Madeleine L'Engle, an acclaimed author of books for children and adults, once posed a question to which she already knew the answer: "Why do people tell stories?" It has to do with faith, she said—faith that the universe is meaningful, and that our lives in that universe have meaning, too. We tell stories from our belief that what we say and do in this life matters.
I've often thought of teachers and students as writing stories together. The details of a week, year, or career in the classroom meld and blur, but the storyline remains, and vignettes replay themselves, often unbidden. Some are just funny. Others are hurtful and become redemptive only if we learn from them. Some energizing when they happen and re-energize as they recur; they are reminders of lessons we ought not to forget. Two stories from this latter category come to my mind from time to time as I need them.
Ending of a Year of Becoming
My first year of teaching was also the first year of mandated racial integration in the rural county in the Deep South where I taught. The weather was always too hot, except when it was too cold. The school's heating system worked poorly. There was no air conditioning. The windows opened to a massive hog farm just slightly downwind. Students reflected the animosities and fears of the adults around them. Daily, I encountered inequities, divisions, and beliefs that caused me to question much of what I had been taught and had experienced.
My students were just kids trying to make their way through adolescence. Why would adults, by way of crudely painted and more crudely worded signs, dictate who could use a water fountain or a bathroom when need was equally distributed? When there was a shortage of textbooks, why did it always affect black learners most?
I knew little about myself, less about teaching, and yet I quickly came to love the kids I taught. My colleagues and I fought against poverty, bigotry, flies, and the heat. I loved that year in the classroom because it called on everything in me to give more than I thought I could give. It made me feel alive.
I noticed that the school buses took the white students home at 3:15 while the black students had to wait until 4:45 for the buses to return and deliver them home. But I hadn't noticed that one of the students, Archie, had organized his black peers into a study hall to do their homework while they waited. I didn't know he'd done that because he was tired of hearing the other kids bicker and because he needed to save energy to make dinner for his younger siblings, help them with homework, and get them to bed.
My colleagues and I were surprised three days before the end of the school year when new Honor Society inductees were announced in a school assembly. About two-thirds of the newly tapped group were black. They had few champions and little support. But they had a high school kid who had learned to get his little brothers and sisters to do their homework, and who had it in him to lead other kids to do the same. For him, it wasn't about glory. It was about sanity. But the lesson of Archie's story was there nonetheless: It is in us to do great things in the face of steep odds. In some places, some of the time, there are small wins that make a great difference. There is always hope.
Ending a Down Week on a High Note
The junior high where I spent most of my 20-year stint as a teacher was in an old building with old desks and few supplies. What we did have, however, was a principal with high hopes for all of us, a heck of a work ethic, and the capacity to make us think we were part of one of the best schools anywhere. She knew every student by name and appealed to them regularly to be their best selves. She planned well-executed fire drills, insisted upon sparkling hallways, and helped students and teachers see their possibilities. Overall, it was a great place to be a kid—and a great place to be a teacher. Most of the time.
There was one week where seemingly nothing worked. Buses were late. There was a food fight in the cafeteria. There was an actual fight at a basketball game. Two of the building's three bathrooms had to be shut down. Everyone was on the countdown for Friday afternoon buses. It seemed appropriate that the principal made afternoon announcements 15 minutes early that day. Instead of typical announcements, however, she gave unusual directions for dismissal, challenging the students to follow the directions precisely.
As they arrived at the designated destination, students saw long lines of brand new gutters mounted on sawhorses. Squads of parents, students, and school personnel were scooping ice cream and toppings into the gutter "sundae dishes." In the brief interlude before the buses departed, students lined up at the "troughs," scooped out the treats, and laughed together. Using a bullhorn, the principal reminded the students to put their utensils in trash cans stationed along the route to the buses, wished them a happy weekend, and said she was looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday.
No one saw it coming. Students recalled it as the best week ever at school. Teachers were ready to re-up for the week ahead.
When that story replays, the lesson for me is clear: When things start to go south, don't keep digging the hole. Change course. A little joy at the right time is a potent force.
