By Linda Van Gombos, Teacher, East Cary Middle School
I teach sixth grade language arts in a year-round school. Whenever I say that people offer blessings and heap praise upon me for working with those students. Those students. We all know those students. Those students who grow too quickly and awkwardly, speak too rapidly, smell badly, talk loudly, cry spontaneously, react hysterically and live to torment their teachers.
We returned to school after a nice long break, and like all teachers, I was determined to get those students back on track. They had been gone for a long time. They are in middle school, and we all know what that means. They would be wild.
The break was so long that it would be like starting over again. I sighed and fantasized for a brief moment about teaching high school English again, where some of the silliness washed away with the panic about the future, and those students were nearly grown into themselves.
It was day one of the third quarter, and I put up a quote about the value of work, about how work might be seen as part of our identity. We began a somewhat stilted discussion about the quote, and quite suddenly, eight hands went into the air. I glanced around the room and knew that something was about to change.
Now this is a wonderful moment for a teacher to sense that shift in the air. But the looks on the students faces told me this shift was going to be a tough conversation. I reminded myself that I was the one who created the environment. I was the one who convinced the students that participation was a good thing, that it was safe. I emotionally braced myself and called on the students one by one. They spoke into the respectful silence of the room.
“My dad lost his job over track out.”
“My mom got laid off.”
“My uncle moved in with us because there’s no work for him right now.”
“My mom had to fire a bunch of people and she cried last night.”
“I need to start working harder ’cause I will have to get a scholarship for college now.”
They spoke quietly and sincerely. As a class we listened quietly, nodding in understanding and sympathy, allowing the space for all of them to express their fear, their discomfort, their awareness of the reality of their time.
We listened, and then we moved on with our lesson and our routines. I blinked away the moisture in my eyes and cleared away the obstruction in my throat. I looked at those 28 bodies in my room; those students whose parents assure me aren’t ready for the real world, whose psychologists affirm they are too immature to handle real issues, or whose shopkeepers validate they can’t be trusted at the mall.
I pondered the question of how often our students are truly asked to step up. I wondered how often I had given them the authentic opportunity to show their character. We pat them on the head or excuse them from the tough conference or hustle them along in lines. We have to for the most part, I know that. These are, after all, middle school students. But I can no longer see them in quite the same light. I think perhaps it is true that we all live up to the level of the responsibility we are given. In spite of the world around them insisting otherwise, those students, those magnificent students, are ready, are mature, are trustworthy.