31/05/2024
I don't know if every teacher is like this, but at the end of each school year, I go through a rollercoaster of grief and relief. I pull down all the "love letters" hung by my desk throughout the year and take them home. Tears close, I read them again ponder the precious one who took the time to create them. The cool car drawn by the boy who could be a bit of a handful. The thoughtful paragraphs from 5th grade girls. The "I love you teacher" and beautiful drawings from the younger ones. I chuckle again at the picture of me that says beneath (original spelling), " Ms. M. I no that you dont think you are yung but you look yung." For the last week I have had moments of the grumpies, and I remind myself that it's just the goodbyes coming to the surface again. Instead of feeling frightened, frustrated, or discouraged that I'm emotional, I remind myself that I love my students, and it's okay to have pain around letting them go.
I also remind myself to "live in the and," a phrase Sarah taught me years ago. It's the place where I can grieve the passages of time AND feel joy at the freedom of this moment, I open myself to gratitude for rest and space to heal from the toll of the year. I embrace peace when I listen and I hear QUIET. The wonder of relationship fills me up as I eat breakfast with Jerry, spend time with the grandkids, or visit with adult children. I'd forgotten the deep healing of a lingering meal on the deck, gazing at the mountains. Freedom. Finish the book instead of the chapter. No papers to grade. No morning schedule. No exhaustion as emotional reserves are depleted by the varied needs of 90 children.
I delight in the soil beneath my fingertips, the sprinkle of the water hose, the fresh look of tended spaces in my yard. Pruning makes the roses pop. I think I'll try again to grow the ground cover that disappointed me last year. There's satisfaction in obliterating pesky weeds. My soul is beginning to unfurl.
And yet the melancholy surprises me as I adjust to summer. I let it come and go.
Every year has been demanding since I took the job at a highly impacted school. Jerry says I ended the first year on life support. I think I gave it all away that year. (Thankfully Jesus continues to give it back.) I'm doing better now, but I refuse to hardened my heart for survival. I am determined to love, to teach, to fight for "my" kids. This year I refused to allow my master's work to take away from those children in my care. I didn't cut back the long hours required to teach the way I want to teach. The way my students needed me to teach. It was a serious, demanding, put it all on the proverbial table kind of year. But all that extra giving requires refilling.
Some people judge teachers for complaining about their salary when they "get all that time off." They say teachers are whiners. Easy hours. Summers off. I don't engage with these comments/posts. I rarely put in less than 9 or 10 hours a day and often have to give up huge chunks of my weekend. The people reacting don't understand all of this. One time my son was processing the situation. In his logical mind he needed to understand the bottom line. He asked how many hours I worked in typical week, calculated that based on the weeks I worked and came up with an hourly wage. Then said, "oh." Please hear me. I am not complaining about my salary. My district has worked hard to give me a competitive wage. I will never be rich, but I pay my bills. What I'm saying is that teachers need that summer. And while many are gardening, traveling, and playing with their kids, many are also taking classes to become better teachers, planning curriculum for next year, and reorganizing all their materials. This will be the first summer in a while that I'm not in some kind of continuing education classes or doing master's work. But even if we're not doing teacher things in the summer, we're healing from a job that is not only physical and mental, but incredibly demanding of our hearts. Our hearts take hits every time the hearts of those kiddos in our care take hits. And we take the brunt of that kiddo's anger when they come to school in pain. Or that parent's frustration when they don't know what else to do. We stand strong for children when the system struggles to meet the demands of a changing world, live up to the politician's demands, or attract enough teachers to the profession to reduce our class sizes. When I was a kid, if you got in trouble at school, you got in trouble at home. And while we have MANY lovely, supportive parents, the culture increasingly spouts that if a kid gets in trouble at school, it must be the teacher's fault.
I didn't mean to write that last paragraph, but I suppose staying silent all those times I read comments from uninformed writers who believe a teacher's job is easy just took their toll.
When I began this post, I simply needed to process the grief of letting go. Again. Something teachers (and students) must do every summer. And I needed to allow myself to juxtapose the grief with the relief. Honestly, it was not my goal to return to public education. When I left the profession as a young mom, I didn't think I would return to the demands. But here I am. I told Jerry the other day that maybe the Good Lord knew I needed more children to love now that ours are grown. Still it was a serious year in a serious profession and so I look for ways to reconnect with myself and to make space for me. Last night I celebrated by asking my girl to put a peek-a-boo purple and turquoise pop in my hair along with some rainbow tinsel and opalescent beads. It's subtle but fun. And teachers needs a pop of fun. (Let's stop begrudging them their summer. Ok?)
