I went out to dinner with my family the other night and my mind started to wander. For some reason, within a few minutes I was back in high school math classroom talking to a friend about my first date.
I was 16 years old and was asked to eat supper with a boy in my grade. I was so excited. We went to a local wings place where we ate, talked, and mutually decided we would like to remain friends. It was one of those dates that wasn't bad, but was very clear by the end of the evening.
The next day, a classmate asked how the date went.
Let me back up and set the scene here.
Class was over. Students were chatting and waiting for the bell. The teacher was at the front of the room.
I told her that it was nice, but we decided not to go out on another date for various reasons, mainly that our choices of extracurricular activities didn't exactly match up. We spoke quietly when suddenly the teacher, we'll call her Mrs. Smith, said in front of the entire class, "Courtney, you need to stop. I'm sure that he didn't want to date you and you're fabricating things. All of the faculty know you're a liar."
I was stunned. I was 16. She said this in front of every single one of my classmates. Another student sat down behind me and said, "Oh my gosh. I can't believe you didn't say anything. Or leave."
At the time, with a mouth like I had, I'm sure I had plenty to say but now as a teacher, I know why I didn't. She was my teacher. I really liked her and considered her "safe." But when she said that, and basically told me the other teachers I admired talked badly of me outside of the classroom, I was devastated. I felt unwanted.
I'm 30 years old and still remember that. I could even tell you what she was wearing and where everyone sat.
What that teacher said mattered and stayed with me long after graduation.
Years later, I sat in my senior writing or poetry class in undergrad. I loved writing and was so excited to take a writing class from someone I thought highly of because of their position at the university.
Unfortunately, he did not think so highly of me, for reasons I'll genuinely never quite grasp. However, I do remember listening and taking notes one day only to have him ask me a question I couldn't answer. "I'm not sure," I replied. He asked me what I was doing on my computer and implied I wasn't attentive.
"I'm taking notes. I'm listening. That doesn't mean I know the answer to your question."
That was the beginning of a tough semester.
A few weeks later, I entered the classroom and felt a familiar pressure on my chest as the anxiety of being in this room and feeling inadequate and disliked settled over me. Nervously, I chewed my nails and watched the clock, waiting for class to be over with the understanding that it was one step closer to graduation.
Looking straight at me from across the circle of desks, he said, “I was once told that when a person chews their nails they are essentially chewing on the dead skin cells they’ve scratched from their body. Chewing your nails is a disgusting habit.”
The entire class was silent. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
It wasn’t until two years later, after my acceptance into an amazing children’s literature graduate program when a published and award-winning author and professor sat me down in her office once summer that I realized the impact these comments had on me.
“Who did this to you?” She asked over her cup of tea.
Many years after that I received a letter from that same undergraduate teacher applauding one of my columns and my teaching in general. I saved it--this was the first time I’d ever heard something positive from him in regards to anything I’d done.
What we say to our students matters. It stays with them years after they leave our classrooms. What if every comment we made about something appeared on their skin somewhere? How would what we say about those we lead define them? I told my husband the story of the high school teacher and he was shocked. “Why haven’t you told me that before? And why are you thinking of it now?”
I didn't know why I was thinking of it at dinner in a Mexican restaurant but the point was that it was on my mind.
I want to be on my student's mind. But I want to be on their minds because of the good things I’ve said to them. I want them to remember the costumes, the glitter, the books, and the hot pink microphone.
What have you said to those around you lately that they will remember?
This column first appeared in The Bolivar Commercial.
This column first appeared in The Bolivar Commercial.
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