It takes awhile to get perspective on anything. It has now been three years since I officially retired from my teaching job. This morning, I found my journal from that time and read it, from September 2010 right through the breakdown that put me on medical leave in January 2011, then into retirement. Trouble was brewing throughout, and I was staring down that deep well of depression long before the day I walked out. I put up a valiant fight. I nearly lost myself in the effort.
What is most striking for me is the language I used to describe my situation at school. It was a battle and I was in the trenches. I was responsible for my company of 21 students and felt like I was failing them. There were too many casualities. I also used a prison metaphor. At that time, I intended to work until I turned 62, two more school years. I saw it as a sentence. I would be paroled on my 62nd birthday, and would return to civilian life, the world outside, the real world.
I had developed many coping mechanisms and strategies for getting from one day to the next. Over and over, the saving grace was time with the kids. I journaled my delight in them, described them as precious, worried over them and celebrated their successes. I sought refuge and support in my network of colleagues, foxhole friends who struggled along beside me.
Perhaps the strangest bit I came across was the account of a day when I couldn't stop crying, felt hopeless and defeated at school, and one of the people who held some power told me that "Depression is from Satan, and Satan has you right where he wants you." I was stunned speechless. I did feel like I was living in hell, but would never have characterized it like that. Way outside of my belief structure!
What made me think of this today was talking to a friend who escaped from the public school insanity into a more balanced teaching position. Spring break has just passed, and I remember spring breaks and Sundays back when I was working. They were not times of rest and relaxation. Every Sunday was a marathon of work: writing lesson plans, making materials, researching ideas, checking work, bookkeeping, and devising strategies and lessons for individual students who needed particular attention. It was also the day of dread, knowing that 5:15 would come on Monday morning and it would be on again, 10-12 hour workdays, faculty and committee meetings, conferences, phone calls, emails, assessments, and oh yes, maybe even some teaching.
I thought about this today while lying on the guest bed upstairs, petting the dog and doing nothing except enjoying the experience of a peaceful Sunday afternoon. I know what my friends are likely doing today, I know what tomorrow morning will be like, and the pace of the work week, and the feeling that whatever you do it is never enough, and there's no way to catch up. I'm immensely grateful to be out of it.
I wish teaching was truly about education. I wish it was more about discovery and delight, and less about measurement and regulation. I wish children were not being conditioned to think of learning in the negative context of testing, competition, inadequacy and, far too often, failure. It's not like that for everyone, but too often that is the reality of school for students, teachers and administrators alike.
I still miss my kids. I still think of them. I no longer feel like I failed them, for the most part. I know I did what I could to bring human kindness and love into those groups of 6 and 7 and 8 year olds. They were still curious, excited, and motivated to explore their world. I like to think I helped guide them in those important ways, at least a little bit ---- and let them know that I believed in them. Those are qualities they can carry forward much better than scores on a test or grades on a report card. And that's why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place.
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