
