As a teacher, my first year was filled with rules such as "Don't smile until Christmas", "Never give them an inch" and "Never let them see you cry". Then came the year of the class from hell, and the rules broke down. Thank God, for I would have missed a wonderful opportunity to learn how to truly bond with my students.
I used to work in what is commonly referred to as an "urban, inner city school". Many of our kids faced drugs and gangs every day; failing grades were the least of their worries. As such, my ability to bond with these kids were pretty limited. Sure, you could like quite a few of them, but you never knew when your favorite student would steal your wallet or your cell phone. One of our 7th graders was caught charging for oral sex behind one of the classrooms. How do you cope with that, short of withdrawing?
Then I moved to a higher income, rural school, and my world was turned upside down. I was "the new kid"; not just an unknown entity, but an untested one as well. And test they did. Every day. I felt like my psyche was being battered on all sides. I had panic attacks in my car in the parking lot, retreating there whenever I felt the urge to scream. The boys passed petitions behind my back to get me fired. The girls challenged me constantly and made catty comments about my weight, my IQ, and my ability to teach. Still, I stuck to the rules: don't smile, don't give an inch, and above all, don't let them see you cry.
It was in the middle of this that my grandmother died. I could stand no more. Everything I had faced that year, my confusion, my anger, my frustration, and my fear that I really was a lousy person, leaked from me as tears that I could no longer stop. I broke the biggest rule, in front of my worst class.
I went to my grandmother's funeral, and spent the rest of my bereavement time trying to regain some sense of sanity. I dreaded every day that passed, knowing that it brought me one day closer to when I would have to face my classes once again. I cried the night before, knowing the hell that faced me again on the other side of my classroom door, but the next morning I got up and prepared as best I could for the day.
Vera and Megan greeted me with a hug when they came into my class. This shocked me: none of these students had ever hugged me! Later, when a student mocked me, Vera cut him off with a sharp retort. Vera used to yell in my face! Where had this Vera come from?
Megan and I talked after school, about how she felt, how I felt, and my appreciation that they had helped me recover after my ordeal. "It was like a game for a lot of them," she said. "They wanted to see how far they could push before you broke. Then you did, and it didn't seem like a game anymore."
It took a long time for me to forgive those who tormented me, but I eventually did, and I'm grateful in a way that my barriers were broken. Otherwise, I would never have learned to open myself up to my students. There would always have been a wall between us. Sure, I still get hurt from time to time because I've opened the door of my heart to my students now. But it will never hurt as much as when that door was shut.