I just found the post below saved as a draft. I can't figure out how to see when I originally wrote it, and I can't remember exactly how long ago the visit I describe happened. It's at least a couple of years old.
Getting my stuff from my classroom Saturday morning was really, really hard. Viscerally.
It's funny that as I was packing shit up, I got a text from J, just checking in. I've been trying to get in touch with him for months but haven't been able to.
I asked him how he was. He responded, "Tryna get on ma feet, but itz hard." Me, too.
Still not alone. Dang.
----
Whenever I'm asked (which isn't that often but often enough actually) who influenced me to be a teacher, I always tell the asker about my former student, J. Obviously, by the time I met J, I was already teaching, but he, I'd say, had the most major impact on the kind of teacher I became or tried to become.
I visited J in jail this morning. I'd lost touch with him, but I saw his name in the paper, looked him up using the country clerk's website, and found out where he is.
He didn't look good. He looked skinny, and his skin was all broken out. His hair was a hot mess. He was talking really low, keeping his head and eyes down. "You seem depressed," I told him, "Tell me what's up with you." He told me that he wasn't depressed, just that he'd been sleeping before being pulled for my unexpected visit. "Yeah, yeah," I responded, skeptical, "Listen. Takes one to know one. You seem depressed, J. Sluggish or something."
"Yeah, you would know..." he trailed off. He remembered when I was depressed a few years ago when I was his teacher for the second year in a row. "You were so messed up and skinny. I didn't even wanna come to school." We both laughed at that. Yeah, I was pretty messed up then. He would know; he was there.
When we take our students human-ness seriously, and when we try to find ways to humanize ourselves in spite of our institutionalized authority, I think an intimacy emerges that is risky for sure (I'm not sure how I feel, as a young woman, about having a male former student commenting on my body at all, even if it's to refer to my mental/physical health) and that is also warm and persistent.
In the traditional high school setting, we spend hours each week with our students. That's more time than I get to spend with my close friends, my family, or even my colleagues. We know things about each other, both the things that explicitly get shared in class and the things that we pick up through observation and interaction -- ticks, facial expressions, values. J's comment then, in a way, told me "I know you. I know you made it through a difficult time. I remember." It's a variation of "You're not alone," the sentiment that brought me to a sense of faith after a life of atheism.
Getting my stuff from my classroom Saturday morning was really, really hard. Viscerally.
It's funny that as I was packing shit up, I got a text from J, just checking in. I've been trying to get in touch with him for months but haven't been able to.
I asked him how he was. He responded, "Tryna get on ma feet, but itz hard." Me, too.
Still not alone. Dang.
----
Whenever I'm asked (which isn't that often but often enough actually) who influenced me to be a teacher, I always tell the asker about my former student, J. Obviously, by the time I met J, I was already teaching, but he, I'd say, had the most major impact on the kind of teacher I became or tried to become.
I visited J in jail this morning. I'd lost touch with him, but I saw his name in the paper, looked him up using the country clerk's website, and found out where he is.
He didn't look good. He looked skinny, and his skin was all broken out. His hair was a hot mess. He was talking really low, keeping his head and eyes down. "You seem depressed," I told him, "Tell me what's up with you." He told me that he wasn't depressed, just that he'd been sleeping before being pulled for my unexpected visit. "Yeah, yeah," I responded, skeptical, "Listen. Takes one to know one. You seem depressed, J. Sluggish or something."
"Yeah, you would know..." he trailed off. He remembered when I was depressed a few years ago when I was his teacher for the second year in a row. "You were so messed up and skinny. I didn't even wanna come to school." We both laughed at that. Yeah, I was pretty messed up then. He would know; he was there.
When we take our students human-ness seriously, and when we try to find ways to humanize ourselves in spite of our institutionalized authority, I think an intimacy emerges that is risky for sure (I'm not sure how I feel, as a young woman, about having a male former student commenting on my body at all, even if it's to refer to my mental/physical health) and that is also warm and persistent.
In the traditional high school setting, we spend hours each week with our students. That's more time than I get to spend with my close friends, my family, or even my colleagues. We know things about each other, both the things that explicitly get shared in class and the things that we pick up through observation and interaction -- ticks, facial expressions, values. J's comment then, in a way, told me "I know you. I know you made it through a difficult time. I remember." It's a variation of "You're not alone," the sentiment that brought me to a sense of faith after a life of atheism.
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