better left unsaid

My co-worker Jamie sent me a "Facebook Memory" dating back to when she started her current teaching job. We had a chuckle about what she wrote. And it reminded me of my diary from my first days of teaching-so embarrassing it's hard to read. "Let me guess," said Jamie.  "You were going to change the world." "Worse," says I. So I went back to the old diary. Still shame-inducing. But I wondered if others might be interested in reading about the dreams and ambitions of a teacher just starting her career. And I wondered if others beginning their teaching journey might share some of my feelings. And maybe if I typed out an edited version, it would look better in black and white instead of turquoise ink in a Hobbit's Travels journal. (Turns out, it doesn't) 

So at risk of my own intense humiliation, here are some excerpts.

Sept 2 1980

I hope this is going to be a good book, because it's going to be a book about teaching-a diary of my first year as Miss Hartford, Teacher-Librarian.

The weekend before I started my job, I drove down to the family cabin. As I looked into the sunset I found myself wanted to tell someone about my real objectives in teaching- not the things you say in a job interview, not the things you say to your closest friends- the things you scarcely even admit to yourself.

I want to open their eyes to sunsets, to have them see and feel fireworks, and hear a baby's first cry, and suffer the pain and joy of loving and losing; to have them weep over death and sorrow; to explode with outrage at injustice; to scream for fairness and become sick with man's own depravity and inhumanity.  

I want to be the one to make them reach inside themselves and rediscover their emotions, their beliefs, their morals and their senses.  I want to be the one who guides them into an awareness of their own incredible value and potential. I want them to read and write and explore the age old beauties and perfections and questions of existence.  I want them to fight for their beliefs; I want them to explain their hearts; to exclaim with wonder and recognition and awe with what they have found.  So many things I want for these nameless, faceless masses. And I wondered:

Can a person do all of these things?
Can a teacher do all these things?

Can an English teacher?

Can I?

And if not a person, a teacher-me-then who?

Because I believe with all my heart they need to be done.

Later...

Imagine my surprise on my first day of school when I came back after coffee break to find none other than THE Henry Petkau, superintendent of schools, in my library!  He was very nice and told me to contact him if I ever needed anything.  (I learned later that every year on the first day of school he tried to visit every school in the county and say hello to every teacher.)

Sept 4

Oh my. After re-evaluating my job I've decided I will need to be BIONIC. Yesterday G____ came in to tell me that in addition to being teacher librarian, I would be teaching a grade nine class and a grade 7 option and two junior high options in library science! I was definitely surprised!  Last class of the day we had the junior high kids fill out their option forms.  I had the 9Bs.  I guess I seemed slack or hilarious or something because they basically all signed up for library science.  But after school we sorted out the forms and the other teachers just weeded the jerks out of my class and put them all in Rocket Science!

Sept 12

I'm learning to hang on to the rewards that come few and far between, like the Bio 30 girl who thanked me for helping her find books on cancer or the excitement of the grade sevens when they learned they could keep books out for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Mostly I am finding that it's going to take time to get this library into the kind of order and structure I crave. I hate waiting without a structure and a routine and an ordered pattern. And I'm being forced to learn that I can't do it all myself. I'm learning I have to delegate some of this stuff. And I'm nervous that I am going to offend the staff's precious memories of my superlative predecessor. She's a tough act to follow. 

Sept 15

So...I survived the two weeks. Now the going gets rough.

Today I wondered if really matters, what I teach, what I do.  Can I ever hope to reach them? Even one of them? Aren't there better paths of reaching them? Helping the ones that need help the most? Right now I would just be happy if I could just make them think! Today I felt like a jailer holding them back from their real world why shouldn't we make it real for them?  So I re-think my plans and objectives with the meager hope that I can relate the world of books to the mind of the adolescent! Somewhere there has to be a clue! Some trick, some hint.

And yet, can it ever be enough? Am I real to them? I feel helpless and hopeless, as if it's never enough.

I promise not to be a jailer of minds or spirits. I promise to try to change "schooling" for my kids at least, into an open door, a world of choice-instead of a prison, locked doors, a dead end street.

Oct 17

I feel like I'm not doing anything really important. I guess I'm not the kind of person to make a powerful impression on young minds.  But maybe, just maybe, I can instill a little trust, a little belief, a little humanity.

People say I'm a sucker:naive and such. But I think that won't change. I just wish I could do MORE. Some day, I tell myself, some day I'll reach someone.

November 16

The hardest lesson I'm learning is that I'll never really be their friend. No matter what, I'm always the teacher:they're always the kids. And its the moments when I realize this that are the hardest to take.  I wish we didn't have these barriers. I wish we could be equal and learn from each other.  I try so hard- and yet I have to keep telling myself not to look for friendships, for confidantes, for sympathy, empathy, anything. I have to remind myself I am not their sister, their mother, their friend.  My only relationship is teacher to student. Maybe some day I'll convince myself that I belong where I am-not in the class beside them as a fellow human being like I wish to be.

Jan 20

I started this entry wanting to bitch about the administration-how they laugh at what I want. How they won't fight for what I need. - how I feel like I am talking to a wall when I ask for new magazine boxes or new curtains or an actual classroom to teach in-stupid, simple, necessary things they can't or won't let me have. (I learned later from my superlative predecessor that she-in a fit of anger over a battle about replacing the above-mentioned ancient curtains- had torn them down, carried them into the principal's office and thrown them in a heap at his feet. After she moved to another school, he had them dry-cleaned and hung back up in the library. It took me another 5 years to get them replaced.)

I've got to hang on to what I believe, to keep on believing that my philosophy, my way is right and theirs is wrong. No matter what!  What I am doing is right, my opinion has value, and screw the rest of them!

I think I'm doing good things!

May 6

There are so many things I think they should know. And I have no right to intrude on their personal lives.  Do I have any business telling them what to hold onto? What to throw away?  They are living their lives and at times I see how maybe I could help them-advise them-but who am I? I am not of them. I am apart from them and I always will be.  Still I want to make a difference for them. Isn't that why I'm here? Aren't I supposed to be enabling them to know themselves, to know the world, helping them cope? Dammit, more than COPE.  Be happy!! Love life!  Know they are worth something! I want them to believe in themselves-to believe they matter and that they can go somewhere, be someone.

...who am I kidding? What can I do? But what would I do if I didn't try? Where would I be right now?

Me and my teaching friends, about to begin our careers!
SELAC, April 1980, Banff Springs Hotel.