Teacher Appreciation Week: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The End and the Beginning

It was a happy coincidence that Jason was accepted into the lab in Bordeaux just as I was at my wits' end in Baltimore. I couldn't have done another year at that school so the timing was perfect. The five months between the end of school and moving to France were no walk in the park, though. I was going insane with boredom and was just so anxious to get OUT of the city that had completely sapped my soul but Jason was not ready to go yet. He had a great thing at his lab, with lots of friends in town and I wanted him to end it all and move to another country where he didn't know the language or the people or anything. You can see why he was reluctant to pack his bags and give it all up. This certainly caused some tension between us which is a lot of the reason I ended up moving first. I had to leave.

The scars left by those final years in Baltimore have been slow to heal. There were times when I doubted that I wanted to continue teaching. This is saying something coming from the girl who dreamed of doing nothing but teaching since the day she was born. There were times when I felt like nothing and nobody was ever going to be able to fix the problems facing Baltimore City Schools. I felt like I had failed and if I had all that love and all that skill and all that passion and I still couldn't do it, then how can we expect our students to succeed, knowing how many obstacles face them?

Yet, with this distance, both physical and emotional, that I have been afforded by my time in France, I am starting to feel tiny twinges of hope again. Hope that there are schools that are leading students to academic success. That there are principals who will take responsibility for their school's culture and be the stewards even of a sinking ship. That there are schools where teachers are trusted to do their jobs well. That there are districts where everyone is held accountable, from the school board to the school nurse. I have hope that I will be better when I go back into the classroom and continue that dream that I dreamed so long ago.

In the meantime, I want to extend my appreciation to all the teachers who are still fighting the good fight back home and probably have similar stories to share. Your struggles, no matter how big or small, are real but you have to power to solve them. If your school keeps you from doing your job, find another school that will nurture your talents and respect you as a professional. You are doing the most important work in the world. Even though you don't always see the results of this work immediately (or ever), you have to trust that you have made an impact. Regardless of whether you have known since you were little that teaching was your calling or you just stumbled into it, you are changing lives. I hope the gravity of that truth moves you to be better, be stronger, and to be the educator that your students deserve.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week.