I am not that teacher anymore

A little more than 10 years ago, I had a student who I really clicked with.  Rachel is Russian, and Jewish, edgy and and quick-witted, and we’d joke that she was my mini-me.  Of course, what I didn’t want to tell her was that she was my mini-me if, when I was in high school, I had perfect hair, skin, and figure, was top of my class academically, and was a talented dancer.  She was just a great kid, winning in every category, and mature beyond her years.

When she found out that I didn’t want kids, even at the tender age of whatever, 14 or so, she said something to the effect of “what, you’re not going to give your parents any grandkids?”  SO Jewish.

I said “Rachel, I guarantee you’ll be married and with kids long before I am.”

Rachel swore we’d be friends one day, and as such, made sure she kept in touch after all of these years, and invited me to her wedding.  There’s very few people I would arrange summer travel plans around to make sure I made it to their wedding.  But Rachel is the closest thing to a kid I’m ever going to have, so I come back two days before her wedding to make sure I’m not too jet-lagged to enjoy.

Weddings are complicated for attendees.  Always.  I guess if you’re a romantic (which I am) or a genuinely kind person (which I am generally not) you’re just so excited by all of the pomp and manipulated by the music and the cute little flower girls and how gorgeous the bride is and all of that, you are happy.

I think everyone else just feels uneasy.  You can’t help but to think of yourself while watching the ceremony.  In fact, I think most of the time the officiant TELLS you to think about yourself during the ceremony.  How can you not compare your life to the lives on display before you?  I think the most obvious situation are those people who are single and sad about that… watching someone else get what you desperately want is heartbreaking.  And then you feel selfish, adding insult to injury.    

I can’t emphasize enough that I was NOT feeling this way coming to this wedding.  It was like watching my own daughter get married and sharing in that pride and joy without having to pay for that shit myself.  And considering that I couldn’t wait to tell Rachel and anyone who would listen “I TOLD YOU YOU’D BE MARRIED FIRST,” it would be easy to think that I was going to be sad about my own station in life.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 10 years, and we will probably be married some day, but it hasn’t already happened.  I don’t wish to go further into how or why or what, because this isn’t about that, but I truly didn’t sit through that ceremony wondering why it wasn’t me up there getting married.  I was very overwhelmed with happiness for my girl and wasn’t thinking about myself at all.  I really thought the evening was going to be simple: I go to a fun wedding with my boyfriend and get dressed up and cute and dance the night away.

I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming: there were a good five or so former students who I haven’t really seen since they graduated.  I don’t really ever feel awkward making the transition from being the teacher type to being just regular, inappropriate me when seeing students after they graduate.  I think most of them feel a hell of a lot more awkward about it than I do: me cursing up a storm, talking about whatever I normally talk about (truly, horrifying) and telling them they’re grown now and they can feel free to call me Cindy.

I was thrilled to see them… that particular class was very memorable and good to me… I said hi, we laughed, I asked to take a picture and then I’d leave them alone to enjoy their wedding not having to talk to their old math teacher.  But the young man who gave me the most trouble when I had him as a freshman said “Oh, I’m not done with you yet” and I wound up talking to him and his fiancée for a really long time.  My poor boyfriend… it was a high school reunion I hadn’t planned for.

So what I thought was going to be a wedding turned out to be a stroll down memory lane.  It was very surreal.  Good, but surreal.  And it caught me very much by surprise, and sometimes being surprised is something I don’t react to well.

It was all well and good (if by well and good I mean apologizing profusely to Justin for boring the crap out of him … luckily he is a patient, patient man) until Rachel’s mom brings me over to another former student, not in that same class.  She says “I wasn’t in your honors class, I don’t know if you remember me.”  And then she continues to suggest that she wasn’t the best student back then, but she really got it together and did really well and minored in math and is now in finance and loves it and is doing great.

And then she said “you always pushed me.  And I really appreciate it.  You were amazing.”

Now these are words that teachers crave.  You never know what you are truly doing for any particular kid on any particular day.  You think you’re doing right by a kid, being kind, they turn out hating you.  You think a quiet kid loathes you and says nothing ever; you find out later on that you were their favorite teacher.  You really never know.

But I am very blessed in that I often hear back from my kids that I was great for them for myriad reasons.  This should not have felt any different.

But all of a sudden, it struck me, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I AM NOT THAT TEACHER ANYMORE.

10 years ago, I was not known as that teacher who “only teaches honors students.”  I was the type of teacher who pushed kids to do better.  I pulled them aside and had private conversations and did what I could to impress upon them that math was important.  That their grades were important.

I couldn’t get that thought out of my head:  I am not that teacher anymore.

And I was devastated.

These thoughts have been lying under the surface for about two years.  I had a regents level (i.e. not honors) class two years ago that I found anomalously challenging in that I actually didn’t personally like a number of kids in there.  This doesn’t happen a lot.  And I have always prided myself in being the kind of teacher who enjoyed teaching all different types of kids.  I happen to teach a lot of honors kids now, but I have also taught, with pretty good success, ESOL students, kids who hate math who need a credit just to graduate, “regular” kids.

But as time has gone on, I have found that I have developed a particular talent working with talented kids.  Truth is, most of them can teach themselves but I find a way to make it more than that.  At least that’s what I’m told. And teaching honors isn’t for everyone; they come with an entirely different set of challenges that a lot of teachers don’t really want to deal with.

So for me, teaching calculus has become pretty easy.  I don’t get a lot of complaints, my lessons are basically good year to year and require little tweaking, and every day I’m greeted with smiles and kids who basically want to learn and basically value what I have to say.

I didn’t get into teaching to have it easy.  But I have to admit that I have become spoiled as to how my job has become super enjoyable and not (relatively) very stressful since I have taught mostly honors calculus.

And after that one challenging regents class, it dawned on me that it would be very, VERY difficult for me to go back to having those classes that required me to really PUSH kids who didn’t want to learn.  

In addition, I have been (asked? pressured?) into teaching multivariable calculus next year which has been also weighing on my mind very heavily because (a) it’s been 25 years since I have done that stuff and I wasn’t great at it in even back then and (b) I will have a stupid amount of work to do next year that basically no one I work with can help me with.  I have been a little more than resentful of all of the time I am going to have to give up to teach this course and nervous that I am not going to do a great job.  And to make matters worse, the professional development I went to for this at the beginning of the summer was truly awful and left me feeling like I was worse off than when I had started.  I had really gotten used to the idea that maybe, just maybe, the next 9 years I’ve got before retirement won’t be so time consuming and exhausting.

Because being THAT teacher: the one who works for hours every night and on weekends to make new lesson plans, the one who calls home and checks up on kids, the one who sacrafices her own hobbies and personal time to dedicate everything she’s got to her job that’s so important…. THAT teacher is long gone.

Not because I don’t care.

Not because I think less of kids.

Not because I think my job isn’t important.

But because THAT teacher has a lot more energy than I do.  I am 45 and although YES, I am VERY energetic in the classroom, I am feeling that age more and more every year.

I am tired.  Tired of working.  Tired of waking up at the ass crack of dawn and driving an hour to get to work.  Tired of it taking sometimes an hour and a half to get home. 

Tired of changing times.  Changing expectations.  Horrible exams and a system that tells kids that they have to have perfect scores all the time and be in the honor society and be the president of 10 clubs and play 3 sports and apply early decision and be more special than everyone else or they won’t get into a good college.  A good college that costs 70K a year that they can’t afford anyway.  

Tired of this growing, nagging feeling that I am an agent of this shitty fucking system.  

Just tired.

So that one statement by that one student really set me off.  

Justin said “only YOU could be told by literally every student there how wonderful you were to them and you turn it around so say you think you aren’t good enough.”

Imposter syndrome is real and rears its ugly head at the strangest of times.

I’ve been stewing in my juices every since then.  

But the good news is that I learned a long time ago that a good teacher is a reflective teacher.

I am not that teacher anymore.

But I bring things to the table now, amazing qualities that I possess as a human and as a teacher, that I never could have 10, 20 years ago.  

I am more patient, wise, kind.  I have 1000 tricks up my sleeve and so much experience that I can explain so many things in so many ways.  I now tell kids that they should work a little LESS; to try to enjoy being a kid and think just a little less about their future, because being a successful adult isn’t dependent solely on being a successful student.  I am more nurturing.  I take things less personally.  I can multitask like the dickens.  

And let me be frank: I CERTAINLY DO PUSH A LOT OF FUCKING KIDS.  It just looks different now.  

I could go on and on, and I really didn’t write this for pity, or for people to tell me how great I am.  I generally tell that to myself enough.  I just needed to process.

This was a very emotional night, but a good wake up call in a time of doubt that I know I really needed. 

I am not that teacher anymore.  

You can’t ever go back to who you were 10 years ago, 20 years ago.

But you can choose to move forward.