It’s been a good summer, but today it is over. I will hit publish on this post, pick up my keys, and my school bag, and head for the door. It’s that time of the year people in the education world call “Professional Development,” or “In-Service” week. We were told that, if we aren’t there by 8am, the doors to wherever Professional Development is happening will be closed and locked, which will mean we will miss out on developing professionally.

 

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It wasn’t perfect at Washington Christian Academy. Anyone will tell you that. I know I could’ve done a multitude of things better. When we moved to DC though, I felt very much at home in that school with those 6th graders and those 8th graders that are now in the work force. I left after a couple of years because I was having Hadley, and one of the administrators there met me in the parking lot one afternoon and asked me if Jesse and I would like a crib for our baby. Both Hadley and Harper used that crib, and when I went back to teach, I brought the crib back, and my administrator’s daughter was now one of my students. He’d given our girls a place to rest, and now I could return the favor, hopefully teaching his daughter the wonderful peace that passes all understanding when she’s lost in a world of words.

Once, this boss of mine asked if I’d write something for a dinner the school was having, and of course I said yes (I’m quiet and shy and would prefer not to ever have to make small talk with anyone ever, but ask me to write something and speak in front of multitudes, I’m your girl). Well, we were supposed to have a meeting about it one afternoon, but I was late because something happened with Hadley or Harper. One of them was sick, or one of them needed a chocolate milk and didn’t have it. I can’t remember, but I came into his office and said, “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

He shook his head like he was trying to shoo away a bug, and then said, “You NEVER have to apologize.”

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Since January, I’ve been turning over the scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when Severus Snape walks into the classroom for the first time and tells his students in the most captivating hush ever, what it is he can offer his students. “I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.” I’ve been trying to write a parallel statement about teaching that is in the same tone as this one. What is it I can do for students? I can walk them through a story so brutal we’ll have trouble turning the next page, but we will, and we will face it, and in facing it, we will see the beauty in the world, and we will take that beauty with us. I can teach students how to make a mess on paper, and I can show them how to clean it up. I can show them all the bravery and courage they have inside of them, and I can make it so they draw it out – slowly, but surely.

If you ask me though, how to turn these statements into standards, or “I can” statements, or anything robotic like that, I will shrug my shoulders, turn red in the face probably, and say, “I don’t know.” I don’t know because I’m not interested in that. I don’t want my students walking in my classroom and seeing the board filled with all the targets they are going to meet. I want them to walk in and get a little lost. I want them to stand in the dark and look around. I want them to do a little exploring. I want them to surprise themselves.

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I’ve been late to school twice in my career. Once, I was in a lake effect snow storm that scared me so bad I stopped in the middle of the highway and had to have a cop escort me off the road. Another time there was an accident on 94 and I missed my homeroom and most of my prep period.

I’ve ditched teaching twice. Once, I left school pretending I was sick to finish Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I blame that decision on Jesse and my brother Geoff, who both promised they would stay on the same page as me, and never read ahead. That morning though, I heard Jesse talking on the phone with Geoff –  something about Sirius Black – and I had to take matters into my own hands. Another time, I called in sick because I’d gone to the Coldplay concert in Chicago the night before and we didn’t get home until the middle of the night. I spent the day writing.

My plan is to be on time for Professional Development. I just don’t know how much of my heart is in this kind of teaching. I’ll listen, and I’ll take notes, but I’ll be thinking about how last week at this time, the girls and I went downtown with one pair of NASA approved sunglasses to look up at the sky. None of us had a clue what we were in for, and we couldn’t stop looking and laughing, although Harper said, “It kind of scares me,” and I said, “I know. It’s kind of scary, but I think it’s God playing. I think He’s messing around and seeing what it is He can do with this world He’s made.”

Little moons were all over the sidewalks, twinkling, and we walked to get ice-cream, every few steps stopping to look up at the sky, a little scared, a little delighted, uncertain of what comes next, and making sure to watch for the light.