Finding myself at Thanksgiving and receiving the pleasure of at least two extra full days with which I am able to fill with the ever-so weighty list of things to accomplish, I finally got around to looking over the finished assignments from my students at the high school and the 100 accompanying evaluations filled out regarding my teaching at the school. I made it through approximately 60 of the pages filled with a a smattering of both scathing and kind remarks. I sat there at the kitchen table, head in my hands, stunned, although not overly surprised. Although I did not know quite how strongly some of the students felt, their responses to my solicitation for opinion put many of the unspoken feelings about my experience there into words, as difficult as they are to read. Reading what the students had to say really brought me back to the deep sense of failure and lostness I felt there.
I've debated about being so bold as to reveal my poor reviews here for you to see, but over the last day or so, I find the inability to escape pain-inducing recollections of what I read just yesterday and I feel the need to sort out the emotions and find a footing upon which to walk forward. Honestly, I am still trying to figure out what happened to me there, where I got off track, how I seem to have so badly missed the point.
Reading over the selection of evaluations left me with the sense that somehow I had missed really seeing the students I was supposed to be teaching. I felt overwhelmed. I felt lost. I felt insecure. and I felt threatened and abused by many of the students. I was writing a reflection on one of my lessons from the high school the other day and realized the answer to the question: "What went wrong," to be somehow and somewhere answered in the fact that I let the students walk all over me. One of the more compassionate evaluations actually read, "You shouldn't let students walk all over you. You are the authority in the class." Sage advice from a student that I don't think I know how to apply.
Maybe if I'd had more time there, I could have continued to grow. I do not know. I found myself sitting there yesterday, wishing that I could crawl down into the heater vents where I could hear the mice scratching around. I sat there, thinking, "I wish I could just go back there and say 'I am so sorry.' "
My heart breaks at the thought that I hurt some students, that I left them feeling unimportant, inadequate, or disrespected. I wish I could have found space to just see them before everything else.
I am remembering thoughts shared by experienced teachers about the fact that they learned everything about writing lessons and their content in school, but were not taught the most important thing-- relationships. And thinking of that gives me a bit of hope that perhaps I am not as doomed as I feel, that although the learning curve is steep, that perhaps there is hope for me yet. That somehow I will touch more students with love and compassion than those that leave my classroom feeling hurt. And I find myself hoping and longing that there is forgiveness out there somewhere for me. Maybe even if it only comes from me.
In the midst of all of this, I find myself searching for some sort of footing in terms of classification of blame, causes, and responses. I keep thinking of this phrase that I heard over and over in jr. high and high school: You must rise to the occassion. I've been thinking of this often, about how regardless of the reasons, regardless of what I am up against, regardless of how close student teaching is to being a real teacher, I have to rise to the occassion. I can only meet the challenges with integrity and courage, doing my best to do what I know to be the best.
Much of this semester, especially the first part of this journey, left me with a sense of flail-- I imagine myself treading water. Unfortunately, the stack of evaluations sitting at home on my desk are reminders of the students that I had there in the water with me.
Thier evaluations have shown me again that the essential thing in teaching has little to do with what I teach and much to do with how I am treating, seeing, and loving the group of students I have been placed around. The difficulty, I think, with being a student teacher and being a young teacher, is making the transition between doing the thing you've been taught to be able to do in school and seeing the real people you have chosen to serve with this training and knowledge.
When I was at the school, my mentor teacher tried to tell me that the choices I make about how I actually teach, the learning experience I set up for my students has a reciprocal relationship with the personal connections I have with students. My instructional strategies should be rooted in compassion and a personal and genuine connection with the students for which that instruction is prepared. How I use the time I have in my classroom does actually communicate how I feel about students-- it isn't just about what I say.
Respect is a funny thing. As a young teacher, I am still tyring to navigate my personal identity. I am navigating what it means to be an authority and to gain proper respect. Something I do remember thinking a lot about during my first placement was the issue of posturing. I worked through the tendency to put on a "teacher face," and grew a great deal in learning how to relax and be personal in the classroom. I think I did come a long way, but it is going to take a while to really learn it. I think I get caught up in feeling like I need to figure out what the model of teacher-persona is and then put on that costume, become the expected image. I am starting to see that the difference is in simply seeing my role as a person who is placed in the classroom to serve the young people that enter its door. My role is a person who is able to love my class as a whole and therefore make decisions based not on how I feel about individual students or how they treat me, but simply, manage this little world as a whole, making sure each student is held to the same standard of work, respect, and self-pride. How that works itself out beyond theory is a difficult question, but at least it is an idea with which to work.
As painful as it is to read about my mistakes and failures from the very hands of those I have failed, there is also something about it that drives me to try again. It poses a challenge for growth that is essential for a vibrant life. It is an opportunity to learn how to serve students better in the future because I now can see a little more what really hurts them and what really matters most. Working through the difficulties and messes that define relationships are the very catalysts that teach us to love better, even though it is frightening. Even if the thought of it still makes me sick to my stomache.
So what am I to do with all of this? The truth is that I am fresh, I am green, and I have been trusted with an unbelieveable number of young people even though the expectation for my failure and mistakes is quite high. The truth is that I am broken. I am humbled. I am repentant and I hope that someday all of those kids who saw my evaluations as an opportunity to unleash the eight weeks of pain and frustration I put them through will find it in thier hearts to forgive me. I hope that they will someday find grace for failures and shortcomings that they did not seem to recieve from me.
There is something refreshing and exhiliarting in the prospect of a second chance at loving people. There is something I find so deeply touching in the idea that even when I've so impossibly wronged someone, there is always a chance tomorrow to make it right. There is always a chance to start again, to stop and remember how much better things are when I choose compassion before my own sense of obligation or responsiblity. It is that painful sense of growth that comes from pruning.
And I am happy to know that there is hope for forgiveness and grace for my failures, even when I feel like I belong somewhere near the bottom of the foodchain.
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