Looking In; Looking Back

Fishbowl Gemma...

Yesterday, I spent the day at the school where I taught for the past four years to cover a story I am writing for their newsletter. The story will be on the art program taught by my friend Trina who is an amazing artist as well as a wonderful teacher. This is her last year at the school having applied to graduate schools across the country. She'll get in but her gain will be the school's loss. Oh how little educators understand the beauty and necessity of art.

But that's the topic for the newsletter article. What I want to write about here is how odd it is to return to something I know longer do. I sat in on Trina's classes (two of them) to jot down notes and to photograph the students working with Trina and their art. I know most of these students. Many of them were once my students so when I am in the classroom, they carry on a conversation with me much like I am still their teacher.

But I'm not and as hard as it is to bite my tongue and not scold them back to work, I was sorely tempted yesterday as I watched (and listened) to the same rowdy students who tormented my teaching days, torment Trina's. There were the three spoiled girls who never once stopped talking during their classmates' presentation on artist Willie Cole and there was the ADHD student who is clearly off her medications running roughshod over her peers as they tried to sketch their self portraits in a contemplative silence.

And there was Trina, desperately trying to spread her passion for public art (the project of the 7th grade) to girls who didn't understand why Maya Lin's work was so interesting and quietly working with a young girl in tears who couldn't get her eyes in her self portrait (the project of the 6th grade) to "match." Trina is young and therefore has the patience I lost over the years. When she works one-on-one with a student, she is able to block out the clamor and the rigmarole of the rest of the class working on their projects. She is kind and compassionate. She listens and tries to help the girls resolve their individual and group conflicts. And she always carries on a conversation with each of them on an adult level -- in other words, she treats them not as children, but as thinking, feeling human beings with fascinating ideas.

After school, Trina came over for dinner and we talked about her philosophy and her vision for teaching. She was just as passionate and focused on helping kids understand that they are all artists, that art lives in all of them as she was all day long while she taught.

I remember when I was that idealistic. And while I don't think I lost the idealism, I do know it was tempered over the years by all the institutional demands, the mish-mash of families and students who walk through the door with mountains of emotional baggage that I never had time to attend to. At one point during dinner, Trina laid her head on the table and said, "I am just so tired."

I remember those days. In fact, February was the month when I dreamt of leaving on a long, long vacation to Bolivia or Kenya or living off the land in some commune in Eastern Oregon. I wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep in the sun for weeks at a time, to let go of the consequences of my decisions.

I don't feel like that now...this February. In fact, I reflected on that very thought the other day when January rolled away. "I'm outside most of the day soaking in the sunlight," I told a friend. "I think that's why I've avoided that winter gloom and doom I always felt this time of year."

"And you're not slicing your soul in little pieces all day long like you were when you taught," my friend responded.

So true.

Still, there are parts I miss. Mostly the parts don't involve students, which I suppose is kind of cold-hearted, but after watching Trina try to herd cats all day yesterday, I know my teaching gifts are more on the creative end and not the relationship side.

Sometimes I think teaching is like being a goldifish in one of those tiny, round bowls. It all seems so contained. Your world is a gallon of water and a plastic castle. There's only so much you can do, only so many ways to swim, only one real view -- out. Leaving teaching is like jumping out of the bowl and realizing how enormous the world actually is, how many views the world offers. And even though there's no water in which to breathe, once you learn to breathe differently, your lungs actually expand in a way you never imagined or never believed when you lived in that little glass bowl.

I woke with laryngitis this morning, the final exclamation point of this nasty cold. Once a year, while teaching, I'd lose my voice so I'm not surprised that after my day-long visit back at school I woke without a voice this morning. 22 years in the fishbowl changed my life in many ways and made me, in some regards, the person I am today. I have no regrets, but neither am I sorry that I left. It was time. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know that I am not contained by deceptive glass walls nor limited tours around a little plastic castle.

And there's that thing about my soul, the daily slicing my friend mentioned. It's nice finally getting a chance to stitch it back together. That's what yesterday's looking back and looking into the world I left reminded me of -- I gave a lot and I don't need to give anymore.

I am good enough. I did give enough. I am enough.