Small Strokes Big Oaks

“Will you miss us?”

At the end of every year, this is the question on the tip of all the students’ tongues.  They want to know if you’ll miss them, if you’ll think about them over the summer, if you’ll look forward to seeing them in the hallways next year.

The answer is always “Yes,” of course, but teachers’ lives are incredibly cyclical.  Every August, you go back into your classroom and set up for the year to come.  Every October, the routine sets in and you see a long stretch of academia in front of you and you feel like you might not make it to winter break.  Every December, you’re filled with inspiration about the semester to come.  Every February, you are so sick of being cold and the students are suffering from cabin fever and you’re not sure you’ll make it to summer.  Every May, you say goodbye, tear down all the bulletein boards you so painstakingly set up in August and updated religiously throughout the year, and dream of pools, beach reading, and what you’ll do differently next year to make your teaching, your craft, your art even better.

Students’ lives are similarly cyclical, but they are done with your class when they leave it on that last day.  They want to be missed, and they look foward to bigger and better things, whatever those may be.  Teachers’ work, however, is never done, and rather than looking foward to bigger and better things, we look foward to a clean slate, new challenges, constant improvement, and inspiring and being inspired by new students.

Every teacher has bad years, good years, fun years, sad years, years where they’re soaring above the clouds, years where it’s all they can do to tread water.

This year, for me, was not a bad year or a sad year, but it didn’t seem like a good year or a fun year either.  Of course, there were bad days, dad days, good days, and fun days, but overall, I’d call this a Rut Year.

If you’ll recall, I had some personal stuff going on this year.  My entire August through October was taken up with wedding planning and subsequent wedding recovery.  Once that was over, my best friend got married in December and then the holidays were upon us.  When we got back to school in January, I started directing a play and planning a tournament at our school, which lasted until mid-March.  Spring break was the first time I really got a chance to sit down and think about the school year in progress and I realized something scary: I made almost no improvement to my teaching this year.

This isn’t to say I feel like I”m a bad teacher or I taught poorly this year.  I just did what worked last year and made very few changes.  I don’t fault myself for it, and I doubt anyone can fault me for it either considering everything I had going on this year, and some years just have to be like that, but if I’m not growing, I’m not happy.  That’s one of the reasons I chose teaching in the first place; I wanted to continually grow and change and never be bored. 

So, at the end of this year’s academic cycle, of course I will miss my current students and look forward to seeing them in the hallways next year.  But I am really looking forward to a clean slate, and a school year during which I can better negotiate the work/personal life balance.  I want to tip it a bit more toward the “work” side next year and put some more time into redesigning my curriculum, coming up with new and eye-opening works for my students to read and discuss, creating and implementing new projects to foster critical thinking, and making connections with my students.

I know that next year there will be good days and bad days, sad days and fun days, but I am hoping that, if I spend some time on my own professional growth next year, I will discover new and interesting things about myself and my future students will discover new and interesting things about literature, their own thoughts and dreams, and their community.