The Good Teacher

Like a mother is always a mother to her children, a teacher is always a teacher to his or her students. When my mother was 90 years old and I was 60 years old and my brother was 58 years old and my sister was 64 years old, my mother still fulfilled the role of mother for us. She still mothered us. She still cared and worried and fussed and doted and did whatever a mother has done all of her life with respect to her children. Once a mother, always a mother. No matter how old you are, your mother is still your mother. No matter how old a mother’s children are they are still her children. The mother and child relationship, no matter how it played out way back when will continue to play out in the same way forever, until death do us part. That relationship is one of the everlasting truths in the universe. There is no other relationship that comes close to that one except for maybe the relationship between a teacher and a student. That relationship also plays out and continues to play out in much the same way over the years. It always stands the test of time, and the younger the child when the relationship started the more similarly it plays out when the student becomes older.

Think about the countless days that a student and teacher spend together in the classroom, on the playground, on field trips, singing songs, learning to read, life in the lunchroom, test time, projects on the go, the annual Christmas Pageant, Sports Day, the nurse’s room, burying the classroom pet, pulling out the slivers, the heart-to-hearts, cleaning up the broken thermoses and the list goes on. A caring teacher, especially at the elementary level but not exclusively at the elementary level, makes such an impression on her or his students that the relationship lasts forever. When we reunite with our mother’s we turn from doctors and lawyers and felons and farmers and hockey players and students immediately back into her children. Likewise, when we reunite with our grade school teachers we immediately turn back into our former selves – the kid at the back of the room (or the front of the room), the shy kid, the talker or whoever we were back then. We are no longer business-like or cocky or professional or rich or poor. We are transformed instantly back into the kid in the front of the third row the instant we come face to face with our teacher no matter when that happens. What nostalgia, what a wonderful transformation that is. I love the idea that we can forget about all that has happened between the time we last saw each other and now and instantly become a kid again just like we were back in the classroom – almost like a do-over. My teachers were all so tall when I was in elementary school but they became shorter somewhere along the way. However, they revert to their former tallness during the reunion. They all become Ms. Somebody again, standing by my desk or at the board at the front of the room or wearing the newspaper hat on her head or the red pencil behind his ear. They all become my teachers again. I guess they never stopped being my teachers and I never stopped being their student. I am still doing what they told me to do so many years ago. What a long strange trip it’s been!! I am grateful they were around when it started and I am comforted when they show up again along the road. Most are now gone forever, but all still remain in my heart and my memories. All of them played a part in what I have become and who I am. I am thankful for their contributions.

I am glad I have been a teacher most of my life. I hope I have been a good one. I hope I have touched some lives in a positive way and made the journey enjoyable (or at least bearable) for the students in my many classrooms. I always strived to be the kind of teacher that my students believed me to be and the kind of teacher that could serve to transform them back to kid-dom when we might meet in the future. If I was able to do that, then I know I have done what I needed to do and that I have been a good teacher.