Abandoned

My sixth grade year seems like a lifetime ago.

2001-2002 was a very different world than the one we live in now.

I was blessed to have parents that paid for me to attend private, Catholic school for my K-12 years. I was able to develop my skills, get into college, and have a successful career path because of everything I learned.

My sixth grade year felt like any other when it started, until September 11th. At that age, I did not process what was happening. I got to school and watched as my teacher sobbed at the front of the classroom, until eventually school was dismissed and we went home.

I have a vivid memory of the news being on in my living room and watching the planes hit the towers, but it didn’t make sense. I felt removed from it. New York City was so far away and terrorism was not a word in my vocabulary yet.

Turns out I would do a lot of growing and growing up that year.

I won the MVP for volleyball.

I bought my first dog with my own money.

I looked ahead at junior high and wondered if time would always move so slowly.

…

After having just completed my first couple months as a sixth grade teacher, I can confidently tell my 11-year-old self that time would in fact never move that slowly again and you will regret wishing that it wouldn’t.

Sixth grade in 2023 is in a whole other dimension than the one from my childhood. Especially in a Title 1 school.

I was nervous enough about my first year of teaching, so when I applied for jobs, I was very picky about what schools received my application. I wanted to pick schools that were close to home, but also rated the highest. I wanted to be some place where the students were excelling academically, so that I could be part of that win.

Turns out – God did not want me in those schools.

When I walked into the doors of my school and sat down in the front office to wait for my interview, His voice was clear as day, “This is where I want you.”

God didn’t need me to work with kids who had it all together. He needed me to work with kids who were like me: a hot mess.

I had no idea how, but I knew everything was about to change.

My interview was similar to others I have had in the past as far as talking about my skills and explaining who I was, but it was very different in that I didn’t have any experience for the actual role I was applying for: Sixth Grade English Language Arts Teacher.

I had never taught.

I had amazingly just passed my ELA Praxis exam on the first attempt (I couldn’t believe how much of that information had stuck with me all these years).

I hadn’t worked with kids since high school.

During the interview, they prepared me for what this job would entail: teaching a group of children with severe behavioral issues, emotional trauma, and many of which, live in poverty.

I didn’t feel prepared to actually jump into my first teaching role, let alone one of this nature, but they offered me the position at the end of the interview and I said yes. My now principal looked at me and said, “This is going to be the hardest thing you will ever do, but it will be the most rewarding.”

My first week was a blur. It was busy with Homecoming activities, school picture day, parent teacher conferences, and desperately trying to get 70 sixth graders to listen to anything I had to say.

They had formed an attachment to the Classroom Coordinator who had been in my room since the beginning of the school year, and many of them had even had her as a teacher in fifth grade, so me coming in and taking over meant they lost her. And many of them were not happy.

They felt betrayed. They felt like I was a stranger who had stolen something away from someone they all loved. I was largely the enemy.

But just like I had to adapt to my new routine, so did they. And after a couple weeks, the kids and I started to bond. They started to understand I was not there to take something away from them, but to give them something. I no longer was someone they wanted to leave, I was someone they now wanted to run up to and hug every morning. I became someone they could talk to and trust. I have even become the favorite teacher to some of them (hearing that always melts my heart a little, even though I know it’s not a competition).

And now. I fight for these kids. I defend them. I talk to them and walk them through how to make better choices. They have learned that my support is not going away and anything I say to them is to protect them, to help them learn, and to help them become who they are meant to be.

I don’t actually consider teaching my job at this point. I’m not concerned about titles, getting promotions, what my salary is (which is far too low, which I already knew, but I’m just now experiencing first-hand, and hey by the way whoever is reading this, teachers should make far more money based on the INSANE amount of physical and emotional work that goes into this profession, and ok I’ll stop myself there), or how many hours of overtime I work.

Teaching is truly a calling. It is a vocation. It carries with it such tremendous purpose, especially in this situation where most of my students need more than just an education. They need someone to be their person.

Apparently, I’ve always needed to go back to middle school.

I never planned on teaching at the middle school level. That age is awkward. It’s difficult. It’s where you’re trying to find yourself, while still trying to fit in. But so is your 30s. I’m still awkward. I’m still figuring it all out. I’ve known these kids for a couple months and they already have my whole heart. I could not for a second imagine not knowing a single one of them now and I am in awe of every choice that led to this moment.

Nothing has made me happier than being present for these kids in my classroom, at lunch in the cafeteria, and at volleyball and basketball games. I never knew that this was so desperately what I have been missing all along.

And every day I remind them that I am not going to leave them. Which is still a question I get asked often: Are you going to leave? Are you going to quit? I always tell them no. I’m here for y’all, even after you leave sixth grade, I will always be your teacher and you will always be my kids.

If I can give these kids anything over the next seven months it is the promise that I won’t abandon them. No matter how hard this job has been and will be, I have found such remarkable purpose in just being there for them, even when they tell me I’m doing too much.