What I Wish My Students Knew

When I walked through the doors of this classroom for the first time this week, I was walking into my eighth year of teaching middle school. Each and every year has presented different challenges and different victories, but some things have always remained the same. Despite the groups of students, how many have been in my room, what grade I’m teaching, or where I’ve taught, each and every year brings tears; every year brings laughter; every year brings exhaustion and frustration. Every year shows me my weaknesses, but in every year I find my strength, and every year I work to turn all the frustrations into “teachable moments” for my students and for me. In spite of almost a decade-worth of ups and downs, I am still here, with my students in my classroom because more than anything else, every year I am reminded of my capacity to love. What I wish my students knew is that I am merely human, but I am a human with a heart the size of the ocean, and each of them takes up their own space there - among the wind and the waves.

        Oh how human I truly am! Dear ones, please know from the bottom of my heart that I do try. I try so hard, but WOW! Some days are tough. Just like you, I fight with my alarm clock. There are some mornings that I refuse to get out of bed. Snooze becomes my best friend, and getting out from under the covers feels like it will be the end of the world! Or the morning doesn’t go as planned. I didn’t sleep well; someone is sick; I’m running late; the clothes I want to wear are dirty; my child isn’t cooperating; I didn’t have time to eat breakfast; I forgot my lunch; I need to put gas in my car; my house is a mess; my dogs take 20 minutes instead of five on their walk. Before I even leave my house or pull into the school, I’ve already decided the day will be awful, or I just need to get a sub, just run away forever, or just sit and cry. But then, I think of you. I think of what you need from me. I think about all the things I could teach you in that day that you wouldn’t get the chance to learn because I’m not there. I think about the commitment I have made to your education, and to some of you, your hobbies and interests. I think about how much extra pressure it is on the school staff to try to replace me on a whim, even for just a day. I think about all the ways I am not prepared to turn my classroom and my kids over to someone else. I think about whether or not you’ll be okay today - what if your morning was rough, too, or worse than mine, and you just need a smile or a familiar face. You just need to know you can count on me if you can’t anyone else. And then I know I have only one option: (turn off the alarm and get out of bed or stop whining or wipe the tears off my face or throw on the shirt I don’t really love or skip putting on makeup) get to school, get to you.

        Do you know how much I expect out of myself? More than you can imagine. There is pressure from every angle. (I bet you have no idea how that feels *insert sarcasm*) Society hates teachers. (Some) Politicians hate teachers. Testing companies hate teachers. (Some) Parents hate teachers. (Some) Students hate teachers. There’s so much hate that sometimes I even hate being a teacher. It gets hard, trying to reach down deep and pull the joy up out of me to give to you, but I know it’s worth it. You’re worth it, so I push. I push myself, and I push the boundaries, and I push the belief system, and I push the stereotypes, and I push you. I carry the weight of proving the world wrong about teachers and about you, and then I work, work, work to actually do it. When I wake up, my brain starts a running to-do list – what has to happen in my classroom today, what am I behind on (everything, in case you’re wondering)? I get to school early to make sure the room feels like home, copies are made, the board is organized, and I am ready. I teach all day, tweaking and changing my plans as I need to. I stay late to have meetings or reflect or finish lesson plans. At night, I dream about my classroom and my students. My mind and my work are constantly focused on you. I expect myself to scale the mountains of your minds and leap the canyons of your understanding and bridge every gap and work out every problem and lead you to new places academically and personally. I expect the best out of myself for you, and in turn, I expect the best out of you for you. I am giving you so much, working so hard, and I wish you knew that if you would give that much back, work that hard in return, there is absolutely nothing we couldn’t accomplish in this classroom. There is absolutely nothing you couldn’t accomplish in your life. Run through the obstacles, jump over the hurdles, speed past the hate, shut your ears to the lies of failure and defeat, and tackle life with me. Work alongside me. Push alongside me. Expect alongside me. Believe alongside me. You don’t have to do it alone, but I can’t either.

        I have a child of my own, you know. A two-year-old little boy with the whitest blond hair and the bluest of eyes and a laugh that makes the world sparkle with sunshine. He hugs me, and he kisses me, and he loves me, and he holds tight to me, and he talks to me, and even when he isn’t perfect, he still is, and I miss him when I’m not with him. My heart aches when I drop him off at the sitter’s in the morning. When I see pictures of him throughout the day, all I want is to grab him up and snuggle and read books and go for walks and do everything I don’t get to do all day long because I am here. I am here with you. Instead of my own child. And some days, that makes my heart break. But what makes my heart break more is that some of you don’t have mommies who love you the way I love my son. Some of you don’t get cuddles and stories. Some of you aren’t thought of throughout the day; you don’t have love to go home to. Some of don’t have anyone who thinks you hung the moon, and THAT is unfathomable to me. How could anyone look at you and not believe you are incredible? How could anyone see the spark in your eyes and not recognize the fire hiding in your soul? How could anyone hold you for the very first time or be with you any day after and not believe you were worth giving up everything else for? Because let me tell you, you are. And so, I come to my classroom every day, not out of obligation or duty or the need to earn a living, but out of love and out of awe for who you are, who you were created to be, because you deserve to know that someone sees you and respects you and believes in you and loves you. I am that someone.

        Teaching is hard. Life is harder. Both are rewarding beyond compare, I can promise you that. It would be a lie to say that every day is fun, enjoyable, easy, entertaining. But that’s the thing about being alive in the real world – some days are dark and gloomy, yet we still wait on the sun. When I face frustrations and obstacles that would overtake me, I think about why I am here in this tiny little school in this tiny little community, and I know the answer is you. You are my sun. You are what I look for when everything else is shadowed. What I wish my students knew is that I am here because of them – not for a paycheck, not out of habit, not because “those who can’t do, teach,” and honestly, not even for their academic gain, but to help them learn to be human: experiencing hate knowing how to return love, experiencing lies knowing how to recognize truth, and experiencing defeat knowing how to create victory. I want my students to be everything no one has told them they could be and more than everything everyone has said they would be. I want them to dream and laugh and play, discover and recover and build. I want them to turn off the snooze, get out of bed, and enjoy the day because I love them; I believe in them, and I want to watch them be amazing.

Part 2: Beauty is a Woman Named...

Beauty is a woman named

Sharon Forsyth. 

          I know this woman. She is a cleaner, an organizer, a card player, a family woman. She is a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend. She loves history and genealogy, is civic-minded, and enjoys an occasional hike through the woods. She has an incredible green thumb and raises dogs and humans (chickens, horses, cows, cats, and goats, too.) This woman is a giver: time, money, advice, sweat, tears...she'll turn it all over to you, whatever she has for whatever you need. Her mind is the trifecta: common sense, intelligence, and wisdom. She laughs and she cries; she yells and she whispers (mainly she yells because she is slightly deaf.) Her name is Sharon, and she is my mother.

          My mother is a force. She is opinionated and strong-willed, loud and occasionally abrasive (see, I come by it honestly.) She was born in the South and raised in the North; her heart is all Belle, but her mouth is Yankee tried and true. She's one of those people you either love or hate; with her there is no in-between, and I don't think she'd have it any other way. She is an all or nothing kind of woman, and her ALL is the all that moves mountains and breaks barriers. She is an overcomer, a pusher, a mover; she doesn't stand still, and she won't back down.

          My mother, like many other women, has a story to tell. That story belongs to her, and I won't lay it out here for all the world to see (although maybe one day...,) but I will say that pain is her headliner. The things my mother has seen, the things she's experienced, the secrets in her mind and the anguish in her heart, these things would crumble a lesser woman. These moments, these memories, they would bring most people to their knees. Yet my mother stands. She stands, and she sings, and she smiles, and she plays, and she lives. 

          My mother is the bravest woman I know. She is the strongest woman I know. And she is the softest woman I know. She is the one who brought me apple juice and spoke in hushed tones to soothe my worries. She is the one who cried every time Little Ann and Old Dan died (because we only read Where the Red Fern Grows 15 times when I was a child.) She is the one who drove to the Girl Scout hut early on a Saturday morning to help me find my troll I left behind. She's the one who so patiently tried to help me write the number eight. She is the one who brought my pet goat to school for show and tell. She's the one who baked cinnamon rolls for after school snacks. She is the one who let me try to rescue a hurt bird. She is the one who looked upon the lifeless body of my classmate, so I wouldn't have to share the burden of the sight alone. She is the one sat down with me every Friday afternoon and did my hair for color guard, making sure to hide the bald spots from where I'd pulled it out. She's the one who wiped my tears when the first boy I ever loved broke my heart. She's the one who taught me to look at things from others' perspectives when life-long friendships were torn apart. She is the one who padded my bank account in college, so I didn't have to eat pb&j every day for the last week of the month. She is the one who made pounds upon pounds of spaghetti to feed my wedding guests. She is the one who has loved my husband like a son since his own mother passed away. She is the one who sat across from me in a Burger King in Birmingham while I waited on the call from my doctor telling me my first pregnancy wasn't viable. She is the one who listened as I cried words of heartache, words dripping in the world's injustice, words of a mother's despair, and all she said, all she needed to say, was, "I know." Because she does know. She knows it all and then some.

          I spent this afternoon beating my mother at Canasta, and as the two of us sat at the table with my aunt, my grandma, and my son, I couldn't help but wonder at this woman, this one who carried me not just in her womb but through so many pieces of my life. Despite every hurt, despite every wrong, despite every pain, despite every tragedy, my mother still smiles. She still laughs. She still plays. Despite every act of hate and every unfathomable circumstance she's experienced in her life, she still chooses to love. Every day, she gets out of bed, and she chooses to love, and she chooses to live. I know it can't be easy. I've seen it in her eyes, the way it hurts sometimes. But my mother is a fighter. She fights for love.

          On this Mother's Day and every day, I honor the woman who gave me life. There isn't a woman on planet Earth more beautiful to me than she is. When my mom looks in the mirror, her eyes deceive her. She sees aged exhaustion, a body worn down and weathered by life's storms. When I look at her, I see a warrior; I see hope, dignity, and strength, a mighty woman who doesn't bend to circumstance. Her battle scars are stunning - the evidence of a life lived with valor and coated in love. I only hope that when my son is 30, he sees the same thing in me. 

     I love you, Mom, today and every day. Thank you for being an example, for being a rock, and for loving me in every way you know how. Happy Mother's Day. 

Pain Is Beauty Part 3: A Beautiful Death

        There is a story of a man who loved a multitude. He fed the hungry, gave comfort to the brokenhearted, spoke life in dead places, played with children, and cared for the sick. He was every man's friend, a gentle soul who gave and expected nothing in return. People sought him out, desperate just to be near him, just to experience the peace that exuded from his being. He was capable of making each person feel special, significant, wanted. He was the ultimate humanitarian. 

          This man, so full of love for people, so desperate to see others' lives overflowing with abundance, died at the hands of those he served. A whisper started a whirlwind fueled by ignorance, guilt, and jealousy. The multitude to whom he had given his heart - his whole life - were suddenly calling for his death, seeking him out, blood-lust pumping through their thirsty veins. In the cover of night, they hunted him down, captured him, and tortured him. They punctured holes in his side, ripped the flesh from his back, stabbed thorns into his scalp, and beat him senseless. His blood spilled to the ground; his muscle tissue dangled in pieces from his bones. In a final act of cruelty, the mob of people who witnessed firsthand the goodness in this man's heart ended his life: death by crucifixion. 

          Death by crucifixion: the most beautiful death this world has ever known. Oh, the sight itself was ugly: a body mutilated, ravaged, destroyed; anguish seeping from torn flesh; agony etched in facial features. That moment in time speaks of pain most men never endure. The man who loved the multitude hung on his cross, looked upon those that nailed him to it, and released his last breath. When peace invaded his body and his eyes closed that final time, there on his lips lingered not the taste of bitterness but the sweet, sweet flavor of forgiveness, forgiveness marinated in love. 

          His name is Christ. His pain is the most beautiful thing in all the world.

          With His pain comes our redemption. With His pain comes our freedom. With His pain comes our healing. With His pain comes our salvation.

          The phrase "pain is beauty" truly does define my entire life. Yes, my heart has been broken. The past has clouded my present. My insecurities have led me to attempt to maintain impossible standards. My pain, like yours, has been very real. But it is not my pain that makes my life beautiful. It is His.

          I am part of the multitude. He has given His life over to me. He has loved me. He has cared for me. He has clothed me and fed me. He has healed my sickness. He has given me everything He has - His very life - forever suspended in one of the most brutal moments in history. And while His death was hideous, I am the ugly one. I have spit in His face, pushed thorns into his skull, and driven nails through his hands. It was my anger-filled, insecurity-ridden heart that prowled in the darkness, looking to trap Him and tear him limb from limb. I am the one who demanded the death of the Son of Man, the One who devoted His whole life to me. And this Man gave me everything I asked of Him. He gave me His all. 

          I caused His pain, yet when He whispers into the ear of His Father, He doesn't speak words of hate or words of revenge. He doesn't map out retaliation. When He whispers into the ear of His Father, on His lips is the sound of forgiveness, the song of redemption. I am His Beloved. Despite my turning on Him, He takes care of me. He heals my blemishes. He erases my invalidity. Through all of His pain, He has turned His heart toward me and loved me back to beauty. 

Pain is Beauty Part 2: Waxing and Weeping

          The first time I ever waxed my face was pure torture. I was standing in front of the mirror that covered the wall in the community bathroom of the house I lived in my junior year of college. After carefully following every direction on the box of Sally Hansen body wax, my little plastic jar of molten facial hair remover was finally the perfect temperature to spread ever so evenly over the top of my lip. I stirred the wax with the plastic spatula once more just to make sure the little blue "hot" didn't pop-up on the handle again, and I went to work covering every inch of facial hair that up until about two hours before, I had never given a second thought.

          His name was Jack. I met him through a friend; we immediately hit it off, and a few weeks later, I found myself on a treadmill in the cardio room of the student recreation hall, his face inches from mine as he barked "encouragements," and I sputtered my thoughts concerning my hatred for running. As the track of the treadmill whirred on, my brain began to muddle the other noises in the room as well, including his voice, so that I was only catching snippets of his motivational speeches that, to me, seemed far from helpful. In the middle of this muffled exchange of words (from him) and glares (from me,) my ears did register one phrase loud and clear: "I can see your mustache."

          My mustache? Excuse me? I was instantly shocked, angry, and incredibly humiliated. Here I was sweating and jiggling and giving everything I had on a treadmill to impress the guy I was into, and instead of noticing my incredible calf muscles or complimenting me on my extreme determination, I was being told I needed to wax. No, of course, he didn't say those words outright, but we all know that girls are the queens of implied meaning, so to me, it could be no clearer that he was displeased with my current appearance and would appreciate me getting rid of whatever fine hair rested above my upper lip. 

          So now, there I was, spreading goo the color and constancy of honey all across my face, peeling off/ripping out every stray little hair I could fine, hoping that fine tuning my appearance would give me the edge I needed to earn the approval of a guy who would never truly love me, and all the while, tears were streaming down my face because well, if I'm just being honest, waxing flippin' hurts. 

          But hey, pain is beauty. 

          There is no escaping that simple quip that seems to rule the lives of females from their preteen years until death. Yes, there are those few women who are fortunate enough to come to some self-awareness somewhere between the ages of 40-60 when they realize that vanity is simply that and no more, that being "kept" on the outside gives no value to the person you are on the inside. However, for most women it seems that our outer beauty becomes a prison, detaining who we truly are on the inside because the bars of youthful skin, current makeup trends, and fashionable clothing keep us locked away from the freedom of the truth about who we really are. For some, it starts with a first crush, that crucial moment of realization that because we "just" noticed him, all it would take is him "just" noticing us. For others it's the guidance of a mother who remembers awkward preteen years filled with clumsiness, embarrassment, and an innocent sense of desperation who just wants her own daughter to experience something a little less disconcerting. Some fold to peer pressure: a story in a teen magazine or "advice" from a friend who has already discovered the transformation of which a bit of mascara and lip gloss is capable. Some girls attempt to fill a gap, a place left void that should've been filled by a father, a mother, a sibling, anyone who had our best interests at heart. Others find themselves locked away by the opinions of others, by people's careless words and actions that leave us with a need to impress and a sense that we don't measure up. For me, it was the latter; it was always (and unfortunately still is) the latter.

          Like many people I know, I have always struggled with my weight, and to be honest, I think that particular phrase sugar coats my situation. To put it bluntly, I was fat. There is absolutely no denying that. Once I started school, I began to swell, and I didn't stop until the 8th grade. I remember being in 6th grade and weighing 115 pounds. I remember some years earlier my mother suggesting I have a lemon instead of the peanut butter crackers my sister was getting as an after school snack. (I knew the insinuation behind this, and the result was me running from the house, tears welling in my eyes.) There was also the comment from my aunt, her declaration that she couldn't believe my mother would have a fat kid, and of course, I never found it fair that my little sister and my cousin were allowed to sport two-piece swimsuits every summer, and I was always in a one-piece. Each of those moments ingrained in me just a bit further that idea that I didn't add up the way I was, that I didn't fit the expectations of those around me, but it wasn't until 8th grade that I associated my "lack" with beauty.

          His name was Brad, and I had a major crush on him (what I would now classify as my first real crush.) We flirted. All the time. In science class. And he let me wear his necklace. He even let me keep it over the weekend as a good luck charm for my first honor band. It was obvious I liked him, and to me, it was just as obvious that any day now, he would be passing a note to me (in science class) asking me to be his girlfriend. Then it happened, the comment that forever changed the way I looked at myself, the way I looked at life. 

          My best girl friends and I sat at one end of the lunch table, he and his friends at the other. The boys and girls always ignored each other. We were too busy talking about chocolate pudding and the 9th grade girl whose bangs stood out a foot from her forehead, and they were constantly talking about...well, honestly, I didn't have a clue, until the day I overheard this: "Megan would be hot if she would just lose some weight." Straight from the mouth of the boy whose necklace I was wearing. Straight to the heart of a little girl who five seconds before didn't realize people thought she was ugly, but now she knew. So began my imprisonment.

          My sentence consisted of the standard tear-inducing plucking of the eyebrows, the occasional jab in the eye with a mascara wand or an eyeliner pencil, the tender fingertip burns from overexposure to hair dryers, hot rollers, and straight irons, the cuts from careless strokes with soapy razors. I hated the itchiness of facial masks, the pain of a comb being pulled through tangles, and the sting of hairspray in my eyes. Once, I even left a nice scar on my leg while trying to iron my clothes. Still the punishment wasn't enough. My junior year, I battled an eating disorder, finding a way to manipulate my schedule so that no one would notice my lifestyle changes, dropping 50 pounds in two months. The trends continued into college where I picked up diet pills, tanning, and yes, waxing. Sure, all the girls I knew had the same experiences, the same pains, the same complaints. Sure, we all vented to each other about how unfair it was to have to work so hard to be beautiful and how much we didn't like being girls. Yet the conversation always found its ending in our mantra, "Pain is beauty," the answer to every complaint, the truth that governed our lives, the finality we had come to accept.

          Now, I understand a different truth. Pain is not beauty. In fact, to ring true, the phrase itself needs to be reversed: beauty is pain. 

          Don't misinterpret that phrase. Beauty is not pain because it hurts to tweeze our eyebrows or we burn our fingers on the curling iron. Beauty is pain because it is impossible to live up to the world's standards of beauty, and when we try, we put ourselves through an incredible amount of emotional torture. The world says that if the scale doesn't reveal the correct number or our clothes cannot be valued by their tags, we are worthless. The world says that if we can't walk a mile in heels, wing our eyeliner, and keep our hair glossy, we have no value. The world whispers to us, "If you would just do this one little thing, you would be beautiful." The problem is that there is always going to be one more little thing. The list of physical expectations the world gives females never ends, so no matter how much weight we lose or what shade of red our lipstick is, when we measure ourselves by the world's standards, we will always walk away feeling ugly. Yes, it hurts to rip wax strips from your body; yes, it hurts to pinch your eyelid with the lash curler, but what hurts worse is placing your value in the hands of a monster that will never know what you're worth. 





(Side Note: I am not speaking ill against the use of beauty products or against a woman's desire to look and feel her best. I myself love eye shadow, jewelry, and red lipstick. I love getting dolled-up for date night with my husband, and dresses are my favorite things to wear. Please understand though that there is a difference in wanting to look your best and giving yourself a value based on outside expectations.)