The End Is In Sight?

 "Teaching is the greatest act of optimism"   -Colleen Wilcox

I think, more than I probably should, about the end of my career.  Next year will mark 30 years of teaching, and the end of the 30th year also marks my eligibility for retirement.  I'll be very young to retire, but eligible, nonetheless.  

It is both terrifying and exciting.  I am tired.  I'd love to be done, or more honestly, I think I love the IDEA of being done.  But, then I think about the REALITY of being done.  Can we afford for me to stop teaching and live on the pension?  How do I get insurance for 10 years until I'm eligible for Medicaid?  And...

What would I do with my time?  

I have said for years I would love to just go camping and play my guitar.  I really think I'd like to do those things, but I also think it would make me happy for a few months, and then I'd be bored.  

But I amf tired.  As a teacher, I'm just tired.  Sure, today I'm tired because I got home from a Monday evening tournament at midnight last night.  My body and attitude just do not recover from those tournaments like they used to.  But more than the tournament tired, I'm just 2023 teacher tired.  

Tired from the news of yet another school shooting.
Tired from being made the "target" people want to harden.  
Tired from another fake shooting call.  
Tired from another meeting.  
Tired from crisis drills and being the target of airsoft guns and blanks fired in the hall.  
Tired from another "new" initiative for reviving/transforming education.  
Tired from being told I want to indoctrinate students with my political belief when I just want them to turn in the work I assign. 
Tired from being a political piñata.  
Tired from having my classroom instruction time controlled by politicians and bureaucrats and not-so-well-meaning parents. Tired of enabled students who blame me for failure. 
Tired from being told I'm failing when it feels like I'm doing all I know how to do.  

Tired.  

And those things bring me back to the IDEA of retiring sounding really, really good.  

But...in spite of all this complaining (and there are some who will simply view the above items as complaining)...

I'm a teacher.  I absolutely believe there are many people who teach, but there are some who were born to be teachers. People who could do other things, but their heart is with teaching.  I hope it is not arrogant to say this, but think I'm one of those people.  I LOVE to watch the lights come on in students' eyes when they figure out how to do something with which they were struggling.  I LOVE to see students succeed where they have failed.  I genuinely LOVE being with the kids (most of the time).  In the last few years, I've moved some of my energy and focus to teaching teachers- or more honestly- coaching coaches.  I LOVE that, too. 

So, I continue to wind up at this place. I'm eligible to retire from teaching in a year.  I'm just not sure if eligible and able are the same thing.  Wondering, "if I retire, what will I do, then?" 

Helping political candidates, training people in churches to teach, working with teachers and coaches- all of these things sound fun, but I don't know how to make a living doing them.  I am also pretty aware they are all just other forms of teaching.   

I realize I am probably just whining here.  I understand most of this writing is self-serving.   

I also suspect I am far from alone in any of these feelings.  

So, today, I will just be in my classroom watching kids practice speeches, coaching interpretation performances, and planning the end of our season.  I'm sure they will do some things which make me crazy.  I'm sure they will do things that make me laugh. I'm sure I will say something to make some of them feel very encouraged and validated.  I am also sure I will give honest feedback which will make some of them very unhappy- even angry.   

On that note, here is today's poem. I wrote it some years ago during a streak of days where a student cried for some reason or another in my room.  

Yes, friends, I teach high school.  Yes, there are, often, tears.  

I actually had a counter on the whiteboard last year at the front of the room.  It was in the style of those injury counters- you know the ones: "______ Days In Our Workplace Without an Accident".   This one was labeled, "_______ Days Without Debate Related Tears".   In a semester, we never got above 8.  

So, here is the poem...

My Superpower

I make kids cry
Not intentionally, mind you, I’m not an ogre,  it’s not purposeful,  but I do
This is so true, in fact, that there is a list of tips from former students hanging on my wall.
One item from the list-
“Not all Tidwell talks are good, not all Tidwell talks are bad, but they all end in tears.”
I make kids cry- it’s almost like a superpower. 
 
A really emotionally-charged, awful superpower.
 
One of the first times I remember making a student cry, I was still a student myself
Down the flight of stairs from the speech room, in a low entryway to the high school auditorium,
A senior boy, working with a sophomore girl 
“Help her”, my coach said 
So I did.  And she cried.  Twice. 
 
Once that morning because she didn’t think she could do anything worth watching
And me, pushing, prodding, saying “you can do this.”
Then the tears of frustration came.  Big, round, terrified tears
But finally, the breakthrough, and a smile 
Two weeks later, she was holding a medal, and she cried for the second time
 
Sometimes, I can see them coming, and sometimes they come from nowhere
Sometimes the tears are sad, and sometimes the tears are happy
Like the reporter in Jerry McGuire, I have a reputation for drawing out the tears
No matter how hard they try
 
For example, the junior boy who I found in a practice room, huddled in a corner in a ball
Dealing with the suddenly too-real consequences of his horrible choices
When he saw me- tears.  Uncontrollable, wailing tears.
“You told me.  You told me THIS would happen.  I’m so sorry.”
 
The senior girl who was sitting in front of the school van after a horrible moment
Where her hopes and dreams were shattered by one person’s ballot
In that parking lot on that bitter-cold Kansas night
I hugged her, and she cried.
 
Or the young woman who begged to leave in the middle of her first debate
I said, “no”, and she cried. 
Or the student to whom I said, “that was the best I’ve ever seen you do”
And she cried
Or when I said, “you can do better- what’s going on?”
And he cried
 
But what they don’t know- what none of them ever see
Is that when I see their emotion- the excruciating pain, the unexpected success, the overwhelming joy-
When they finally win after so many losses, and they cry
When they just miss winning by ever so little much, and they cry
When they find their voice, their passion, or the love of their life, and they cry
When they lose someone special to death or just having chosen poorly, and they cry
 
In that moment, quietly, and privately

I cry too