Things I Probably Shouldn't Say in Public (Service)

My recent role change at work has given way to some awful guilt. I anticipated such a burden but it still haunts nevertheless. This week the little birds that come my way have shared that my former AP class is suffering in my absence (also anticipated) and as a result, my "writers" are far from the writerly existence I typically create for them (not as much anticipated). I must cope with both the tremendous sadness I feel upon hearing such news and the numerous inquisitive, sometimes bewildered, public challenges of my decision to leave the English classroom. Some parents and students find my decision so inexplicable as to even (wrongly) suspect me of having done so only through coercion. I have only this response for that chorus of whys.

When helping a student in the library who would have been in my AP Composition class had I not changed to Library Media Specialist this September, I was accosted with a "You abandoned us." I replied, "But, I'm here now." And I am, but not in the same way. It can never be the same. The same was glorious, and draining. Intellectually stimulating, and always demanding more of me. I could never do or give enough. The same would have meant 16-18 hour work days with minimal social interaction other than with those exciting young adults. The same would have meant nights and weekends consumed with reading and editing their writing instead of working on my own. The same would have meant many sleepless nights and a continuous cycle of exhaustion, an infinite perpetuation of the hermetic existence I have been living for the past ten years.

I know, and many of you know, the same was also an endless cycle of exhilarating moments in the classroom, of great laughter and joy, of the celebration of success, a deep belief in the difference I was making in how young people thought and wrote, a satisfaction that I was contributing to something far larger than myself in training a whole cadre of them to use their words for good. But none of that work left any time for my life. And I could not figure out how to do it so well without sacrificing that very life, a life that was moving along at a clipped pace without me.

There is not an endless future set before me as there is before my students. I do not wish to spend the finite time left acquiescing to the politics of educational reform, supplicating within the evaluation process to those who have less experience and knowledge, justifying my success via my students' standardized test scores. You want to measure my success? Ask my kids. Read their amazing work. I've saved most of it along with the scores of letters and notes thanking me. Maybe you should read those, too. I do not wish to be a part of this corrupted and corrupting system. I do not want my presence in it to be interpreted as silent approval.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still in, though now in a strange subset consisting of those of us in education who haven't given up but have taken a turn away from the grind and the politics and the crazy inherent in large systems. Maybe I could have remained in the superstar verse if I had come home to warm meals, a cleaned house or someone else taking the garbage out. When I read the Twitter feeds, conference session descriptions, and books written by the teacher gurus I admire most, I can't help but notice they all have a partner at home, one nourishing them, applauding them, supporting them. And as a feminist, and a single woman who has never heard the biological clock tick, it pains me to say, maybe I could have kept going if I had had some partner support or if my four cats had learned to cook and empty the litterbox themselves. Perhaps I would not have been quite so emotionally and physically exhausted with another body hovering in my universe. But I didn't have that support and in part, the disciplines and actions that made me a great teacher kept me from even meeting a potential partner. It was time to save my own life.

Because let's face it, I'm half way done. Likely more than half way. I still have unfulfilled ambitions and dreams and hopes. But my window of second chances is closing. As I relearn what it means to have my own life (so warped was my previous existence), I'm not sure what to do with the guilt and sadness, if it even rightfully belongs to me. Confronting who I am if not the amazing English teacher is scary. I'm redfining amazing Library Media Specialist through my consulting efforts for faculty and writing coaching for students. But my whole identity will not be, can not be, Library Media Specialist. It's time to exist beyond the school walls, beyond the walls of my house, where the world awaits on afternoons, on nights, on weekends, and maybe even on the page.