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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Spring Semester Begins

The Spring semester arrived, finally, for me this Friday at 10:10 this morning when I drove up to campus, purchased coffee, stamped my frequent flier's coffee card, and met with my first student. There have been a few delays and a cancellations due to the extreme cold and snow--but finally I am back at my tutoring table and my students. What a relief, I must confess. It is the island of normalcy in my current life of exile.

Warning: Sentimental, crispy-crunchy, granola, made in California style, new agey, teacherly emotions ahead. Curvy curves ahead. No guard rails.

On the first day of teaching in each semester, I go through this thing where I feel connected, suddenly, with all teachers everywhere in all time, space, and dimension. Also, I get all maudlin and remembrical about my former students. This may come as a shock to non-teachers, but I sometimes miss my former students--even after all these years. Some of them left quite the impression, but that is what happens in teaching. It's not like selling car insurance, where you work the paper and make people safe from their own selves or the caprice of fate or the stupid actions of others. Oh, you do that in teaching, to a degree, but by and large, I spent a great deal of the most productive years of my life so far teaching people where to put a comma, the right word, sentence, and/or piece of research in a writing project. I also taught people where to cut and on which line for construction paper art projects. Child: Is this right? Teacher: No. Did I say to cut on the line or on the fold? C: The line. T: And where did you cut? C: The fold. T: Now what? C: Another tree dies in the forest because I cut on the fold again? T: Yes, that's correct. Now then, go put that in the scrap barrel for another non-cutty, 
foldy project we might have in future and let's cut one together on the line.                                                    
    

The connection I feel is palpable. It comes from memory and chalk dust and magic fairy dust. It    comes from hearing myself say things my most revered teachers have said to me, it comes from        
    seeing my student lean into her work and come up with invention, outline, thesis, paragraph. It comes from the voices of children, Miss Teacher, can you help me? It comes from assignments that angered  me, confounded me, gave me life. Then, of course, there are the books, the papers, the pens, the parts, and the pieces of the profession. Write my name on the board, say: I am Miss and I am your teacher. I pause in the silence of the moment and I let that sink in for my students. It's suddenly a covenant and we all know it. Turn a page, make a point that lands and flourishes in the mind, stumble upon the thing that works, that generates the thing that sparks the thought that opens the door that was closed and the writing comes out with the query: Is this it? Is this any good?  And sometimes it is so good it's spectacular.

Today, I spelled out Amontillado in phonetics so a student could say the title of Poe's work without being embarrassed in class. Oh, she said, I can say it! Sure you can, I said. Why had a teacher not taught this student to say this word before college? It took less time to teach this than it did to say
skip it and keep reading...      

Today, I walked past students who lit up when they saw me, Hi! I have you! Some of these students I            
 have been tutoring since 2007. That's the nature of teaching in the CC. We hang out here together, sometimes for years. It's what the government pays both of us to do, afterall. I can think of worse things the upon which the government spends money. Sadly, I can think of better, too, for both of us. Some of these students I worked with last semester. They were all but shredded the last time I saw them. Some did not pass their class, I see. They have readjusted their outlook, shouldered another failure, and it looks like they are getting on with it.

The snow and delays have purified and made new the school year. Whatever came of last semester is long gone.  Some are repeating what is gone. They are happy and shiny about it. The angst and misery of just a month ago is barely a memory. There is a scar from it, to be sure. A failure scar registered in there inside them, yet here they are. They are ready to go back to it, to try to get the words and the thoughts in the order that the instructor insists they must go while trying to push back on and overcome the things that hinder that from happening. They are ready to try and slay the
dragon again.          
                             
My students feel tiny, tiny and the dragon is huge. They have a pen and some paper. The dragon has everything else. I am like the second, I stand behind the dragonslayer with my own pen and paper and experience in dragon slaying. They check to see that I am there. I nod. They step forward. The dragon bellows. I cringe a little, plant my feet. Shudder a little, myself. They do not see me. I am the teacher, afterall. No fear, no crying in teaching. They look back at me and I nod and say Do it! They step forward again, and the pen goes down on the paper. We both lean forward into the battle.