Skip to main content

They Grow Up

I have been teaching long enough that my original students are now adults. Young adults, mind you, but adults nonetheless. Many are college graduates. One is married with a baby. One is a professional ballet dancer. I follow their progress on social media. Yes, some people actually "friend" their preschool and kindergarten teachers.

 

Occasionally I will search around on Facebook to see if I can find former students and see how they are doing. It's so amazing to see how they have grown, what they look like, what studies they have been pursuing. It's also pretty amazing to see how many of them keep in contact with friends they made at the small independent school where I taught them so many years ago.

 

This week as I lay around in the throes of a head cold, I made another such pilgrimage around Facebook to check on those former preschoolers and kindergarteners. One of them seemed to have disappeared. Well, Facebook isn't as popular as it used to be amongst the young, I thought. So I did a quick search on Google.

 

And then I saw the words I never thought to see: obituary. He had taken his own life. No, no, no. How could that be true? He was so young. I just wanted to scream out to the universe the wrongness of this. These are not the words that teachers ever want to see. Teaching is both a gift fully in the moment and an investment in the future. And now this beautiful boy's future was gone.

 

I feel that saying any more about this would be a violation of his privacy and his family's. There is so much I could say but I have an underlying feeling that there's an extremely fine line between acknowledging my personal grief and exploiting this incident for the good of a blog post. And I just can't do that.

 

As a teacher you must let go year after year. You tell yourself you should get used to it, but part of you never does. A tiny piece of every student stays with you. You can't help but feel a sense of responsibility for what happens as they go forward. You don't expect every child to be brilliantly successful, but you hope they will find joy, meaningful challenges, friends, love, fulfillment.

 

My heart is heavy. I feel there must be something I should do. But all my years as a teacher have not prepared me for this. Dear Child who was no longer a child--farewell. Your life meant something. The world cannot be the same without your beautiful spirit.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

Getting Fresh

One of my favorite days in the Spring comes when this year’s list of Farmer’s Markets is released. That happened this week. New this year are markets in Old Ellicott City and the “Merriweather Market” which, according to the address, will be located here . I mistakenly thought at first glance that it was in the new-construction part of the Merriweather District. I find the name confusing considering its actual location. I’m going to guess that this market is an initiative of the Howard Hughes Corporation because the name seems chosen more for branding purposes than anything else.  Alas, the market in Maple Lawn is gone. The thread on the markets on the County Executive’s FB page will provide you with quite the education in who actually runs the Farmers Markets vs what people often think is going on. Short answer: they are not  chosen nor run by the county. Each market is an independent entity, sometimes started by community volunteers, other times supported by local businesses...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more