When Teaching Was a Gift

This year, in this season of my life, in this holiday season, I think I'm both more grateful and more exhausted than I have ever been. I'm grateful for my husband, for my daughter, for the quiet evenings I get to spend next to him while she sleeps, and the quiet, early mornings I get to spend with her while he does. I'm grateful for my sisters, for my parents, that Luke and I both have such loving and supportive families and friends. I'm also grateful for my first weeks as a mother, the time I got to spend both falling in love and gaining my sea legs before returning to work this month - not only because it was such a blessing to have that time, but because it also reminded me, when I returned to work a few weeks ago, why I love my job, how lucky I am to do what I do.

So - this year, while I'm so grateful for a myriad of things, I'd like to talk about a specific set of those things, a set that I lose track of most often in the chaos - Moments When Teaching Was a Gift:

There are certain novels that will forever hold such a special place in my heart; Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those stories. I will never forget the first time I read it aloud to a group of tenth graders. We got to the last few chapters, those big moments that just stay with you as a reader, and I remember sitting on the edge of my desk, reading from my beat up, note-covered copy of the novel, and listening to their reactions. I remember the very first moment, through my own welling tears, I said, "Hey, Boo," and a soft, collective gasp went around the room. From the back corner I heard a whispered, "I knew it!" I have since cried through bits and pieces of that novel every year for a decade, and every year the kids in my desks give me such beautiful grace. I never fail to hear, "Keep going. You can finish." or "You made it to the last chapter before you really cried; that's pretty good!" Reading that novel aloud with my students is a brand new gift every year. Their faces, their whispers, their questions, are all such a beautiful present.

Covid year, when the only people allowed at their graduation ceremony were their families, my sweet seniors gathered in my classroom and took a group photo in front of my marker board, where we analyzed novels together in color-coded marker notes, our very favorite thing to do. They sent it to me to remind me how special our time together was. Opening that message felt like unwrapping something from under a Christmas tree.

Once, in my first five years teaching, I had a friend tell me something durogatory that a teacher had said to them once, how it stuck so hard it was the only memory of that teacher that stayed. I tweeted about how important it is to remember that everything you do could leave an impression on students. My students got ahold of my tweet, and they flooded my Twitter feed with replies about every positive thing I'd ever done for them. It was the loudest "I love you" I think I've ever heard. 

One summer I ran into a former student at a concert. She was probably twenty-two. And she hugged me, told me a little about her life, and then she yelled over the music about how much she appreciated the books we read together, how she talks to her co-workers about how important they were. I cried literal tears of gratitude in the middle of the crowd. Because they are important, and I'm so proud that she knows that.

Before a Thanksgiving break one year, one of my seniors slipped a card onto my desk. It was a front and back, handwritten note that told me how difficult her semester had been, how my classroom was a safe place for her, a place where she didn't feel lonely, a place she felt heard and understood. That letter is and will remain tucked into a box of keepsakes in a closet in my house.

During her first year of college, a girl who had really found a voice the year before in my creative writing class, who found a way to write about hard, heavy things in her own life, sent me a message to tell me that she'd been doing some creative writing for a college class and was on track to finish the semester with an A.

I have been lucky enough to attend the weddings of multiple former students, to watch them find their people, their partners, their place.

A few years ago, my group of last-period Modern Literature students threw me a birthday party. They brought in table cloths, balloons, and a banner, my favorite snacks, and a cake. It was my favorite gift that year.

I had a student once, from 7th grade through 12th, who battled with me almost daily. He was tough tough. He was angry. He had a problem with authority. He had a problem with rules and with structure. There were many days when I left the building wondering if anything I was doing was even helping at all, if it was even worth it. I had to consistently push him, and even then, sometimes I got nearly nothing back. The day before his graduation I got a message: "I never could have done it without you telling me I could on my worst days." And just like that, it was ALL worth it.

One year a student lost a friend to suicide. She got through the school day in one piece, came into my classroom after the final bell, closed the door, sat at my table, and sobbed. I sat across from her, took her hand, and she told me about him, soft stories, funny stories, heavy stories, gratitudes and regrets, and we both cried.

I had a student once who would randomly leave boxes of Swedish Fish, my favorite candy, on my desk. No note. No comment. Just a silent gift.

A freshman girl last year gave me a copy of her novel to annotate.

Her sister calls me to have coffee when she's home on college breaks.

I got to take a group of seniors last year to see To Kill a Mockingbird on stage. Their faces, lit and attentive, as Atticus Finch delivered his closing remarks in that on-stage courtroom - that was a gift.

Our One Act cast one year would turn on a loud song, with a glittery beat, and in their costumes and stage makeup before every show, they would dance. Shake and twist their nerves off to the music. Just being in the room while they came together to laugh and sing and bounce to the music, that was a gift.

At district speech once, I had a girl who we knew would be a close finisher. She would be close, but there was no guarantee she would qualify for state. When she did, she ran off the stage and hugged me so hard it almost knocked me over. That was a gift.

One year I got obsessed with the holiday edition hot cocoa flavored Hershey's kisses. I came to school a few days before break, and there was a bag of them on my desk. One of my junior boys found them over the weekend, and brought me some.

Every time they connect to a novel, when they understand something well enough to help the kid sitting next to them, when they ask for advice, share a piece of themselves, or even greet me first in the hallway: those are all gifts.

And I don't write these moments down to ring my own bell, or to pretend that I somehow think these kinds of gifts are unique to me. I simply wanted to note that there are so many things that teaching does FOR me, and not just academically. This job is so much more than the paycheck we often (rightfully) complain about. It's a challenging, exhausting, sometimes draining, and often verbally thankless job. But in this season of gratitude, I felt it appropriate to remind myself (and you) that sometimes the thank-yous and benefits come in different packages. Sometimes they look like "have a good weekend," like a reminder that they thought of you, that you made a lasting impact or impression, like an experience you get to have with a room full of souls you're lucky enough to help mold. Sometimes this thankless job is full to the brim with invisible gratitude; we just have to remember to recognize it when it comes. I hope your Thanksgivings are full of small gifts and little glimpses of love. My cup is so very full. I hope this reminds you to take a moment to see the ways yours might be, too.