To help me be more critical and mindful of the bonds I’m forging in and out of the classroom, I write anonymous letters to some of my current and former students. This is the tenth post in the series.
Dear S and L,
When you walked into my classroom today, I fell to a knee. The reaction was a first for me in my years of reuniting with former students, yet it felt so natural. Starring at you in awe, I stayed down for what must have been 20 seconds. In a classroom you once occupied, you happily stared back as my head shook in disbelief at your presence. I smiled and sighed assuredly. You were strangers to everyone in the room but me. You two took my breath away.
It wasn’t until one of my students walked over and offered to help me up that I realized that I was still kneeling. As I handed the reigns over to my co-teacher and stepped into the hallway to chat with you, I sensed it but didn’t know quite what had come over me. It’s certainly been a while since I’ve seen you, but my reaction told a much bigger story. Why did your presence affect me so?
I asked what brought you here and have things have been going since graduation. You both were doing fine. You found yourselves driving around the neighborhood and decided to drop in. S, you work at the post office. L, you’re in school studying to become a physical education teacher. Y’all have been making music together and are preparing to release content to the public in the coming weeks. Anticipation and excitement painted your faces. You looked happy.
L, you were slimmer and more jovial than you were in high school. You still have that humble charisma about you. S, you looked exactly the same: tall, lanky, and full of charm. You had the same retro Charlotte Hornets jacket I remember from high school. It’s clear that adulthood has claimed you both as its own. As your former teacher, I’m proud that you’re both growing up into productive young men.
We spoke in the hallway for a mere 10 minutes. Our conversation was like any I’ve had with former students: reminiscent, light-hearted, hopeful. But the more we spoke, the more my mind wandered back to the 2019-20 school year.
S, you were a senior in my period 3 class that year. We knew each other well because I taught you in 9th grade. We enjoyed a wonderful first semester together. You wrote two thoughtful math journals and always stayed back after class to ask me questions. We chatted frequently about your aspirations of being an actor.
L, you were also a senior that year. Having taken my class the year before, you weren’t my student anymore. But I still saw you around the school all the time. We had a handshake. I went to many of your basketball games.
In the spring of 2020, Covid hit and upended everything. I never saw either of you again. Our departure from school and each other happened so quickly. One week I was handing out Friday Letters and your grading exams. The next I was on Zoom in my bedroom, pretending to be a teacher. It was a nightmare.
With the resurgence of in-person learning these last two years and my faith in teaching fully restored, I have come to forget about our suffering that spring. New challenges and new students have kept it buried. It was better that way. It was too dark and too sad a time to dig it up.
That changed the moment I saw you today. In an instant, it all came flooding back. The insecurities, the worries, the isolation, and the unimaginable losses of spring 2020 revealed themselves again. With your presence, I suddenly remembered both my pre-pandemic self and the hard transition I was forced to make in order to endure the worst period of my teaching career. This is why I fell to a knee upon seeing you. I was overtook by a past that I wish never existed.
Adding to the impact of your visit was when it occurred. I think my reaction would have been less emotional had I not been teaching when we saw each other. Being surrounded by the love and togetherness of my current students, I was immersed in tradition and predictability and wonder. It was an ordinary lesson, but the room was bright and full of life. Seeing you at a moment was a sucker punch from an unfriendly and broken past. It was the antithesis of what I have currently enjoy. Seeing you knocked the wind right out of me.
You two are amazing, kind, and bright young men, but it’s important for me to understand that you are also a bridge to a place that I’d rather not think about. I need to be better at confronting this part of my teaching past. I cannot completely separate you from what happened during the spring of 2020, nor should I. I’m grateful for the bonds we established before and during that scary time. It was those bonds that instilled faith in me during the bleakest of days on Zoom. Bonds like ours are what healed me and kept me in the classroom.
Despite my mental roller coaster during our reunion today, I savored every minute. After you left and I returned to class, I spared a few seconds to describe both of you to my students. Connecting the past to the present seemed fitting in that moment. As I gathered myself in front of my students, their faces and minds were still responding to the math my co-teacher led them through. I shared some of what I shared here and exposed a few of my battle wounds. I got emotional. I remembered the spring of 2020. I remembered how hard it had been. I remembered you.
I hurried my emotions away so as not to detour the class. We moved on after a minute or two, but the thought of you two lingered in my mind for many hours to come. Later, I found you in the building to show you L’s class photo from 2019 that still hangs above a whiteboard in my classroom.
Thanks for deciding to stop by. You made my day by helping me remember and confront. I wish you well.
Here’s to bright futures that acknowledge the past, no matter how dark it is.
Sincerely,
Mr. P
P.S. Good luck with everything. Send me some of your music sometime. I’d love to play it for my students.
lazy 0ch0 