Teach

It occurred to me recently that teachers deserve a little more grace. When you think about the teachers who Ruined it For You, as in the teacher who ruined Beowulf for you due to his arrogant meanderings around his dissertation on this very tome NOT THAT I EVER SUFFERED AT THE HANDS OF AN HONORS BRIT LIT TEACHER OF THIS ILK, think if you ever gave them a chance to redeem themselves.

Did you? Did you tell them, Wow, you totally threw Beowulf under the bus for me, but Shakespearean love sonnets? Those weren't half bad.

The point is that teachers only get you for a year, or maybe a semester. Not like your parents who generally get a lifetime of opportunities. Your teachers can make you feel like molten shoe leather. And then you not only despise them, but you despise their material. They don't get a second shot. But your parents can disparage you, demoralize you, disown you for a temporary spell. But then later they can totally become this awesome force of life in your and your daughter's world and entire biographical chapters of ill will are erased.

I'm trying so hard, friends. I'm trying so hard to be a sensitive teacher. I'm fixing my mind on the things I will say and the things I will govern myself from saying, remembering that these students are only 19. They are someone's daughter. They are someone's son. I am totally frustrated at times and so...just not comprehending how my students cannot complete a reading assignment that took me 15 minutes this morning to read and annotate!?!

But I only get them for a semester. They are only a temporary audience to me, but the way I make them feel about themselves and the way I make them feel about English Composition can last, well, pretty much forever, right?

And that is the burden that I now know every instructor carries. It is a heavy one, and now it is mine.

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First grade. 1985.