On Second Chances

Someone in my credentialing program, I don't remember who, once told me that kids were like puppies--remarkably resilient and forgiving. During my first year of teaching, I often thought about how untrue this claim appeared to be, based on my then-limited experience in the classroom. I remember being so frustrated with how unforgiving students seemed to be--no matter how hard I thought I was working to serve them, to help them, to uplift them, they always seemed to focus on (and remember) the most minute of injustices. When I recognized my mistakes and tried to change the classroom culture, my students seemed awfully slow to follow.

Thus, I was understandably apprehensive when I moved from 6th to 8th grade, realizing that I would once again have many of those same students with whom I started my career, and fearing that they would remember in painful detail all of my mistakes and weaknesses. The expectations we bring with us into a situation will often shape that situation more than we realize, and I feared I would return to being the sort of teacher my once-and-former-students expected me to be.

Fortunately, I had learned one vital lesson during the intervening year--how to love my students. Certainly it helps that my students matured between sixth and eighth grade, and that I learned quite a bit about effective classroom management; it also helps that time tempers even unpleasant memories, and familiarity breeds fondness in adolescents. But I still believe that love was and is the key. Last year around March, I came to the realization that I loved nearly all of my students. This year, by the grace of God, I've been given the gift to love all of my students. Even the most obnoxious students I find myself seeing with eyes of compassion, and genuine desire for their success. I no longer secretly wish that just one or two of my students will move, or suddenly be discovered to live just outside the school's attendance boundaries.

That love, a miracle in itself, has brought on a chain-reaction of other little miracles, as I build relationships with students that allow them to trust me, to open up to me. I'm still not convinced they are learning all the historical thinking skills I want them to learn, but I am convinced that because they know I care for them, and because they trust me, they will some how be better people for having been my students. And it feels good to know that. It feels good to have them come to my classroom at lunch or after school, just to visit, or to seek advice. It feels good when J., who said to me at the end of 6th grade "Mr. Douglas, you can barely handle 6th graders--how will you handle 8th graders?" now says to me "You know Mr. Douglas, I think you're doing a pretty good job."

It feels good to be given a second chance, and it only happened because I was willing to give my students a second (third, fourth, fifth...) chance.

My students did this on my birthday a few weeks ago. One of the best gifts I could have received, and something that certainly would not have happened with the same kids two years ago.