Hold fast

A wise, wise woman once told me to hang on tightly to the rewards of teaching when you find them, because they can seem awfully meager compared to the raging cyclone of work-related BS you’re forced to put up with.

Teaching, like life, is filled with peaks and valleys. In my experience, the valleys are low – devastatingly, heart-breakingly, soul-crushingly low. And while there are, occasionally, career highs to match - those breathless, tingling, heart-singing moments of transcendence - they are quite rare (this is, of course, why they stand out).

What come around more often are these other, lower-altitude, more run-of-the mill peaks… The thing about them is that they often seem, well… not quite high enough. Maybe not worth the effort. Nice, but not exceptional. Pleasant but imperfect.

So the trick is savoring the highs, any and all of them. Holding on to them reallyreallyreally tight, enjoying them as long and as hard as you can. Imbuing them with meaning and significance that may or may not exist in reality. If that’s all you get, you want to make it count.

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In the past, I’ve felt a weird, conflicted sense of guilt when people would commend me for my teaching or compliment my work as a teacher. I didn't feel proud of my work. My internal response was thanks, but what do you know?

Almost every day after lunch my first two years, I would get love notes from my students in careful but crooked first-grader scrawl, filled with hearts and flowers and professing their eternal and undying love and proclaiming that I was the best teacher ever to have walked the earth… and while I certainly appreciated their displays of affection, it sort of felt like rubbing salt in a wound, like receiving a medal for some feat that I hadn’t really accomplished, or like getting an A on a quiz I’d cheated on. I knew in my heart that I wasn’t the best teacher ever; I sincerely hoped I wouldn't turn out to be the best teacher they’d ever have, and I also knew that I wasn’t even the best teacher that I was capable of being.

First graders will break your heart with their unconditional love, and their easily bestowed but un-researched superlatives. Six-year olds don’t have much basis for comparison, after all. I felt I was undeserving of their love and devotion.

But this year, when a chocolate easter bunny appeared on my desk under a post-it note that said I was the best teacher ever, I was able to accept the gesture more graciously. I didn’t have to suppress the deisre to try and disabuse A--- of her misguided notion about my teaching prowess.

I thought, if she feels that way about me, then I should bask in it - whether or not I deserve it, whether or not it is empirically true. If she felt compelled to express her love and appreciation in this way, then it’s only polite to feel appreciated and loved…

This is in stark contrast to my reception of the guilt-inducing rainbows and flowers and crayon-portraits bestowed on me by my first graders. How come? I guess part of me feels that fifth graders are slightly more discriminating, that they know better, and they’d only say it if they really meant it.

But I think the real difference is that for the first time, I feel like I am deserving of this type of post-it note praise... Not that I actually AM the “best teacher ever” – that title probably belongs to someone more along the lines of Jesus or Socrates or Ron Clark or the Dalai Lama… but if I look for the kernel of truth in A’s kind hyperbole, what I see is recognition that I am striving to be the best Ms. D ever…and for that, I feel nothing but gratitude.

So I choose to interpret my chocolate Easter bunny as a "peak," a reward, a hard-earned prize that I am trying hard to deserve. I choose to accept this gift in acknowledgment that I'm not, nor will I ever be, the best teacher, but that aiming for our ideals helps us strive to be our own best, whatever that means.