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That wassomething that had occurred to me more than a few times, too. And I’d come right out and said it to some parents, which hadn’t gone over well. Though there was one dad who’d been rattled by it and eased off his daughter after that. He still wanted her to pull up her grades, but he stopped with the threats to make her quit basketball if she didn’t succeed. I’d weathered some tirades from parents and principals alike for playing that card, but getting through to someone one time made it worth it. No regrets.
Isaiah:I think most parents’hearts are in the right places. They just forget how tough it is at that age, and they assume any failures are a result of kids not applying themselves. Sometimes that’s true. The kid today? LOL Definitely an issue of not applying himself.
Tanner:Yeah, I think I was like him. Not quite so much audacity, but 100% a slacker.
Isaiah:It happens. But there’s also learning disabilities. Stress. Hormones. I had a couple of parents who were frustrated that their daughter’s schoolwork imploded after she broke up with her boyfriend. I said, did you ever break up with someone as a teenager? Because I did, and even though it seems like silly kid stuff now, it felt like the biggest crisis in the world at the time.
Tanner:Whoa. Did they listen?
Isaiah:They blew me off in the moment. But something about it stuck, because I got an email from the mom a couple days later saying I was right. Turned out the poor kid had been trying to talk to them about it and just get some validation about her feelings, and between the breakup and her parents ignoring her, she was a mess.
Tanner:That must’ve been miserable for her.
Isaiah:I know, right? But she turned it around after that. I think she just needed to know it was okay to be hurt, and that even if it wouldn’t seem like a big deal 20 years down the line, it was a big deal right now.
Tanner:Where were teachers like you when I was a kid? I thought the world was ending when my BF and I broke up in 10thgrade.
Isaiah:Me too. I think adults sometimes forget that kids’ worlds are smaller than ours, and their problems seem a lot bigger to them. Even though we were kids once too.
I paused,and my chest tightened.We’d been talking about my job for a while now.
Isaiah:God, I hope I’m not boring you with all the shop talk.
Tanner’s responsewas almost immediate.
Tanner:Not at all. I’ll bore you to death with hockey eventually.
Isaiah:I doubt that. LOL
Tanner:Give it time. And to tell you the truth, I was curious for a long time what you did.
Isaiah:Likewise.
Tanner:LOL right? And it’s not boring. Don’t worry.
I smiled to myself.I really, really hoped that wasn’t lip service. Because there were men in my not-too-distant past who had thought my job was boring. Keith could drone on for hours about the intricacies of interoffice politics, watercooler gossip, and every detail of a long, mind-numbing meeting. But God help me if I shared a brief anecdote about one of my students or something Darren had said in the teachers’ lounge.
I was about to write back that I appreciated it, but to tell me if it got too boring, but Tanner’s message came through first.
Tanner:So do you think the kid from today will actually do the assignments?
Isaiah:Well, he emailed me about an hour ago to ask for clarification about one of them, so he’s at least opened the file and checked them out.
Tanner:Ah, so he’s not a lost cause.
Isaiah:Nah, they rarely are. Sometimes they just need some motivation or validation. Or they need help they don’t know how to ask for.
His next textcaught me by surprise:
Tanner:You really care about your students, don’t you?
I couldn’t seehis face or hear his voice, but what little time I’d spent in his presence had shown me enough that I knew without a doubt he meant that sincerely. No sarcasm. No eye-rolling. Like he could see how much I cared about my kids, and he thought it was a good thing.
Isaiah:Absolutely. I didn’t sign up for this for the money. LOL
Tanner:Seems like one of those jobs you have to really love.
Isaiah:It is. It’s hard sometimes. But that has more to do with the adults than the kids.
