This brain. It’s a puzzle that comes apart and I’ve
assembled it back together more times than I can recall since the students I work with can’t
quite seem to get the trick yet. As I
was putting it back together this afternoon it seemed fitting and metaphorical
as it feels like this year I’ve had to reassemble myself on umpteen occasions
as I would find myself feeling like my brain has been scrambled and pulled
apart by kids—only to be left needing to be put back together again.
This is---figuratively—the life of an educator.
These kids will tear you apart.
They tear apart your
understanding and what you think you know.
The students we are reaching now are worlds apart different then the kids I worked
with 5-10 years ago. As society,
upbringing and technology changes, so do the cognitive processes and brain development of
our students. As a result, what worked
back then—is starting to feel like an obsolete method of reaching kids. Instead of the easy paced and comfortable run
it used to feel like, now some days—most days—it feels like a full on sprint
relay. You go your fastest, hardest and
smartest and then you try to pass on the baton to the next one as you catch
your breath. It’s societal,
developmental, emotional and environmental.
Now the fact seems to be, if we don’t change to meet them where they are
at, we’ll lose them. Basically, it
feels like I need to go back to school to figure it out.
They tear apart your
emotional cool. You become
dysregulated on the daily as you watch students skyrocket and plummet in their
emotional states and often times take it out on you—when it has nothing to do
with you. You are actually the only
person they feel safe “letting it loose” on.
They can be disrespectful, tactless, hurtful and rude and sometimes when
that is what you are exposed to on a regular basis, you can find your own
emotional regulation to be much like a roller coaster ebbing and flowing up and
down while on the outside you try your best to embody a calm, caring and
empathetic demeanor. Or on the flip side,
sometimes they come to you and confide in you about some really awful things
that no child should have to endure or even have thoughts about as you try to
lovingly listen to them while hot tears run down your cheek that you try to
choke back. And then at the end of the
day—what happens? We convince ourselves that we are not fit for this work anymore. Not good enough, skilled enough or passionate enough. We go home and often
release the kraken of built up emotion on our most loved and precious
relationships or we withdraw and seclude ourselves because any more human
interaction is just “too much”.
They tear apart what
worked for you before. Well, at the beginning of the year XYZ worked, but
now that’s no longer working so you go from plan to plan to plan to set them up
for success—another reason to lose your emotional cool. Just when you get into a rhythm of strategies
that prove to be successful and you feel like a rock star—you have a handful of
little friends that completely challenge that and bring you back to square
one. This, in essence, is the Olympic sport
portion of working in schools. Pushing
yourself and your own philosophy and mental models to the extreme in order to
find that holy nugget of a plan that will work for your students most in
need. FYI, they don’t teach you how to
do that in your master’s program.
They tear apart your
heart. Some of them, you invest
hours or even years into and then they suddenly leave without warning and you’re
left with a hole. Some of them you have
to make the choice to protect and advocate for even if it means displacing them
from their home environment. Some of
them shine bright like stars and remind you of the joys of working with kids. Some test your passion of why you went into
education as you invest so much into them and it seems like no progress has
been made. And some play with your heart
day in and day out as you see them fall apart over and over again, you see them
pick up their pieces and start over, you see them find courage in asking for
help, you see them have light bulb moments, you see them emerge into leaders,
you see them discover their talents, you see them overcome struggles, you see
them mature and then one day—maybe---have the privilege to see them as young
adults ready to embark on a new adventure into adulthood as really great human beings—thanks
to the so many seeds that were planted along the way by educators—seeds that
you don’t always get to see grow in your presence, but know they are there.
And then they leave you on the last day apart in pieces on
the ground needing to be picked back up again. Insert summer where the school
year amnesia begins to form and then we come back in the fall and do it all
over again. Your brain is pieced back together—refreshed, whole and energetic
towards a new clean slate of a year.
Perhaps it’s a cruel and unusual punishment to work in education and let
kids tear us apart, but in hindsight—at the end of our careers—there is no
doubt in my mind that we will have full hearts as we look back on the garden we
helped to grow from the seeds we work as a team to sprinkle.
(Disclaimer: I refer to myself as an
educator because I work as a licensed school counselor. I am not and have not
been a licensed teacher, so this is purely from my perspective in my work with
students and does not speak for all educators.
Teachers are superheroes and I surely could not do what they do!)
