How Long Have You Been Going to School?

This week, an educator in the St. Johnsbury School stopped by during my office hours and asked if they could close the door. I hold both virtual and in-person office hours while serving as superintendent. I got the idea several years ago to be present in buildings and schedule times for folks to meet with me if they need to. Some weeks, several people connect with me; other weeks, no one seeks me out. I've learned that when someone asks to close the door during office hours, they want to share something important. 

I've been honored and humbled by the vulnerability that people have shown me during my years in leadership. When people share life-changing events, it is often because what is happening (or has happened) will alter their employment status, and we need to have a conversation. While I was aware of the serious nature of what was about to take place, I was also cognizant that this individual was going to reveal something to me that was highly personal. 

I don't want to share the specifics of the conversation to maintain my commitment of confidentiality to this person, and something they said really resonated with me. They said, "I've been going to school since I was 4." Think about that for a moment. This individual has been in education since they were 4. 

I've been in education since I was 4 too. I started nursery school in 1978. I entered kindergarten (it was half-day in New York when I was growing up) in 1979, and in the fall of 1980, I began first grade. I've been going to school ever since. Granted, since 1996, I've been on the "other " side of the desk, and to the point of this educator, I've been going to school for forty-four years. 

Education is a deeply personal endeavor because education is about relationships, plain and simple. We simply cannot do our work well if we do not know our students. This statement transcends age, as I have found it to be true while teaching graduate students at UVM. 

Since education is about relationships, we have to invest so much more of who we are as adults, getting to know the people we are teaching. Imagine learning about the ups and downs of the lives of the people you are teaching, year in and year out. You share their joy, and you share their sorrow. You walk with them through the changes in their lives, in the lives of the people in their families, as if you are a part of their family. In a very real way, since students spend most of their waking hours with us in schools, we are their family. 

When we do this, our students feel safe. When our students feel safe, they can access their education. When students can access their education, they can learn to their fullest potential. So when this educator tells me they've been going to school since they were four, that's many, many years of building relationships. 

Now layer on the past two years of this pandemic. The trauma that it has caused in the lives of everyone. That trauma does not stay in the homes of our families. It walks right into our building every day, and it has been doing so since switched to remote to finish 2020, came back into our building for the hybrid learning of 2021, and continues to arrive daily this year. 

How our faculty and staff are still connecting with little and not-so-little human beings these days is nothing short of heroic. The fact that people are condemning teachers for being lazy when they can't come to work for a COVID-related reason is nothing short of cruel. And if you think for one second that just because you went to school, you can do the work of teachers, let me ask you this: I had a haircut last weekend. Do you want me to cut your hair? 

Maybe you stopped going to school after you earned a Master's Degree. Maybe you stopped going to school after college. Maybe you stopped going to school after high school. 

Some of us haven't stopped going to school. And these have been the most brutal two years of our lives because they've been the most brutal in the lives of our families. And when you care deeply about the little and not-so-little people you see every single day, their trauma becomes your trauma. And because relationships ground us in education, that's exactly how we want it. 

It's exactly how you want it too. I know everyone can name their favorite teacher, not because of the subject they taught, but because of the way they made us feel. That relationship with that teacher stood out because of how that teacher made a difference in your life, no matter what you were going through at the time. 

I have a building full of people who are doing just that. Trying to make a difference in the lives of every student they see. In the midst of a two-year pandemic. 

They've been going to school for a very, very long time.