I was just looking through old yearbooks. Not from when I was in school, but pictures of the students who used to be here.
I think I have a reputation among students for being distant and uncaring. There are good characterisations in the reviews, like fair and very good at what I claim to know something about, but it's the uncaring part that always gets to me when it shows up. Leafing through the books, I realised that they are probably right - not that I don't care, but that I appear not to care.
You see - I care too much. Looking at the pictures of the students from 10 years ago brought them back, their voices, their problems, their grief and joy. I could hear their questions and see their frowns of concentration. I remember exams where their hands were shaking too much to hold a glass of water, and the wild joy of a good grade or the pleasure of solving a problem. They are so alive to me, individual, unique, precious.
And then they go. I spill my knowledge before them to pick and choose and take what they like - and that is what they do. They take what they want and leave me, and I am alone to face 25 new faces with new thoughts, ideas and questions, year after year.
I need to keep some pieces of me for myself. So I won't ever be the most popular teacher, the one who parties and is a pal, or spends hours chatting over coffee in a circle of students. I will just teach them what I can, and love them, carefully, at arms length distance.
This post really resonated for me. And I sometimes think that when some of our colleagues are "pals," it is really more about them, themselves, than it is about their liking for the students.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to make any assumptions about the motivation of the people who are able to be friends with the students and go on like that year after year, I rather admire the quality. But yes, I think it's a quality with the people who can do that, and not a measure of their actual feelings.
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