After 10 and a half months of constant noise and sometimes chaos, my eighth-grade classroom is completely silent. I listen to the silence. Every end of the year, I say goodbye to the year’s rush of emotions, ideas that were expressed, hands raised, or not, memories of trying to capture a group of 13- and 14-year-olds’ attention every day in an attempt to discuss literature, write an essay, view a different perspective, learn history, read out loud, sit in a circle and express thoughts about controversial topics, reflect on a moving passage, or simply let each other know how they feel that particular day. One student may complain about his parents fighting or how sad he feels when his father comes home drunk. Another student feels her friendship rejected by a close friend. At least they can express their concerns in class or in our more intimate advisory group. I silently bid farewell to the anxiety of high school applications, interviews, competition, grade frenzy, family crisis, and crushes rebuffed and fulfilled, figuring out who they are in relation to themselves and to adults. Often, I am the adult they need to bounce off; after all, I see them every day for 110 minutes. At this moment, no one is in their seat, no one is coming up to me with questions that must be answered immediately, reasons they could not do their homework, or could they change their seats; did I not promise them we would change seats today? And why did I give them so much homework the other night?
I already miss them but I am relieved to revel in the silence, to have time for myself. As a mother to young children, I remember how it was when they finally took a nap, and I could have that precious time to myself. It is the same kind of experience a teacher has at the end of the year. We have to wait a year for that nap, for that time, for that silence, for those wordless moments.
During the graduation ceremony, I stood at the side and watched my eighth-graders all dressed up in their finest, the girls in their lovely dresses and high heels, the boys in their suits. A mother of one of the students approached me and embraced me. Her hug was strong and full; it said “thank you”, “I am so happy he is graduating”, and finally, “we are in this together.” After embracing for perhaps a full minute, she walked away, without a word. The hug was moving particularly because she had not said a word. I didn’t feel I needed her verbal affirmation but the hug validated that the work I do is not abstract, not invisible; it is measurable. After a year of words, words on paper, words in text, words on the screen, playing with language, grading students on their use of language; this moment without words was more valuable than any speech, any card, or any gift.
I had watched her son that morning, not his usual boisterous self, unable to sit or be “quiet,” but rather strangely calm and proud, feeling good in his gray striped suit, black shirt and silver tie. I worried about him for next year and the challenges of high school, but today was a good day, one of accomplishment and achievement, rather than the many days of admonishment and anxiety of the past year.
The year had come to an end. I could sit in my classroom, remember the flurry of activity that was the year, the faces that were the students, the embrace by a parent, a proud student on graduation day, and remember why over 30 years ago, I had decided to be a teacher.