The following was originally published in The Daily Record on June 5, 2013.
I have been holding my breath. This would be the best description of the ride that has been the school year of 2012-2013, first as a teacher at Orrville High School and then as a mother whose oldest daughter is a graduating senior at Wooster. To put it out there for the reading public, I will exhale and describe it.
Last fall, which seems a lifetime ago, in those days of laughter, I was transitioning Corinne into a post-secondary Wayne College student, and enjoying misty celebrations on the tennis courts with her while the chill was in the air; things seemed to be so much easier. It seemed like we had forever until graduation. It seemed like things would always be the same. Today, a mere six months later, things have changed. In addition to preparing Corinne to go off to Kent State, I also left my classroom in the old OHS building, moved to a new classroom (for a mere three weeks) in the new OHS building and took everything home that had accumulated over 13 years as I prepare for a new avenue as a mother and a professional.
In November, a group of 26 teachers was told by forward-thinking administration that if the May levy failed in Orrville, our jobs were gone. Although the warning was appreciated, the day of the announcement was more like a sucker punch to the gut than holding one’s breath.
This place, these kids, the families and the other staff members have been a part of my life for 13 years. Well, you all know, the levy failed and collectively, we finally exhaled and realized this is our new reality. Colleagues all around are packing up and trying to figure their next move.
I still remember the day Corinne started kindergarten as the day I started teaching at Orrville. I remember distinctly picking her up from Wayne Elementary, also her fifth birthday, as a rookie teacher, the mother of a school-age child, ready to see what the future held for both of us.
Here I am taking in fresh breath on this new frontier: The mother of a college student, a job change forthcoming, a new decade ahead (I’ll be 50 in January) and challenges — but I must view them as ways to grow. I am one of those people who hates change.
Every year when Microsoft puts out a new Word program, I hate it. I hate my things to be moved. I hate getting a new car because I have to move my stuff out of the old car and into the new. But now, I’m forced to move on, move forward and move my daughter into a dormitory.
The new OHS is fresh, clean and current, but it is very surreal to see all the same people in a totally different place. The move into the new building was like a weird dream or going to a strange out-of-the-way airport and only seeing people you know. It’s very freaky to have to ask where the bathroom is (and it’s the next door down) or where your colleague works — someone you’ve seen day in and day out just across the hall for 13 years.
I dealt with the blow to the gut when the levy failed as a person in mourning, I think. I experienced stages to the loss of my teaching job in tears, laughter, hugs from students, colleagues and community members. Sometimes I would cry; sometimes I would laugh. Corinne told me she never knew who I was going to be from one day to the next. “One minute you’re crying,” she said to me, “the next minute you’re laughing.”
But that is the point I want to make. Teaching is not just a job and it goes beyond a profession. It is based on relationships, oftentimes fragile ones, but building trust and a fair reputation takes a long time and a lot of laughter and tears. That is the thing non-teachers need to understand.
Teaching is a part of who you are. I told a colleague as I began to look out at the frontier of other jobs, it’s so hard to think about working in other fields when I have been so connected to things with meaning for so long.
As a writer and a teacher, I thrive on doing things with meaning. I could be offered a million-dollar salary and I couldn’t do the job if it didn’t mean something to me. It’s a blessing and a curse. Sort of like motherhood and teaching. I just catch my breath from scolding my daughters and the next thing I know, we’re laughing together over something funny that happened or that one of us said.
To teach and to be a mother, you have to laugh and cry — sometimes at the same time. I just wasn’t prepared for so much of these emotions in my professional career this year.
