For the last couple of weeks I’ve had students dropping by
my classroom or meeting me in the hallways and handing me cards or
envelopes—invitations to their Senior Open House parties. I usually collect twenty or thirty of them
before graduation. The colorful pile that
collects on my desk reminds me of autumn leaves, each one a photograph or
collage depicting another student “falling” from my tree of daily encounters
and events and joining my basket of memorabilia. Nancy tried to “clean up” my study last year
and put my collection of cards and letters and clippings in a neat stack or in
a cute basket she found somewhere.
Little does she know that I have almost a whole filing cabinet drawer
full of similar detritus. Every now and
then I stop whatever I’m doing (it’s a great procrastination technique) and
leaf through the piles and stacks and file folders. Since next month marks the end of my 40th
school year as a professional educator, it’s getting to be quite a collection.
During my first ten years as a full-time high school
teacher I was the school yearbook sponsor.
Occasionally I thumb through those volumes, too, usually looking for a
name to go with a face or something to jar a memory when I’ve had an
embarrassing encounter with a former student.
Even though I warn them that I won’t be able to put names with faces
after class is over, it’s still a shortcoming that bothers me when I can’t
remember a name. My dear wife has gotten
used to my “neglecting” to introduce former students to her when we chance to
meet them. She knows that I don’t call
them by name because I don’t remember which one goes with the people we’ve met.
I hope that all the joking we do about Old-Timer’s Disease
and the Absent-Minded Professor are just that…jokes. It is frustrating that I don’t remember the
name of a standout student from five or ten or thirty years ago, yet I can tell
you the name of Alexander the Great’s horse (and I can even spell Bucephalus)
or the year of the Battle of Hastings (1066
If you want to know why that’s important, look it up!).
My piles and baskets and drawers-full of mementos are
important to me, though, for more than reminding me of people’s names. Each one of those cards or letters or
photographs or albums represents some aspect of my life’s work. As each school year draws to a close, those
missives from the seniors cause me to stop now and then and think about whom
I’ve met and what we’ve done. I like to
reflect on the year and take stock. Have
I been successful? Where are the brightest
lights? Where could I have been more
effective? How? Plunging into the “collected works” can
really cause me to stop and think. Not
all of those reminders are of the most pleasant things, but most are.
I’ve always told myself that each year is a chance to get
better not only at what I do but who I am.
I saw a sign the other day: “I became a teacher not for the income but
the outcomes.” I definitely haven’t had
the greatest income, but I’d like to think that most of the outcomes have been
good. Now and then I have to check to
see. I just need some help remembering
some times!
