I Am Proud of You

Today, on the Thursday before we start spring break, on the day the NCAA tournament officially started with games airing during the school day, I was reminded exactly why I teach. It was a simple, short conversation with a student.

She called me over to her seat and said, "You know the other day, you told me you were proud of me.  I'm still thinking about that today."

That is a treasure chest moment.

Two days ago, my students were to have written a rough draft of a spoken word poem. I had received an email the evening before. This student had written her poem, she told me, but it was really personal, and she didn't think it was very good.  I told her we were revising the next day, so it would be a great time to look at it.

So we sat down at the back of the room, and she opened up the piece she had written. It was heart-wrenchingly personal. It was emotional, and it was powerful.  I was a struck by the images, the sincerity, and the honesty. I thanked her for letting me read it. We talk about how creative writing often requires us to put ourselves out there, to open up our hearts or our heads and bleed on the page. She had done that. She was concerned if it was good enough, if it met the requirements of the assignment.  After assuring her that that was a distant second in order of importance at this point, we looked at her poem from that angle, pointing out how she had used questions to open the poem, then turned to a statement,  shifting the tone.  We found alliteration in one middle line that overlapped with internal rhyme before flipping to more alliteration and rhyme to round out the line in a unique and powerful cadence. We looked at how she might work in a visual metaphor near the end to strengthen her theme, which had developed well throughout the poem.

"Oh, I didn't know that stuff was in there," she said. That's how things happen sometimes.

At one point, as we both knelt in front of one of my tables and discussed what she had written, some tears were shed. I reached over, put my had on her shoulder, leaned closer, and told her, "I am proud of you." I told her that because I truly am proud of her. She had written a really powerful poem; she had bled on the page. More importantly, she had shown me a growing confidence that allowed her to do that.  An inner strength.

Sometimes, lessons are about so much more than content. Actually, most of the time, they are about so much more than content. We can never be completely sure where and when those opportunities are going to arise, or what form they will take. We have to provide an environment where they can happen, and encourage them through our daily interactions. I am blessed to teach a subject that lends itself to those lessons, to those moments. I am blessed to work among people who drive me to be better each day. I am blessed to walk into a school and a classroom full of young people who are doing great things, sometimes things that may not be noticed at first glance, but are, nevertheless, amazing. Kids who are battling every single day, looking for the chance to push themselves to be better, stronger, more. I am proud of them.

And I am proud to be their teacher and grow with them.