Well, friends, last night was the final meeting of classes for me at OSU, wrapping up my first year of teaching English ed full time.
We, our writing methods course, ended with an open mic. Students (preservice teachers) read pieces from their journals — writing we did during and beyond class meetings for the past 16 weeks. Students talked about their reasons for selecting certain pieces to share, how those pieces reveal dimensions of their writerly identities, and how doing the work of writers will impact their pedagogy. One student said, I realized that if I am going to teach writers that I should let people know that I write. Students shared writings about teaching, families, homes, and memories, and we snapped our applause.
We concluded our open mic, as always, with compliments on craft. But because we are navigating this duality as writers and teachers of writers students also celebrated one another as teachers, commenting on patience, compassion, vulnerability, humor, and dedication. It was sweet and evoked lots of smiles and a few “aw shucks.”
One year ago, I was teaching four junior high classes, two college writing courses, and one teacher education course. My body moved across three different institutions. I spent ten hours a week in the car listening to audiobooks during my commutes. I paid for parking as adjunct faculty and walked blocks to the classroom carrying a diaper bag with Expos, tape, scissors, pencils, sticky notes, books, and notebooks. I had keys to seven classrooms and arranged desks strategically for each. And I waited with great anticipation and nervousness for students to arrive, knowing it takes some a series of tiny miracles to just make it to our classroom door.
Every day, I looked in the eyes of and sat alongside students ages twelve to fifty, smelling perfume and body odor, hearing giggles and gripes in corners of the room, noting eager learners and required course-takers. When we’d break into partners or small groups, I would make myself scarce at first but later listened in hallways or knelt in corners to respond to questions, invite discoveries. It was a way of being a teacher that I loved, that I felt privileged to do.
So much of my teaching pedagogy depended on being able to read the room, read the students and be responsive with my mind, heart, and body. Teaching, for me, is so physical.
Today, I sit. I could not have anticipated that my body would be seated here, in this chair or the one in other room, for the past eight weeks. That no other body or group of bodies would be waiting for me to write into the day or talk about books or share lemon squares. That I could not read their faces alongside their utterances to interpret confusion, resistance, sadness. And I am grieving.
But what can I do? What I have is access to books and technology. What I have is an income. What I have is a network of brilliant, compassionate people showing how we can adapt with grace and humor. What is still needed are millions of tiny miracles to bring students to “the classroom.”
Typically, at the end of final class meeting, I stand at the classroom door and say good-bye to each student. Sometimes they shake my hand. Sometimes they ask for a hug. Sometimes they walk out arm-in-arm with a classmate-bestie. I then sit in the classroom alone and reflect on what happened in that room over the course of the term –the miracle of strangers coming together week after week through storms, sickness, family emergencies, apathy, exhaustion to become teachers. I give thanks that I had a part in it all, that I witnessed all those tiny miracles.
And so last night, after I clicked “end meeting,” I had to create a virtual classroom door for myself. It was a selfish act for sure. I wanted to linger in the door a bit longer, so I emailed each student a short note about what I heard in their open mic words and the connections I saw to teaching. I tried to be alongside their words with my own. I celebrated the sense of place in their writing and expressed gratitude for allowing me to bear witness to their lives in that way. I found textures and colors in their writing that brought me and their classmates into their lived experiences. I thanked them for trusting me and seeing the semester through. And then I sat alone and gave thanks that I had a small part in their becoming teachers.
I do not know what the future holds for teachers across the country who, like me, depend on proximity to be a teacher, but I do know that sharing writing gets us a little closer, and I do know that bringing people together takes lots of small miracles. And I do know that it is a privilege to have a small part in it all even it it is from a chair.