Affirmation

Our lives are full of moments when we search for affirmation... at least mine is. I shouldn't speak for all beings.

In the past few years, one of the demons I try to tame the most is the one who needs more and more outside affirmation. I used to carry around a beautiful piece reminding me that I am enough. I think sometimes that I have gotten over to the other side, but that demon is always waiting for a weak moment.

When affirmation comes, for me, it is important to really recognize and appreciate it.

So, I share this story in gratitude for the universe's gifts.

Several weeks ago now, I was in the dining hall at one of the residential colleges at Ptn ... it happened to be the college I lived in as a senior, but the dining hall has been redone, so it was virtually unrecognizable to me. It was the last day of the conference I had been attending. I had gotten somewhat comfortable crossing campus and spending time in its halls after a bit of a shaky start.

I wouldn't say that I was walking around like I owned the place, but as an alum, technically I do.

I had just had a crazy conversation with a young man about the value of protesting. Crazy because although I had challenged his assumptions, it had not been my intention to deride his efforts. I just wanted to know what he felt were the tangible results of such protests. I worked my way back into his good graces by the end of the conversation, but it was not easy.

I took my dirty dishes to the super bossy conveyor belt (non-food here, food here, utensils here, dishes here), and was returning to say good bye to my conversation companion and others who were getting ready to take their leave of the university.

I passed by a young man whose face looked like an older version of a former student, K. I shook it off thinking it would be too odd of a coincidence. But I wasn't sure, so I turned around ... at that moment he turned around, too. "Ms. C, is that you?" he said to me.

We met in the middle for a huge hug. K was one of the middle schoolers (at the charter school) who worked me back in the 90s. I have the utmost respect and admiration for middle school teachers because my two years with those kids were the most challenging. I can't do it... it's just not where I was meant to be teaching. In any case, I loved those students. I was closer to some of them than others because they were my advisees, but it was such a small school that we were all actually pretty close.

K was a handful. He loved to challenge authority. He did not know what to do with his fear and anxiety. Mr. bad ass could "boycott" my class and roll up looking like he was about to take over the world, but make him take a state mandated test and it was all over. That morning, as his teachers, we learned more about K than in many months of one-on-one talking, teaching. Rather than take the test, or tell us that he had anxiety about it, he hauled off and hit another student. He just wanted out of the test, and this was the only way he could do it.

We had a lovely two years together... as you can imagine. He pushed, and I pushed back. I like to describe my teacher persona as the drill sergeant. And my students will attest to it. I was serious about my rules and structure, but, it was out of love if not a scientifically proven way to transfer knowledge.

That afternoon in the dining hall, he told me about working there, as a short order cook, about trying to go back to college, about his new baby (he whipped out the phone to show me). And then he looked at me and said, "Ms. C, you know, I just want you to know how much I appreciate how you..." As he searched for words that would accurately describe without being hurtful, I supplied, "was a hard ass with you?" He smiled and said yes... he went on to tell me that in retrospect he recognized how much I (and the other teachers) cared for them and their progress.

He said he had left the school in the 10th grade (I left the school a year before that) to go to the local public high school. There, he met many teachers who could really care less what the students did in class much less what they learned. He wished he could have gone back to P Academy, but it wasn't in the cards. [The school didn't actually make it to the students' graduation.] He remembered that in 12th grade he was reading books our literature teacher had given them to read in the 9th grade.

Teaching is that career where you have to just believe that what you are doing makes an impact. For as close and personal as it is, you send your students off into the wide world, and you don't know how they are or if your lessons were useful or just annoying. It is the rare occasion when one of them catches up with you and has the ability to articulate how you as a teacher touched their lives.

I couldn't have asked for a more lovely affirmation than to see K and get his thanks and that big hug. In the midst of trying to figure out if this Phd thing is really for me, it was just what I needed in this summer of decision. I still need to debrief about the time with the nuns, but this gift needed to be acknowledged.

Blessings come in unexpected packages.