Why I'm Still Here, or, Why the Rotten Apple Left on My Desk Doesn't Bother Me

I once seriously considered going to law school instead of becoming a teacher. There were many occasions early this school year that made me wonder if law school would not have been a better option. Though I still have difficult days, my thoughts of leaving the profession are now few and far between; I've even decided to stay at my current school--barring the arrival of a pink slip of paper in my mailbox later this month.

As I explained to my sixth period today, I'm still there because I care about them. Of course I got into teaching because I knew, deep within myself, that it was a part of my purpose--a part of who I am and what I am meant to do--but now I am also teaching because I care about these kids, and I want to see them succeed. If I didn't care, I told my students, I would probably have left sometime in November, and I'd be studying for the LSAT right now. I've recently realized that the challenge never was learning to love my students--it was learning to love them unconditionally, even when they don't seem to appreciate, and even seem to resent, all the work I do for them. I frequently have to remind myself that they are 11 or 12, and I am not--that in fact it is part of my job to help them acquire the social skills that will allow them to navigate the turbulent decade (or two) ahead of them.

I found recently some notes I jotted down in December, intending to post them here. The ideas seem to fit with this post:

December 18, 2008

A few good moments have occurred in the last couple of days, and I have to record them, in the interest of preserving hope for better times ahead.

Yesterday, I met with Felix* and his mother. Felix has typically been the student on the figurative back row, too cool for school, disrespectful, disruptive, mean to other kids, and always with a bad attitude. Whenever I suggested I might need to have a parent conference, he acted like he didn't care. Yesterday, though, I saw a different side of him during the conference with him and his mother. He was still all over the room, but he was behaving more like a hyperactive little boy than like the rebellious pre-adolescent I was accustomed to seeing in first period. He was more humble, teachable. He asked earnest questions about why he has to take medication. After my feeble attempt to break down psychopharmacology into 11-year-old terms, he said "Mr. D., I think the front part of my brain is busted." It felt good to be able to demystify the problem a little bit--to reassure him that he isn't broken or deffective, that his brain simply functions differently. I felt like I made an authentic connection with him, one I hadn't had before.

Today, I gave a mid-unit quiz. Alfredo stayed after class because he hadn't finished yet. In fact, he had barely gotten through the first two questions. I walked him through the quiz, one question at a time. I uncovered some of the difficulties he has when taking tests, and he had a chance to feel success in my classroom. That felt good, too.

And, even better, Joseph made an attempt at doing homework two nights in a row-- a personal record for him. He also managed to complete three quarters of the test. Grading only what he completed, he recieved a B-. I graded it in front of him after school. He said he'd never gotten a grade that high before. He doesn't like to show a lot of excitement about school, but I could tell he was pleased. Perhaps there is hope for me in this profession yet.

Those are the moments that have kept me in the classroom--those glimmers of hope that I can do some good, fueled by the fact that I so badly want to see these kids do well. It can be a challenge to keep that hope in view; even as I retype these notes from last December, I realize that I haven't built on these experiences, or maintained these connections, as I might have. The students still continue to struggle. They continue to act in ways that make it seem as if they didn't care. So when someone left an old, decaying apple on my desk this morning when I wasn't looking, it bothered me for a moment. Then I reminded myself that regardless of what these children do, what the need most is someone who will love and care for them in those moments they seem to deserve it the least. I'm finding that is seldom easy to do, but it's worth the struggle, and worth having to throw away a spoiled piece of fruit once in a while. I just hope whoever did it was clever enough to understand the more subtle irony of giving a rotten apple to the teacher.