A former student visits and teaches me a lesson..

Although this poem could be about many of my students, it was mostly inspired by one who came back to visit me Friday morning. Since last year was the first year I taught 5th grade, this is the first time I’ve been visited by a “graduated” student, and I was really taken by surprise when he walked in my door.

He hasn’t physically changed much since leaving my class last year and if I had had to guess who would come to visit me first, I wouldn’t have guessed him. “Carlos” was a student who had a hard time sitting still in the beginning last year; he would often ask to go to the bathroom, or the guidance counselor, which was exasperating, and when he was sitting at his desk, he’d talk or look like he was falling asleep. He often needed help doing anything that other students could do independently (whether it was read or write, or math).

Yet, he was one of the students I’d miss whenever he was absent, and was an example of the kind of student whose life experiences had inspired me to become a teacher in the first place. The reason for his often both agitated and exhausted presence in my classroom was because he had been suffering nightmares about his border-crossing experience, and was living in constant fear that Immigration would take him or his parents to jail or back to their country. And here he was in my class trying to learn, and learn in a new language, etc.

When “Carlos” was in my class last year, one thing that stood out, was that he had a difficult time speaking in both English and Spanish — it was like the words were forcing themselves out of his mouth faster than he could control them and he’d get frustrated and give up. He had a slight stammer in English and was more comfortable speaking only in Spanish, but even then he was often stuck, searching for the right word. But when he walked in my room yesterday, all of that was missing. In walked a calm, confident boy who spoke and understood English far better than when he left me in June.

He told me he is doing really well in 6th grade and is enjoying it. I asked him about what it was like reading now and he told me, “They don’t have levels*. When I want a book, I just go to the library, and they have, like, Fiction, Non-Fiction, stuff like that.” (What a relief that was to hear) He enjoys computer lab, and even showed me a website I could use with my class. Then he offered to speak to my class about 6th grade. I told him that when they came in and got settled, he could do it, and in both Spanish and English. He seemed undaunted, and did exactly that. He spoke to them so calmly and confidently, easily switching between languages. It was an exciting relief.

His visit was meaningful to me on so many levels. In part, because of the progress he’s made, but more so, because of how much the *experience* of last year meant to him. For me, it was through knowing him and many of the others in his class with similar experiences, that I grew last year in the most profound and meaningful ways as a teacher and person. It wasn’t his test scores, or even the progress he made that I remember, hold most dear, or recall with fondness. And as much as his academic learning (as opposed to “data”) does matter, I see now that it wasn’t what helped him the most to grow into the more mature, better-spoken, more confident 6th grader I saw yesterday. It was the relationships we had cultivated in that room. When he spoke about is class from last year, he told me he remembered doing sign language and the video I made them — not what scores he got on the state tests, or what reading level he was.

This is what it means to be a teacher. It’s not simply what makes teaching rewarding, but what allows teachers to have the lasting, transforming impacts on students that we all treasure most. And those elements simply can’t be quantified, recorded and replicated, and probably have little effect on test scores. Because it is the individual teachers and students who are involved and interact in that room daily who make that magic happen. The chemistry, if you will.

His visit reminded me why I’m a teacher, yes, but more importantly, it reminded me even more profoundly of what we could lose, or really are already losing, as a nation, with all these attacks on teachers and unions, and the ways in which we are being characterized as “effective” or not. The methods being used to evaluate teachers will push many to forgo focusing on the “art” of teaching and reduce ourselves to only what matters to “Them”. Because, who cares if your student is more confident, has avoided gangs because of what he learned in your class, has no more nightmares, and is a better speaker and is finally enjoying school, if his test scores are mediocre, right? Who cares? And who will stay if this is where education is heading?

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