I’ve
learned a lot of lessons in my life. I teach a lot, but through my teaching is
when I learn best. It’s hard to know which are the best lessons to teach
because it’s really based on knowing when a person’s ready to listen and learn
them. Sometimes we hear things we know are significant. Sometimes we see a
lesson play out months after hearing the lesson in the first place.
One lesson I've learned:
Everybody’s just doing their
best to be happy.
When I
first heard that, it was significant.
I was all like, wow—soOo true. I heard it, moved on. You only really know how
significant a lesson is when it replays over and over again. It becomes a
common theme in your life. You can choose to make it part of your life, or not.
I suppose I’ve chosen to.
I’ve
learned a lot about what it means to love unconditionally. Being able to love
someone through all his or her faults is actually quite easy.
No one
chooses where they were born, for example. No one chooses their parents. No one
chooses how they were raised. As expected, I’ve learned this lesson from my
students, my children, or as I generally tend to put it, my babies.
Teaching
first grade was incredible. Watching how quickly the little ones can develop
and process information with just a bit of structuring, repetition, and
socializing is phenomenal. Humans are incredible. We are incredible. They are
so eager to learn. All they want to do is grow and become superheroes and show
off that they, too, can do all that you’ve taught them. LOOK AT MY STORY. THIS
CAME FROM MY BRAIN. ISN’T THAT FUCKING COOL? Is what I’d imagine they say
inside their little baby brains.
Teaching
fifth grade has been a completely different experience; a genuine struggle.
These are not babies. These are very very very immature adults. They have fully
developed brains, unique personalities, with highly developed thoughts and
perceptions about the world. They do not trust easily and they keep many
secrets. They can be incredibly misguided, and incredibly hilarious.
I
realize that a lot of my story is unique because of where I work and the
particular population of kids I work with. These kids are real and know more
and have seen more than I probably have or ever will in my lifetime.
They
have not chosen where they grew up. They have not chosen who their parents are.
They have not chosen where they were raised. At this age of ten, I am dealing
with a group of kids who are just realizing their realities. Many of them, deep
down, are angry and depressed. What’s interesting about childhood anger and depression
though, is that they do not realize they are sad. They do not realize they are
angry. Or if they do, they cannot formulate a particular reason for why they
feel these things. So what do they do? They act out. They rebel. They stop
listening. They stop caring. They make fools of themselves. They hurt
themselves.
This
has been my struggle for some time now. How can I get my students to value
their work? How can I get my students to value their lives, regardless of
whether or not they come from stable, loving homes?
So now
I stop because I want to revise. I want to take out every place I say ‘students’
and replace it with ‘babies’. How can I get my babies to value their lives?
Humans are amazing. They are capable of achieving everything and anything in
the world, if their heart is in the right place. So, my life goal is now to put
their hearts in the right place. If no one at home is going to provide them the
love and care they need, I will.
I will.
For this reason is why I now place Unconditional Love at the top of my to-do
list every single day at work. Unconditional does not negate tough-love though.
This is what it must be like to be a great parent. One who has limitless love
for the little being they brought into the world, but is set on setting
stringent boundaries for them to go on carrying successful lives.
My
babies drive me crazy. There are times I scream my head off and suspend them
and take away recess and call their parents and send them to the principals
office and rip their heads off in the hallways and kick chairs and not allow
them to go on field trips and make them cry and make them hate me and get them
talking about me behind my back.
But
then, in a moment, we recover and we move on and we forgive. I sit down with
them and I help them. We recover. We both give a little and we come back
together and love each other. There’s literally nothing I wouldn’t do for these
kids. If I could, I would adopt them all for my own. I cannot imagine my life
without them, and attribute everything I am, everything I’ve grown into, to
them. They bring out the best in me, and they are what make me real. They are
the ones who make me value life and everything it has to offer. They make me
want to be a better person, every. single. day.
My goal
is to foster the growth of these beautiful children with love and learning with
the hope of happiness and success, whatever that may look like to them. But
most of all, to just learn how to be happy and to find joy in whatever it is
that feeds their soul. I want to give them the tools and the pathways for that
happiness.
Because
I’ve learned the lesson that everyone’s just trying their best to be happy. A
kid’s got the right to be happy. If no one else is going to give it to them, I
will.
Also,
their hugs are awesome. You wouldn't even believe.
/endrant
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