Truth is, this blog entry has been years in the making, although I had yet to find the right words to put into perspective the effect that these broken bonds have on those who have created them. I certainly haven't truly found those "right words", but today's events have so compelled me to try my hardest to get it out. To illustrate the magic and love and life that truly spawns within the school environment in which I was lucky enough to once be a part of is really impossible. The school, specializing in educating students with severe language-based learning disabilities is named after a tree that starts out as a tiny, rather insignificant acorn, and yet, if nurtured properly grows deep roots and becomes a solid, strong, powerful, virtuous life.
What we do within the wall of White Oak School reaches far beyond the realm of commonplace "teaching". We spend countless hours slaving in front of computer screens analyzing the needs and goals for each and every student we work with. We spend countless hours hunched over the copier in the teacher's lounge making individualized lessons for each kid complete with teacher-generated text, notes, and manipulatives. We spend countless hours before and after school speaking with parents, advocates, and other teachers to ensure that each student is on point-- and if they aren't-- we are sure to discuss management strategies. We spend countless hours in IEP meetings, mandatory professional development inservices, regular parent-teacher conferences, and irregular roundtable discussions. We spend countless hours on weekends and school vacations brainstorming, planning and prepping lessons 6-weeks in advance and rewriting reports and legal documents that have been edited with a fine-toothed comb.
So why would anyone sign up for this energy-depleting, stressful, hour-eating job? Simply stated: For the kids. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE to not get attached to these students. Because in between the thankless hours of incessant typing and repetitious droning of terms like "moderate teacher assistance" and "given teacher prompting in the form of", there are also countless hours of sitting one-on-one with a kid in a 6'x6' cubicle 5 days a week. Here is where the magic happens. A magic that simply could not be replicated in a public school setting in a classroom full of 30 plus students.
Here is where emotional breakdowns and educational triumphs take place. Here is where "I can'ts" become "I did." Here is where broken dreams breathe new life; where kids who have lost confidence in themselves learn that all is possible with a little faith and a lot of hard work. Here is where details about home life are shared, trust develops, and genuine, caring, nurturing relationships evolve. Here is where strangers become family and the phrase "blood is thicker than water" becomes a fallacy.
Granted, a teacher can't love all their students. But every once in awhile you get that special kid assigned to you. The one that makes you work a little harder. The one who reignites that withering spark within you and reminds why you chose this profession in the first place. The one who makes you strive because you want them to thrive. The one who can frustrate the hell out of you some days because you want more for them than they want for themselves. And every so often you have the kids that fits all of the former criteria, but also meets a new one: The one who has no serious support, no credible guidance, no home life to write home about. This is the one who you would put your career on the line for. The one who you attend extra curricular activities so that there is at least someone on the sidelines cheering for them. The one who you sneak their favorite food into school because you know their parents or legal guardians didn't pack them lunch. The one who you secretly wish you could just take home with you because you know they would be better off there than in the environment that they will return to at the end of the school day. The one who haunts you even past their day of graduation.
These kids become "our kids". In many cases, we are the closest thing to family that they have. They confide in us. They celebrate with us. They cry on our shoulders. And, oftentimes, they bring tears to our own eyes whether it be out of frustration, or a successful reading in front of the entire school, or a sincere dedication in their yearbook message or Senior Address. It is because of these special individuals we cannot listen to Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth sing "For Good" without getting an enormous lump in our throats. We may have not carried them within our womb, but we certainly carried them in our hearts.
I think ahead to what the services within the next week celebrating this very special young man will look like and can't help but predict that it will, ironically, resemble the pews at my wedding. Not in respect to the number of people there, but who, indeed, are sitting in those seats. The majority of my wedding guests were not blood relatives, but my coworkers from White Oak. And why would all of these people spend their weekends to gather at a fellow staff member's nuptials or a former student's farewell? Simply stated: We're family.
