Tonight I practiced packing. Brought out clothes, shoes, the scale. Rehearsed a leaving that happens in a few weeks when my contract ends, but based on how challenging life has been, I want tomorrow. I tell myself it’s a practical exercise – if I am living on a volunteer stipend of $1100USD a month, transitioning back to the Bay Area after 12 years, and if I only have 100 lbs of luggage before I get charged an extra $250 Iran War dollars, what do I actually need? Between fits of wanting to burn it all and start over . . . I ruminate and calculate.
I’ve worn the same clothes for a decade or more. Can I let them go? I consider carbon footprints, my responsibility to Earth . . . living abroad for 12 years means I rarely shop – something I am proud of. I don’t want to wreck that by donating clothes here just to have to buy clothes back in the States upon my return. Bad ecological math.
Garments carry meaning . . . a tank top from when you helped baby turtles get to sea, the matchies with your best friend on that coastal drive, the sweatshirt when you underestimated a wedding in Colorado.
Tonight I passed a tourist wearing a shirt from a summer camp I went to for years – Lair of the Bear. It took all my energy to not call out to him and ask about it . . . it would be too disappointing if it were just some shirt he picked out of a bin.
A few weeks ago, my birthday, I was wallowing. It had been a disappointing day. I felt . . . uncelebrated and unspecial and full of the birthday blues. A friend texted to meet at a rooftop bar. I knew I needed to persuade myself out of the funk. I pulled up my metaphorical big girl panties and headed out. I was turning 42, dag-nabbit, which is 21 twice. A beer felt appropriate.
It started with “just one” – the age-old promise I always make and always break and always know I will break but always keep making because I always want to believe.
We cheersed and chatted. Some older people came in; white ex-pats, or, more accurately, immigrants. We exchanged basics. When I said I was a fifth grade teacher, the man said “Oh! That was my favorite year! My favorite teacher, my fondest memories.”
“Really?” I queried, straightening up, tickled pink that I taught such a formative year. “What was so special about fifth grade?”
“Oh. . . .” he paused, taking a long hit. “Actually . . . I don’t remember? I just – I was really happy about school that year. Even when I was sick, I would beg to go. I didn’t want to miss a day.”
Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week, which I knew because of social media. My current school does nothing. Expected. We are in rural Guatemala. No resources. Six outdoor toilets for 160+ people. Every morning I sweep for the termites eating away at the handmade wooden furniture that makes my classroom. Our students often can’t afford clothes, food, or toothbrushes. Culturally, parents are removed from school; some are illiterate, some are working in the States. Anecdotally, I’ve had two of the hardest classes behaviour-wise ever, back to back.
Teaching is the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, often swinging between within the hour. These little people-in-training need so much from you and of you. Sometimes you are the only adult a child sees and knows and feels the most love from. Sometimes you are an imagined enemy for a parent or child with underlying issues neither party is willing to face. Sometimes your leadership disappoints, or your team does, or your class never hits a good stride with the right vibes.
Expectations for teachers are high and always climbing (with salaries that never match). Just browse social media to discover what people think we should be teaching that was traditionally a parent’s job – tying shoes, diagnosing vision problems, toilet training, finances, social graces, sharing, etc. Additionally, we are competing against big tech that wormed its way into education via the pandemic, and shorter attention spans, and standardized testing.
Despite how difficult the last 16 years in this career has been, I still think that teaching is special and important. It is the one profession that leads to all other professions. Not everyone gets to see magic happen at their place of employ, but I do. It is magical to watch a child learn something. It is magical to make kids laugh. It is magical to create understanding.
Teaching is delight and wonder and challenge. A language, a culture, a style. Lists and lanyards and lockdowns, meetings and emails and meetings that could have been emails. It is a choice. It is exhausting. It is hilarious. And for better and for worse, we as teachers form indelible core memories for every student we interact with.
Thinking back to what that gringo said – how he loved fifth grade, I remember the quote – people might not remember what you said, but they will always remember the way you made them feel.
When my students remember nothing about decimals for the quiz, despite the fact we’ve been studying decimals for weeks, I remember. When they don’t capitalize, when their verb tenses make no sense, I remember. When they ask where to find scratch paper in May and it’s been in the same basket in the same spot with the same huge label that says “SCRATCH PAPER” since the first day of school in August, I try to remember what they will remember –
They’ll remember how I gave them pencils and erasers and snacks and hugs, and listened to their stories, even when they forget the water cycle. They will remember that on Wednesdays we “travel” the world and get passport stamps, on Fridays we do a word puzzle, that I’m easily distracted by animals, how to imitate me saying “yay” and “cute” in a California accent. That they once had a teacher allergic to fruit and pectin and they got her a jelly fruit cake on her birthday she couldn’t eat or she’d die. She gave them all big slices and ate stale Cheetos alone.
They’ll remember a teacher who reminded them to say “please” at the end of every request by saying “comma . . . ?” expectantly. She made them obsessed with the weather and taught how to say “hello” in thirty countries. They learned how to make slime and to value cleaning. She cried when they watched “The Wild Robot”, and when Alex memorized his times tables, and when Jason asked a really good question, and the one time everyone turned in their homework.
They will remember that in the year of “6-7,” their teacher physically threw herself against the whiteboard and begged the entire class for just one hour without hearing that particular number pattern, but then bought a t-shirt with “6-7” emblazoned across the chest and threw a day-long themed party about the cursed number. When she realized almost none of you had ever been to a McDonalds, the nearest one being three hours away, and figured out how to make homemade McFlurries, and threw you a party so you could taste them.
And probably how that teacher turned pink and sweaty while teaching about puberty, awkwardly gesticulating and translating awkward questions between Spanish and English, but desperate for you to receive some education about a taboo subject in a country rampant with machismo, where girls as young as 10 years old are getting pregnant (usually by incest. another topic for another day).
Somedays I have to make myself be, but I am glad I had these two years here in Guatemala. I completed my Masters, my Spanish is back to fluent, I made (at least) three new friends. I influenced lives through my teaching here.
I read a book recently, there was a line about just being and to paraphrase it poorly, it said that there is nothing wrong with just being. We can just be. It’s enough to just. We don’t have to earn being alive.
To just. To just.
To do the job I’m paid for but not be a slave to it – to just be a daughter and sister and niece and granddaughter, and aunt, amazing aunt, to just be me. To just make tortillas, to go on walks, to read books, to pet dogs, to drink tea, to check in with friends and family, and just be extraordinarily ordinary in my existence, trusting it makes a difference all the same. To just do that, to just be alive and be me and you be you . . . is really good.
Hey. Wow. Phew. Okay now. We walked through it tonight. Thanks for being here with me. I am grateful. :). Until next time.
Sunglasses Always Fit 
tell me what you think bout this!