Lesson Learned

As a middle school teacher in an inner city school, I've had a wide array of experiences, both good and bad, that have helped form my opinions of modern life. I've had whispered discussions during Code Red drills with classes about what we should do if there is a real intruder in school. Students come to school from difficult lives at home, or maybe just a rotten day, and I try to cheer them up. Sometimes I don't realize their plight until I have already been short with them. Sometimes I come to school having a rotten day, and they cheer me up. A couple of weeks ago, I was covering a class for another teacher, when one of the students, a seventh-grade boy with two-inch braids poking out at every angle, remarked, gawking out the window, "Look at them white m---- f-----s!"

"Hey," I countered, knowing that I had to say something about his language, but also with another mission in mind. "First of all, you can't use that language here."

"Oh, my bad, Mrs. Hadley!"

"But also, you do know that I'm a white person standing right behind you." What he said next changed my whole demeanor, my perspective and my mood.

"Yeah, but, Mrs. Hadley, you ain't just white, you're black too," he replied, a goofy smile spreading across his scrawny face. It was clear he was giving me the highest compliment: I was one with them; I wasn't an outsider.

"Yeah, you're right, man," was all I could respond, laughing at my newly attained "cred". Later, I began to think about his statement, and why it is that I merited it. Why is it all I have to do is look skeptically at a student when they accuse me of bias, and it silences them.

I thought about the way many students whom I have never taught greet me in the halls with a, "Hey, Mrs. Hadley!"

I don't know their names to respond, so I simply give them a quick smile and a, "Hi sweetie! How are you?"

I was recently out of the classroom for about a week. The morning of my return, I was bombarded by hugs and welcomes back from students, who demanded to know where I had been. It is a joy to know you are missed, especially by children. But my point here is not to expound upon my popularity with students. I feel I have lucked into a key element of the puzzle of being a good teacher, and I need to remind myself of it every day: CARING.

I am the youngest of six siblings, and as a child, remember desperately wanting a younger brother or sister. That longing has transformed into me becoming a mother, and now that my children are grown, into having a whole school full of children to care for, and be cared by. It's what got me into teaching, and it's what keeps me going on those days that I think I might have made the wrong choice. They are all my kids, and I am their mama. I'm both black and white, and I'm definitely Hispanic (just ask the soccer team), and Asian, and Native American as well. I'm whatever they are, and we are all related.