By Emma Ryan | The Learning Garden
What Does It Mean to be Present as a Busy Teacher?
He wasn’t in any of my classes.
I knew who he was because (like all of the kids who find themselves in trouble fairly often, it had been called over the loudspeaker more than once or twice throughout the school year), because other teachers had pointed him out to me as one to “look out for.” He’s a friendly kid, so I’d say hello to him in the hallways when I passed him a handful of times. The sum of our interactions for the entire year must have been no more than two minutes. I didn’t know much about him, and he certainly couldn’t have known too much about me.
But on the last day of school, he walked up to me with his yearbook and marker in hand and asked me to sign it.
I was totally surprised. “Me?” I wanted to say. But there he was, smiling at me. (He had braces, I noted. That was how little we’d interacted…I hadn’t even spent enough time with him to know that he had braces!)
So I signed it. I felt a little panicked, almost, unprepared. I wrote something warm and probably a little generic, because I didn’t know what else to write. I closed it when I was finished and handed it back to him. And he took the marker from me and carefully found the page I’d signed. He read it and beamed. He thanked me and walked off.
And I stood there thinking about being present.
Why That Moment Stuck With Me
I’m not one of the “cool” teachers. You know who I mean: one of the teachers who has a “thing.” Maybe they wear long skirts and sit on the desk with their guitar, or they perform elaborate song and dance during lessons, or they join the kickball game during recess. I also teach in a small resource room to kids who hate my subject. I haven’t been teaching in my current district very long, and I just don’t have the kind of school-wide fame that other teachers might.
So why me? Why did he want my signature in his yearbook? What was I to him?
It could be that he just liked the look of a full page of signatures…maybe I was just a way to fill the page a little more. But maybe it was more personal. Maybe–possibly–I was something special to him because of our small interaction on one day when it really mattered.
The thing that really touches me though, is that from where I was standing, our relationship was a hallway hello. From where he was standing, it was apparently enough to matter on the last day of school.
And this really changed my outlook.
Everything is a Big Deal When You’re A Kid
I think about this a lot, especially now, at the end of a school year, looking back at all the interactions that happened so quickly I didn’t register most of them. Now that the craziness of the school year has drawn to a close, and frustration, overwhelm, and exhaustion are not occupying my mind.
For teachers, a day in a building with hundreds of students moving through hallways is mostly noise — a blur of names, faces, and brief exchanges that don’t stay with us because they can’t. We don’t have the storage space. We see too many kids, too many days, for every interaction to register the way it might for them.
Furthermore, we’re thinking about other things. I personally find myself thinking about all of the things I have to do that have nothing to do with personal interactions: have to get this to the Child Study Team, have to touch base with this teacher, email this parent…to say nothing of the other items on my To Do list outside of school (I’m also a part time BCBA).
But for a kid–especially a kid who doesn’t particularly enjoy the academics of school–a single hallway hello from an adult who remembers their name might be one of maybe a dozen times that day that someone acknowledged they exist (in a positive way!). Social interactions carry a lot more weight than all that other “stuff” when you are 12.
And we, as teachers, tend to forget this, not because we don’t care, but because we are in “the grind” on a daily basis. Some of us have become jaded. We feel worn down by all of the extras in teaching–all of the things that we didn’t sign up for when we took the job. And sometimes we forget that this, really is what its all about.
What Is Our Job, Really?
So I think what I’ve learned from this experience is this: even when I barely pull myself into work in the morning, even when I’m improvising because the lesson I’d planned is tanking (we’ve all been there!), even when my personal life is all I can think about and I am just trying to get through the day, I can be enough.
Yes, teachers teach. Obviously this is the whole point of our job.
But being present: allowing ourselves to just be with students, as we are, in whatever capacity we are able, is enough.
A hello in the hallway is enough.
What It Means to Be Present
If I meant something to that student–if our simple interactions were enough for him, what does that mean for the students that I actually spend meaningful time with each day.
I think it means allowing myself to just be present. To just show up as I am. Some days I will be tired. Some days my patience will be thin.
But if I give myself permission to feel this way, I think I make it easier to accept students where they are as well.
And beyond that, it means searching for something I could write in a student’s yearbook every day. Some days, that might be very challenging. But the point is, just as there is good in me, even on the days when I am really struggling, there is good in my students. And when they see that I see that–that is a powerful thing. And that is the whole point.
The Reminder
I don’t have a system, a strategy, or a product to recommend to you. I’m writing this because it’s the end of the year, and I can’t stop thinking about this kid who felt seen by me, even when I didn’t feel like I was much of anything to him.
So this is just a reminder– if you’re not the cool teacher either — if you’re quiet, if you’re not the one who gets the loud goodbyes and the dramatic hugs — that’s okay. The kid in the hallway isn’t looking for cool. He’s looking for someone who said his name like it mattered.
You’re probably already doing that more than you know by just being present.
If
If this resonated with you, and you’d like to read more about what it means to show up as a teacher, check out my article on choosing your battles in the special education environment. If you’re interested in staying connected, join my email list here →