Sometimes we think in dreams.
We only want to believe in a bright future. An idealized vision for our students.
I've certainly been guilty of all of this and probably a whole lot more. I confess. Occasionally, we all need humility and a dose of reality. Teachers, we entered our profession to make a positive difference in the word. We try every day to make that happen.
But as much as we envision perfection in our classroom families, we fail. It's inevitable. Some might tell us, You can't save 'em all. I don't know if that's true or not. One of my college professors, in teaching Classroom Management, all those years ago, told our class, "Even the Master Teacher lost one of His twelve." I guess that means that if I have 24 students and only lose two, I can count myself on equal ground with Jesus.
Education in general has been through some strange movements in the last 20 years - initiatives to encourage a 100% success rate. We went through times when teachers were blamed for every student failure. Little to no regard was given to the actual antecedents for the failures.
But when one of our own fails - even when we are resoundingly not at fault - we still face ourselves in the mirror.
What did I do wrong?
What should I have done differently?
And then...we try to solve the situation retroactively. We might even resort to blaming someone else.
Years ago, a girl in my class gave me a present for Christmas. It was wrapped in wrinkled, used birthday wrapping paper. Blue. Clearly the gift was spherical, confirmed upon my unwrapping it. Inside was a worn Magic 8 Ball. The thing had been through the wringer. The words inside the window were washed out, almost to the point of being illegible.
I took her present to mean something - that she no longer needed to consult the "decision-making" toy, that now she could solve her own problems, that I had taught her some important life skills.
There's something idealistic about that story.
Just about every teacher who has been in the profession for a while has experienced tragedy through his/her students. A sibling passes away. Parents divorce. Someone gets hurt. A brother gets killed in an accident. A parent is arrested. A student gets abducted.
This week, one graduate of our class lost his older brother. The family, of course, is devastated, and no amount of sympathy can mend their hearts. They will forever remember their son's and brother's life and influence, his smile and his demeanor.
Another Hoggatteer graduate has now been arrested in an alleged knife attack on some people right here in our own community.
And we ask, Why? Why is an innocent life lost? Why does another take a wrong turn in life?
There is nothing that stops nature, but in the latter case, choices were made that are beyond the fourth grade teacher. I could have kept up with that child in the middle school and high school years. Some other teacher should have picked up the ball and run with it, connecting with the child, loving him, and proving to him that he could be something greater. His trajectory could have been tweaked.
It still could be, I suppose.
We spend a year loving a child, showing him/her that somebody cares. We spend a year poring over our students, emptying ourselves into them, giving them our best.
And then the tragedy happens. Hatred rears its ugly head. People are hospitalized.
I've heard that if you pray for patience, God will grant it to you - by giving you circumstances in which you must be patient. The same must be true of humility, as well. Pray for humility, and God will arrange circumstances to humble you.
I can't change the circumstances for a child who has lost his best friend, his brother, or his pet. I can't go back in time and deflect bullets or dull knives. I am a teacher. A human. A human teacher. A teacher of humans. I cannot change the past, and I cannot foretell the future. I must do what I can while I can - living and acting in the present to the best of my ability.
Sometimes we speak in platitudes...but perhaps that's how we encourage ourselves to keep going.