I always have. Loved my students, I mean. N.B.: it’s not that unusual. It’s what teachers do. Daily. They enter their classes full of the girl who wasn’t picked for play yesterday, and the boy whose dad beat the tar out of him last night, and the girl whose brother died five years ago and who still grieves and the boy who wonders how he never noticed his brother was gay, and the girl whose mother tells her daily what a loser she is. Or the child whose parents are gone, one in prison, one just gone. Now s/he lives with an exhausted grandmother. Each of these needy, broken children is in multiple classes. And almost certainly, s/he has a teacher who LOVES. Classes are brimming with these students, and underpaid, overworked teachers who♥️♥️♥️.
It’s what they do. Each day. Exhausted as they are, every teacher I know loves. Daily. Hourly. Loves the slightly crazy, very needy girl in the front row who is a not-quite-recovering cutter. Loves the very needy boy in the back who wonders if he will ever be enough. And those who teach little bitties? They wipe noses, blot tears, kiss scrapes, tousle heads, reassure, listen listen listen. And LOVE.
It’s the job. And it’s HARD. But it’s also what makes teaching the calling it is for most of us. It’s at the heart of that calling, and why it’s soooo hard to evaluate — this recognition of the love at the heart of each teacher. It’s why teachers cover their children’s bodies w/ their own in a shooting (Sandy Hook) or a tornado (Moore, OK). It’s why they put up with the scorn of other professionals, the relentless paperwork, and the crappy pay. L-O-V-E.
I think of teaching — the decades I did it, at least — as almost a Buddhist practice, or a Christian offer of blessing. A Jewish mitzvah, a gift of compassionate love, sometimes even tough love. And yes: teaching is (obviously) also a means of helping students — of all ages — learn. But as I used to tell my own students, sometimes what you are learning isn’t the book, or even the content. It’s not how to write a research paper, but how to figure out a way to access the pain that wells up when you consider the things you care about, & might want to write about. For a Russian orphan, it may be foreign adoption. For the recovering cutter, it may be wrist-cutting syndrome. For the boy who is coming to terms w/his brother’s homosexuality, it may be how family can support gays.
A good teacher listens, and is, as Frost said, a gentle prod forward, along the path of self-knowledge & learning. Not ‘quail shot’! And even the teachers who may not be Pulitzer winners, or brilliant physicists, or theoretical research chemists? They know more than most folks ever will about how to love. And how it is love — old-fashioned love — that opens students minds. The way to the mind, good teachers know, is through the heart. A good teacher is, as Frost also notes, not simply a ‘teachers,’ but an ‘awakener.’ Smart man, that Frost. But then, he knew much about love.
And teachers deserve a LOT of ours.
Tea and Breath 