Shortly after 3:30 this afternoon, my 2020-2021 school year came to a close. Unlike my first year of teaching, there was remarkably little cleanup––no decor to take down, no bookshelves to straighten, no desk to empty, no classroom to lock up. As a teacher at a virtual school, I don't have a classroom; I have a computer. So, all I had to do was power it down at the end of another unnecessary day of in-service, throw my teaching journal back in my drawer and my copy of The English Teacher's Companion back on my bookshelf, and make the commute from my office to my living room.
This change from my first year of teaching to my second goes far beyond the setting. Minutes before I closed the door on the 2018-2019 school year, I sent in my letter of resignation. The year had been a true series of unfortunate events, situations I lacked the preparation, support, and wisdom to handle gracefully. I quit not because I was burned out, but because I was questioning whether the fire had ever truly been lit. If I was truly supposed to be a teacher, why did I feel as though I had failed? Whose fault was the disaster: mine, my students', or my school's? And perhaps most importantly, was I going to let one rough year keep me from the career I'd planned for since fifth grade?
I recount this journey neither to glorify myself for walking out on that job nor to vilify the people I left behind. Rather, I tell my teaching story because, in talking to other teachers, I have learned that my experience is not as isolated as it felt. And for many of my teacher friends, veterans and amateurs alike, this has been the hardest year yet in their careers (for all the reasons that we are now officially bored of listing, and then some). I want those teachers to know they are not alone, and I want to give them hope that their teaching stories do not have to end with this difficult chapter. The rest of you just get a nice life update.
When I walked out of my classroom, I had no idea when I would teach again, and part of me doubted whether I ever would. And when I didn't get the teaching job I wanted in the fall of 2019, I did what all purposeless and disillusioned 20-somethings do: started grad school.
Through that awkward in-between year, I realized that, while there had been a number of factors beyond my control that had complicated my first year of teaching, one of the most important factors had very much been my responsibility: my view of myself as a teacher.
As teachers, we know that the person who gets up in front of the students at the start of class is not the same person who goes home at the end of the day. Our teacher selves are characters we play; they are avatars of our ideals. Part of my problem was that I saw my teacher self as my identity. And I quickly learned that I was not the cool teacher or the fun teacher or, some days, even that good of a teacher. Although I didn't fall into the trap of trying to be students' friend (my education professors had scared me out of it), I desperately wanted my eighth graders to like me. Though I'm sure the majority of them were benevolently indifferent toward me and I know some actually did like me (and I them), the few who passionately and vocally disliked me drowned out all other feedback I received that year. I was not the teacher I wanted to be, so I was a failure.
When I left teaching, I realized I was going to have to leave behind that mentality. Over the course of my year-long hiatus, I began to understand myself in a better way, grounding my identity not in my actions, my roles, or my feelings but in the eternal truths about human nature I had long believed but rarely applied to myself. Like all human beings, I am a creature made in the image of my Creator. This status means I, though fallen and flawed, have inherent value and dignity, and I am ultimately accountable to the Savior who has redeemed me to do His work in the world. Ultimately, that is who I am, and all the roles I play are subject to that identity, including the role of teacher.
As I went through my grad classes, a few of which were teaching oriented, I felt the embers of my old desire to teach glowing in me. Teaching, I had learned, would not fulfill me or fix me, but it was an avenue through which I could serve others and (I hoped) reflect God's character in the process. I wanted to try again. So I updated my resume, begged for a few new letters of recommendation, and started the application process anew.
I applied for just two positions, the only ones I could find, and I was invited to interview only once. On June 5, 2020, I accepted an offer. Although it wasn't a driving factor in taking the job, I figured working from home for a school that was designed to be virtual would be slightly less of a disaster than working from home for a school that was not designed to be virtual, or working from school for some students who were virtual and some who were not, or any of the other combinations of virtual and in-person learning that beleaguered districts were cobbling together. If I didn't like it, I knew I didn't have to stay long term.
Amidst the first weeks of in-service, a term here used as a euphemism for endless hours of Zoom meetings, I wasn't sure if I would make it. There were so many acronyms to learn, so many programs to download, so many lessons to plan for my incoming 9th graders, whom I feared would be nothing more than slightly older, nastier replicas of the 8th graders I had previously taught.
I anxiously logged on that first morning of school, unsure what to expect. Despite the fact that I spent the morning fielding panicked emails about crashing servers and proctoring our reading assessment, when I was asked how it went at the end of the day, I had to say that it went pretty well. "My kids seem really nice," I told my mom, almost disbelieving. I half-feared that the niceness was just an act they would abandon mid-September, but that shoe never dropped. I had my slackers and my whiners at times, of course, but I didn't have anybody telling me they hated me or cussing me out or ransacking my classroom or forcing me to play referee while they terrorized one another. Feeling reasonably confident that the worst thing that could happen to me in a given day was that my class session would be glitchy, I felt free to focus on what I valued in the classroom––treating each of my students with honor as fellow image-bearers of God and, in my own small and imperfect way, helping them grow as human beings.
As the year progressed, the version of Mrs. Allen I have aspired to be began to emerge. I've always wanted Mrs. Allen to be somebody who was helpful and patient like my mom, witty and engaging like my husband, endlessly willing to provide feedback like my high school creative writing teacher, passionate like my British literature professor in college, wise and Spirit-filled like my advanced writing teacher, willing to call out the good I see in students just like so, so many of my own teachers did for me in my formative years.
At the end of the year, I gave my students the opportunity to reflect on their time with me––what they had learned, how they had grown, and how I could grow. Clicking through their responses, I saw comments that made my little words-of-affirmation-loving heart just about burst. Mrs. Allen, you helped me understand and enjoy books I thought I would hate––even Shakespeare. I wish I had more teachers like you, Mrs. Allen. You were so helpful and kind, Mrs. Allen. Mrs. Allen, you're the best English teacher I've ever had. I could have cried.
I thought about what those words meant to me and what they would have meant to me if I had heard them two years ago. They would have been my trophies, my awards I could display to prove that I was a good teacher. As I have reflected on these comments in the last weeks of the school year, however, I saw them in light of my changed desire: that I would teach out of my identity in Christ and not to find my identity. These kind remarks from my students are a testament to God's working in me to that end, and for this I am grateful.
My teaching story is not my entire life story, but it is an important part of it. Being a teacher has shown me what kind of values I want my life to reflect, and every day it challenges me to put those values into practice. I know who I am, I know what kind of teacher I want to be, and I think I'm on my way to becoming her.