Tough SOB

The reality is setting in. Tomorrow is the last day of summer school for my kids, and the last time I will be their teacher. It's been a long four weeks with many ups and downs, triumphs and trials, smiles and tears.

I may be overly-sentimental, but it's obvious that my kids are awesome. They have their good days and their bad. In their awkward adolescence, and "I'm too old for this" attitude with a hint of whine, they can do amazing things.

My mentor teacher said that our group of teachers* has gotten more work out of them in 4 weeks than their teachers do all year. This speaks to an injustice that fuels my need to teach -- no child should fall through the cracks like that.

One of our students wrote us a letter today. It was on one sheet of paper, folded up into a loose-leaf sheet-created envelope that read: "I want all of my summer school teachers to get together and read this letter. PS: Don't open it until all are together." The envelope was also adorned with, "I'll mizz you ALLLL"

When we were all together, at the end of math, a time when we usually commiserate over the end of the day and exchange "how did they do?" stories (and vent), we sat down and I read her letter aloud. It said,

"Dear Teachers,

I want to thank you all for a wonderful summer. I've leaned back and given up but you guys motivated me to all subjects and on not getting frustrated or giving up. I will miss you all and I hope I could visit your country [note from Ms. O'Malley: they know we are from Ohio, Colorado, and Illinois] and get to see you guys and I've always said, this is a small world and you might never know. But I will have a little memory of each of you guys. Thank you and I hope you teach students that want to learn and that have as much fun as I had with you guys.

Thank you I'll mizz u and xoxoxo to you all,

[YP]"

I haven't been a perfect teacher but they have been growing students. I see it in their writing, their behaviors, and their interactions with each other. This letter affirmed my feelings. Obviously, I don't know or attempt to think all of my students feel this way, but I do hope that even in a small way, I have touched their lives in a positive way.

I had to write this because in just this past moment, I felt like the going was getting tough. I am behind on the evening's work because of my own procrastination and because of a problem I have with my Mac optical drive. I now have to, sometime between New York, Colorado, and Oklahoma...between the end of institute, the much-needed family time, the move, and the start of my new job, I have to get my computer fixed.

I had to remember my students from today to keep me from breaking down, after all of this hard work and exhaustion, and all of the professional and personal challenges in my life at the moment. They ground me.

Sometimes, I find myself trailing off into conversation about my students with other TFA people, or even friends. Today, one such conversation happened spontaneously when we were supposed to be doing work. Instead, we sat in one of the empty classrooms in our building and exchanged some group therapy about our kids, our colleagues, and this job. The bottom line?

Regardless of one's life circumstances, uncertainties, and personal frustrations -- we are the only people, in many cases, that these students have. This job isn't about us, it's about them. Sometimes, that's the hardest thing in the world to fulfill -- especially when things outside of the classroom pose deep challenges to that -- but, we just have to get over it. Our students don't care about our problems and rightfully so -- they have some of their own. And they exist in a system that can't successfully get them through 10 months of school each year.

I will never discount my experiences, nor will I devalue theirs. Still, we are partners in this effort toward their achievement of their potential, and in the grand scheme of things, that is the reason we all should be here.

As one of my colleagues put it, we just need to be "tough sonuva bitches."

I have just 24 hours left for these students. I need to get to work.

~MJ

*(there are four of us -- two English and two Math that teach the same group of kids in the same classroom for four hours a day. Our students all go to school together at a school we are not teaching in right now, but they were placed in our "program" as 8th grade summer schoolers to pass into high school. There are two students that were transferred to our class from another program for behavioral reasons).