EHS Pillars - Fall 2016

A FEW WORDS
ON TEACHING
by Emma Lyders
Forgive yourself. Just have fun. Hold your breath until
Thanksgiving. One after another, each piece of advice
becomes an aphorism that rolls through my brain as the kids
roll into the room. They're not young, not old, but making their
own age‐associated adjective. I try to smile enough but not
too much, I try to introduce myself, I try to shake their hands
as they walk across the threshold and into my life, I try to
read in their faces which palms not to touch. I catch on pretty
quickly.
The opposite of a music venue, the classroom fills from
back to front. I can tease them, I can shame them, I can pull
that embarrassed half‐smile from stiff cheeks, but unless I
demand it, they won't join me where it's most lonely: where
the teacher stands. My hands are still sore from pulling
thumbtacks from walls that never wanted to be punctured,
and they'll be sore next week when I make my own mark.
When we do.
I look out to find a blur of the same face. Some blonde‐haired,
some brown, some dancer thin, some basketball strong. But
those faces, excited, restrained, at rapt attention, afraid to
speak, afraid to break the ice that'll melt in time. I can't stop
staring at them, into their eyes, away, and back again.
At first I can't feel. I'm just in it, in here, with them. Then I
get it. It's heart. Theirs, mine, what hangs in the balance
between us, what lingers in the room after they've run from
it, backpacks bouncing and sliding and pinching. It's in this
moment that I realize the kind of teacher I am, the kind of
teacher I'll become, pulling my newly‐minted profession on as
if it's a full‐body costume. It never comes off. The bell can ring
and they can leave, but I'm still a teacher. One that lets them
be who they are, what very few ever did for me. The few that
did? They mattered to me because I mattered to them.
I imagine a ping pong table between us, and every question
I pose, every universal meaning I offer, a ball I hit over the
net. Will they hit it back? Will they catch it and hold it in their
hands? Will they hit it to a classmate? Will they drop the
racket and slap the ball back with their hands, so fast I have
to duck as it whizzes by? Or, will they let it fall to the floor, all
of us watching, waiting, wondering how many times it will take
before someone makes a move. But they aren't balls, they're
words that fly through the air. Words I speak, words they hear,
words they return, words I write, words they write. There is no
script, for either one of us, and in that way we are the same.
The Last Word
The syllabi
get passed
out, the rules
and standards
get set, and we fall
deep into more words,
different words—the words someone else wrote. By the end
of the second day, I've learned 60 names. By the third day,
I'm no longer in a match against the entire class. We're on the
same side. Not everyone comes willingly, but eventually they'll
feel a part of the universe of the story, the one we're reading,
the one we're creating together, the one they'll make on their
own. Each student finds his or her home base for the year,
and we build a community in this room of desks and chairs,
whiteboards and collaged walls.
Six weeks in, I stand at the front of the room, the white board
behind me, judgmental in its blankness. I open The Great
Gatsby, and they follow, desperate for something to do that
will keep them awake, this tiny class of 12 seated in a circle.
Birthday. The word seems raised from the page, isolated
under its own thunderstorm, like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.
"I just remembered, today's my birthday," Nick tells us. I repeat
his words, I pause. Before I can stop myself, I'm writing on
the board though I don't really know why. The questions pore
out of me, some rhetorical, some demanding a response.
And then, that student—every class has one who does
this—breaks the silence, with a truth that is comedic for how
painful it is: "Sounds like a pretty lame birthday." We laugh in
unison, and then we talk about Nick and Gatsby. But it isn't
about them, it's about us.
The books are vehicles, objects of transport into a shared
world where we both reside. It's the gray matter—what lives
between the letters and words and in the blank space on the
page, what I pull from paper and push into their minds—that
pulls us together. Only we know what just happened. And
I have to hope, years from now, they'll remember Holden
holding fast to his own innocence, and Nora standing up for
herself, and Annie John leaving home, and that they'll never
forget the beauty of language, and how grammar gets in your
way if it isn't on your side, and finding meaning in the lives of
others. Thankfully, this is a song I can put on repeat and trust
that it will never get old.
In addition to teaching English I and II at EHS, Emma Lyders is
a published essayist and professional book editor.
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