The one where I retired: A bit of the wobblies (Part 3)

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Before school started last year–before my hall buddies returned to long, hot days in un-air-conditioned rooms, a new principal with all the uncertainty that brings, and meetings, meetings, meetings–I met friend Lindsey, my neighbor in the room next door, to set up a little surprise that I hoped would soften the institutional edges of my teacher friends’ days, even if only a bit. My going-away present to them.

Because teachers don’t get squat when it comes to comfortable–or nice-looking–interior decorating.

The district Central Office and high school offices had been redecorated at least once each during my tenure with the district … but my room in the original wing? Nary a lick of paint in all those years. A window that had no latch so that snow would sometimes blow through the crack. An office desk at least forty years old and file cabinets even older. For more than a few years, I’d tripped over a loose carpet seam until it was finally replaced. No working lock on anything (cupboard, desk, or cabinet) to hold my personal belongings. Staff break rooms are a mix of cast off furniture and appliances and the rest rooms are barely a step up from a highway rest stop.

But I digress.

What I was not prepared for the evening before school started–the year I wouldn’t return–was the wave that washed over me, memory so powerful it nearly knocked me over. The dusk was warm, sun sinking behind the trees as the band and color guard practiced in the parking lot–flags twirling, megaphone blaring, xylophone tinkling–just as they do every autumn. The halls were quiet as I climbed to the second floor, lights dimmed on the timer. And there was that smell, distinctive only to school buildings–some indeterminate combination of sweat and Expo marker and gym shoes and dust.

There is no other place on earth like this. None, I thought to myself.

And I remembered walking up those same stairs over Christmas break, probably to make copies or rearrange desks or change a bulletin board. How I climbed those stairs to leave lesson plans the night my dad died. I remembered leaning out of my second floor window oh so long ago to wave to my son (then 18, rebellious, bedecked in chains and JNCO jeans) when he dropped off something or other I needed from home. I remembered standing at the door of my room after state testing, passing out M&M(E) bars to the juniors I proctored. I remembered stacks of enveloped invitations and prom favors that covered every flat surface the month before prom. I remembered the personal protective order I filed against two students, the media hullabaloo that followed–and the administration that, in many ways, failed me. Reciting the pledge each morning with black, brown, white, and native kids; gay and straight; able-bodied or not; Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh. I remembered the times I called for Mr. MERT–frantically–while also trying to comfort: “It will be okay. Help is coming, sweetie.” I remembered dark, dark days of my own when Room B209 was an anchor and it was my students who kept me putting one foot in front of the other.

But I didn’t take a peek in the room at the top of those stairs, my home away from home for close to twenty years. Memories or no, I couldn’t. It was no longer my room–I knew that. This was no longer my place … and I was okay with that.

Which is not to say I left dry-eyed.

The one where I retired: The Prologue (Part 1)

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Six months ago I set out on this new retirement journey, and I want to remember my experiences along the way. I wrote this prologue two years before my last day of teaching and kept it hidden away until now.

Early June 2016:

Yesterday–before I left for the summer–I tore another June off my desk calendar, ticking off my twenty-third year of teaching. Since I’m only a couple years from retirement, I’ve started to  think about about my identity as ‘teacher’–and more importantly, what the loss of that role will mean for me. Before this gig, I was ‘homemaker’, marriage coming in my late teens and then my first pregnancy soon after. When the marriage ended and I went back to school, I substituted ‘student’’ for ‘homemaker’ and eventually settled on ‘teacher’.

For the next twenty-three years, that was me–the role I’ve played longer than nearly any other. I graded papers over countless weekends, worked on lesson plans at night, ran copies before and after school, herded 120 plus sixteen-year-olds through five successive hours each day. It was up at 5 AM and to bed at 9 PM. I filed and organized and decorated each August. I drooped and stashed and tore down every June.

So I’m beginning to think about what my good bye will mean for me. I need time to break it to myself gently because that’s how I deal with life. Little-by-little I disentangle myself; bit-by-bit I take another step away. Emotionally, this can’t be a ripping-off-the-bandaid type of departure.

Last week I read a wonderful book about high school in Poland, Korea, and Finland titled The Smartest Kids in the World. (This won’t be a book review, but let me suggest you get the book and start reading now, it’s that good.) Author Amanda Ripley followed three American high schoolers who were dissatisfied with their schooling in the States and became exchange students. Ripley framed her portraits of the teens with statistics and narratives about the success of the education systems in their respective countries. It was clear from the data that other countries have strengths we don’t. The American teens felt their experiences in Polish and Finnish high schools gave them something their home schools never could: higher expectations, greater social freedom, schooling and teachers held in higher esteem. (Korea was a mixed bag because of the hagwon system of after-school tutoring sometimes referred to as cram-school.)

There is plenty I’ve become disenchanted with over the past twenty three years myself. Teachers now walk in lock step, we’re continually testing and reviewing data, we’ve seen our pay and benefits shrink year after year. When I was a fresh, wide-eyed teacher I couldn’t understand the jaded, worn-out senior teachers. Now, sadly, I do. So somehow in the next few years I need to figure out what memories I’ll let define my teaching career. And I’ve started to cherish those times (sometimes with a lump in my throat) I know are coming to a close–like reading long passages of literature aloud, conferencing with students about their rewrites, and connecting a teen with a good book.

And this.

A few years ago our then-new principal (a Troops to Teachers guy, as I understood it) started the practice of reciting the pledge after morning announcements. Seven hundred voices join together in tradition, one that brings back my own school days.

I watch my motley assortment of teenagers–diverse in race, economic status, sexual orientation–pledge their allegiance to our country, the God of their understanding, and each other, and I am moved, at times, to tears.

This, I will remember.