Done and Done

It was another one of those nights where I stayed super late and the custodians swept around me and I kept working.  The next thing, the next thing, the next thing.  I made myself eat, and not completely forget I had a body that needed some care, and I kept repeating things to myself about how the perk of teaching really is the long summer day in July where nothing is time sensitive. 

My good friend, Stacy the English Teacher, came in and helped me sort out of my tired brain when the things I had to organize for Friday just weren't making sense.  She could tell. We've gotten into a pattern of knowing when I need to do something concrete and the abstract side of my mind just won't stop getting in the way.  Yesterday she literally said, 'Is there anything I can do for you in a concrete way that would help you sort anything out?'  And I knew exactly what she was talking about.  And she knew that I knew that she knew.  (Thanks, friend.)




That sort of a thing is a lifesaver conversation this time of year.  Or when your car gets broken into and you need someone with duct tape to temporarily repair your car window while you stand mutely (or not so mutely) by and think about vulnerability and the entire world.  Yep, that's Stacy.

But it happened.  All of the student-related stuff GOT graded, and not done in a shoddy way, but well, and I had a night of peaceful sleep.  And when I woke up, my first thought really was, 'No more grading'.  It's truly, TRULY something to celebrate.  I grade a lot of homework throughout the course of the year.  Now I don't have to until my brain is happy to do it again. 

I still have a list of things to do, but that now seems easy peasy in comparison to yesterday.  Portfolios are DONE.



Yesterday my students wrote a letter to themselves, knowing they would get it back from me when they graduate in 2016.  I'm doing this in my classes, and next year is the first year that I actually give anything back to anyone.  My first 8th graders graduate next year. (Weird.) 

During 4th hour, I had a moment of real nostalgia about these students as I saw them writing.  (I might have experienced this in the other classes, but I was too obsessed with grading, and was glad that they listened to me when I said they needed to be quiet.) 

How did they get so tall?  How did I get to know them so well?  These are the middle children...the younger students of my first students who I've heard about for years.  They seemed like other peoples' people, and now all of a sudden they've been MY students, and I realized how proud of them I really am.  This class GREW.  And I pushed them harder than I've ever pushed another class before. I knew what I wanted to do (finally, HELLO 5th year teacher) and I DID this. 

I felt profoundly grateful for that one fact alone. 

I sort of had a bewildered moment that comes to teaching and the teacher where I realized that they LEARNED something from me.  Lots of things actually.  They often echo back to me things that we've talked about together, or stories I've told them, but in their own language.  That is the thrill of teaching.  But still, how did that happen? 

I guess I had my feet planted firmly on the floor and showed up every day, and called them out on things, and we laughed a lot together, and they are intrinsically motivated (and that's awesome) and....well, anyway.  But good teaching is usually not about the teacher.  It's about students showing up to 'be here now'.  And this class did. 

The technicalities of the school day were meeting the higher vein of thinking, which really is that people matter and you are really like no other person in the world, and we've had an impact on each other and this place.  And because we've talked like this together, I could say some of this, and they didn't look at me like I was an idiot.  And then the bell rang and it was all busy again.

I know they know what I'm talking about because we've had existential conversations about time and living in it, and being alive and how that really feels sometimes when you stop and think how weird and cool it is all at once.  Those conversations tend to crop up a lot more than you think in middle school.   Because they are very very alive and willing to show it.  Drama-filled, evil eye, or otherwise.

I can tell that my students are getting older because they live in the moment with us, their teachers, in a more mature way.  Yesterday a student asked me how I was...not for attention, not so that they could tell me about a story in their lives, not for any other reason besides, 'How are you?  You're almost done with grading.  Good for you.'

And, awesome.  And, thank you.

The very nicest thing happened yesterday though in the form of flowers.  I was sitting there with headphones on, blocking all of the wandering 7th graders in my room, grading like there was no tomorrow, and an 8th grade girl came up to my desk with a bunch of flowers.  And she was very industrious about explaining that I needed to have them because their flower garden was overflowing.  And I was GRATEFUL.  I love peonies.  She brought me pink and white ones. And for the entire day, I taught next to these beautiful things, and smelled them all day and it was such a lift for my soul.

If you would have asked me yesterday, in all of that crazy, what could happen to be called 'the very nicest thing', I honestly would have said that someone could make my day by bringing me June flowers. 

Here they are!  Ah, peonies in June.