just wait

Ten years ago, I sat in my classroom after school and heard a girl crying in the hallway. It was one of those big cries. The heaving, snot-dripping Oprah cries. I knew those tears. I knew those sounds.

Like a seasoned warrior, I hopped up from my desk and ran into the hallway. The sight was familiar.  Two adolescent girls stood there, holding one another tightly, heads buried in one another's hoodies. Boy problems.

"Girls, what's wrong?" I asked. 

The girl looked at me, imploringly. "My boyfriend just broke up with me. " And then she waited for me to say something. Anything. 

I wrapped my 24-year-old  arms around them both, pulling them to me tightly. "Oh Sweetheart," I said. "I know it hurts right now. Shhhhh. I know. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but just wait... wait until you're older. This seventh grade breakup will seem easy in comparison."

The whimpering girl looked up at me and stared. It wasn't a thankful stare. It wasn't a hateful stare. It was just...a stare. A confused, empty stare. 

"Is that supposed to help?" she asked. 

Well, yes. I suppose I thought it would help.  I assumed letting her know that it could be worse, that I've HAD IT WORSE would somehow ease her pain. "This is empathy," I thought.  But it wasn't--not even close. Her stare said it all: I said the wrong thing.

At that moment, I realized something:  The words "just wait" are probably the most useless words we can utter to a sister in pain.  Yet we do it all the time. 

Ladies, I hereby issue a plea:  Let's stop using those words. 

Have you been there? When we dare utter a complaint, those seasoned warriors rush in. 

Pregnant and feeling huge?  "Just wait until you're at the 9-month mark and you can't see your feet!"

Having a hard day with toddlers? "Just wait until they're teenagers!  This will seem easy!"  

When I was sad after dropping my screaming son off at preschool:  "Just wait until kindergarten/ high school / college! Then you'll REALLY cry! This is the easy part! 

Worse yet, we've been known to "just wait" someone when things are looking up: "Glad your pregnancy is going well. Better get all the sleep you can get! Just wait until that baby is here. You'll never sleep again!"

In fact, last week at the grocery store, a women "just waited" me near the green beans. "Wow! Your daughter has so much hair! And she doesn't rip her bow out? Just wait until she's older and it becomes a daily fight! My daughter won't even let me near her hair now!"

Gee. Thanks. Can't wait. Better add Harper's bow-tolerance to my gratitude journal tonight.  Wait - I don't have a gratitude journal. One of my kids threw the empty journal I'd planned to use for that purpose into the shower.

Ladies, I get it. As women, we've been conditioned since girlhood to wear our warrior badges on our chests (hello, Girl Scouts). Those badges were not only a symbol of accomplishment, but experience, too.  But let's remember that our badges, our battle wounds, so-to-speak, don't necessarily make anyone's fight easier or less valid. 

Perhaps that's why middle school girls are such remarkable empathizers... They're old enough to know that life can be tough, but not jaded enough to know it gets a whole lot tougher. They don't yet have a library of one-upper experiences, so they just hold each other and listen. I think they're on to something, those teenage girls. 

Raising people is hard. It's hard if you have one, and it's hard if you have ten. It's hard when they're babies, and it's hard when they're adults.  My today is my today. It's my "right now." And my "right now" is sometimes really great, and it's sometimes really stinking hard. And the only thing that a "just wait" brings is fear. 

I understand. You've run farther. You've run longer. Your race has been bumpy, and long, and tiring. I stand in awe of you, my fellow runners. My trailblazers. I truly do.

 But please remember,  some of us are only at the beginning of our marathons, and we have a long road ahead of us-- A road that we've never traveled before. In fact, we haven't even trained for this.  So instead of telling us about the pitfalls during mile 23, let's just cheer the new runners through mile TWO. 

Sometimes, all we need from the seasoned warrior is simply, "I've been there, too. I know it's hard. You can do it, and I'm here for you."

testing, testing

Testing season is upon us. If you've been watching the news, you're well-aware of the Common Core backlash, particularly when it comes to the increasing amount of testing that our students will endure under these new mandates.

It would take me many posts, over many months, to explain how I feel about testing and what the new requirements are doing to our schools, our classrooms, our teachers, and our students.

So instead, I will just tell you ONE story, from ONE child, from ONE day last week.

A little background: When I returned from maternity leave in October, I spent the first day trying to get to know my students. When I got to Mellie, she was very straightforward, very matter-of-fact.  "Hi. I'm Mellie. I won't be here long. I never stay in one place for a long time."

She's still here. And I'm so glad about that. You'd just love this girl. I know I sure do. She's beautiful inside and out. She's confident. Charming. Funny. She listens and asks really good questions. She nods when she "gets it" and frowns when she doesn't, which makes my job easier.  I've watched her very carefully as she's worked to assimilate among the other students here, and I really think she's starting to feel at home...for once.

Last week, we began our state assessments - the very assessments that you're probably reading about in the newspapers, In case you aren't aware, these assessments cover the entire NEW eighth-grade curriculum. And they're given in February. Because testing a child over a year's worth of curriculum in February makes perfect sense, right?

And they're hard. Really, really hard. In fact, the state predicts up to a 33% drop in student proficiency. As teachers, we've worked diligently to prepare the kids for these tests and the rigor that accompanies them, but the truth is evident: Many of them won't do well. And friends, there are few things that can make a kid feel worse about him or herself than a really hard test.

So last week in social studies, I helped guide the students through the online math practice test. A few minutes into the practice test, Mellie raised her hand. I walked over to her.

"I don't understand," she said. I looked down at the math problem. It was something about inputs and outputs, and I had no idea how to solve it either.

"Just try your best. Think it through..." I encouraged.

"No, you don't get it. I DON'T know how to do this. I am so stupid," she explained. And then the tears started to fall. This beautiful, confident girl, a girl who has moved eleven times, a girl who was finally in one place longer than a few months, simply broke down in the middle of my room.

And I froze. Because what do you say to that? I put my arm around her and looked her in the eye. I tried to explain that she was smart, and that the test is hard. So, so hard. I tried to explain that many students are feeling the same way she is, and that there's no way she would know it all right now. But my words were futile in stopping the tears. She listened, and then she said something that stopped me in my tracks:

"No. That's not true. If this is what's on the test, then THIS is what I'm supposed to know. And I don't know it, so I must be stupid. Otherwise, why would they ask us these questions?"

And my reply...my awful, horrible reply to that statement: "Try your best."

I wanted to tell her that it didn't matter. I wanted to tell her that the TEST is stupid. But I didn't. Instead, I uttered those three useless words.

That night, I went home and couldn't get Mellie off my mind. If a practice test can drive a confident girl like Mellie to tears, what is it doing to all the quiet, insecure kids out there? What is it doing to the ones who will never speak up, and instead, are wrestling with these feelings internally?

I wish I would have said something different in that moment, but like so many moments in my career, I said the wrong thing.  The next day, I slipped her this card in the hallway, and walked away. I don't know if it made her feel any better, but at least I told her the truth.

61 days left.

71

From Kindergarten on, I knew precisely what I wanted to be when I grew up:

A teacher.

My career preparation started early. As a young girl, I used to study the teachers more than the content, paying closer attention to how they taught than what they taught. I took note of what worked and what didn’t. I paid attention to ways they made kids feel special and ways they made kids feel horrible. Ways they encouraged kids to do homework, and methods that made it easy to cheat.  I even kept a little notebook titled “What to Do and What Not to Do When I’m a Teacher.” I was always, always watching. 

But as I sit here reflecting on all those teachers throughout the years, I’d be hard-pressed to tell you specific lessons or books we read. And that’s the funny part, right?  Because although school’s primary purpose is rooted in the BIG things like reading, writing, and arithmetic, those aren’t the things we remember with clarity all these years later. No, we remember the way we felt.

I remember how Miss Distelrath gave us popcorn every Friday. Not the microwave kind, but the real, buttery, air-popped popcorn in a greasy brown paper bag.  One time, I asked her if she made it at school during lunch. “No,” she replied. “I make it at home on Thursday nights.”  This was a revelation to me! Teachers go home? They have houses? And husbands? And kids? We aren’t the center of their universe?

 Miss Distelrath cared enough about us to make us popcorn at home. At night. In her real life.  And because of that, we felt loved. And I knew that someday, I wanted to make kids feel loved like that.

I remember the beanbags in Mrs. Dietz’s room during story time. We would rush to the reading carpet to claim our spot as she read aloud. She read to us for pleasure, creating voices and characters, making the story come alive, and we relaxed on those beanbags, taking it all in.  We were comfortable. And I knew that someday, I wanted to make kids feel comfortable like that.

I remember Mrs. Keogh’s standing ovations. There were 25 kids in our class, and every day, for 25 straight days, a student received a standing ovation. A screaming, clapping, shouting celebration of his or her existence.  Each day, in those 60 seconds, something magical happened. Popularity and loneliness were erased as the jocks and cheerleaders whooped and hollered for the bookworms and vice versa. No one’s ovation was louder than anyone else’s. The bully was celebrated. The nerds were celebrated. And we all felt so special. I knew that someday, I wanted to make kids feel special like that.

But I also remember teachers who were cold. Teachers who were worn out or disillusioned with the career path they’d chosen. They would lecture the entire class for the fault of one, or show no interest in our lives. They would teach, assign homework, assess, and move on. Lather, rinse, and repeat - showing little interest in connecting with us as people. They made us feel invisible, and I knew I never wanted to make kids feel like that.

12 years ago, when I first started teaching 7^th grade, I armed myself with all the lessons I’d learned from my years of watching, walked into that classroom and did my best. I planned lessons, taught the content, and worked really damn hard to make each kid feel important. Looking back, those lessons were certainly not the best by any standards, and I’d like to think my skills as an educator have improved significantly throughout the years. My ability to make kids feel special, however, has waned. The standing ovations have been replaced by grammar drills. The comfortable, bright classroom has been replaced with anchor charts about mood and theme. Do they still know I  love them? I’m not so sure.

Last week, I made the most difficult decision of my life. I decided to stop teaching this spring.  There are many, many reasons behind this choice, but that’s not the purpose of this post, or the blog entries that will follow. Instead, I plan to chronicle the days I have left.

I sat down at my desk and counted the school days until June 4. There are exactly 71.

I have 71 days left in a career for which I’ve spent a lifetime preparing.

71 days to remind kids that no matter how they do on a test or a quiz, they are loved.

71 days to make each and every child feel comfortable in my classroom.

71 days to make let every one of those kids know that they are divinely special.

I  have lost my way from time to time over the years, but I vow to get back there. And I have 71 days left to do that.