I'm 99% convinced that the only reason the library offered me my job is that I had both an English degree (meaning that, in theory, I could have reasonable conversation about books, literature, writing, and history, even though I did not illustrate that skill during my interview ) and a secondary ed degree (meaning I could work with teens and be knowledgeable about YA lit). That blending of my bookish part and my teaching history continues to crop up in my job in different ways, but my favorite is when one of my old students wanders in, sees me, and gets that vague "I know you from somewhere" look on her face. I try to make my smile say "Yes, I remember you, too, so come over and say hello," and the students usually do.
It's a strange mixing of worlds. Those students knew me when I was caught up in the contradictory way it felt to be a teacher, a mix of heady control (my classroom, my lesson plans and assignments and exam questions, my desk and supplies and whiteboard, my ideas helping to shape people), heartache (I was not ready, emotionally, to stop being a stay-at-home mom when I had to), exhaustion (I lived on 2-4 hours of sleep most days), pleasure (life revolving around novels, writing assignments, and occasional grammar lessons, plus hanging out with other like-minded adults), frustration (grading papers. Grading papers. Grading papers.), and the deep affection I felt for my students (it took me by surprise, how deep that affection was). When I see them now, I am reminded of how it felt to be that version of myself. Their faces always carry the familiar look, a question: you're not teaching anymore? Sometimes I explain, sometimes I don't. It isn't something easily put into words: how I loved teaching, and how it sapped everything out of me; how it dredged up long-forgotten memories, and how it healed them.
They also remind me of that affection I felt for them. You'd think after five years, I would have forgotten. But their names come to mind as easily as if I'd been asking them about their research papers yesterday. Yet, they're not the same. They were high school seniors when I taught them, dipping their toes in adulthood. Now they are grown ups, swimming in the adult world. The girls from my creative writing class, who I loved like younger and much more stable versions of myself. The AP kids who made me laugh and gave me hope. The students from senior English, most of whom went willingly on the (metaphorical) trips I tried to take them on. Dystopias! Feminism! Poetry! Come with me! They appear, they say hello, and I wonder: what, of the things I tried to teach them, has stuck? Did my hours of stress and hope and exhaustion help them at all? This speaks to one of the primal reasons I became a teacher in the first place. I wanted to do for them what no teachers did for me: I wanted to help them direct their choices to take them along an upward path. That is also one of the primal reasons I had for leaving: I didn't feel like I had accomplished that.
Still, they show up, appearing on some random Thursday evening. We talk, they tell me what they are doing with their lives. We laugh. Our lives come back together for a few minutes, and then they move on again. I am left feeling something that, like everything related to teaching, is difficult to put into words. Like the connections we made in the classroom, discussing English stuff, continues to be a viable strand. Like maybe the affection I hold for them is something they still need, and life will let them find it every now and again.
Like maybe they did learn something from me.
