My students were graduating on June 4th and I wanted to leave them with a few words. I’ll be the first to admit, a few words can be difficult for me. As my students, and others, like to say, “Chuck tells a lot of stories.” I do. It’s how I teach. I tell stories that are my own to attempt to bring students closer to the subject, whatever that may be. I do the same with the people I meet as I stroll along this journey and every so often I tell myself, or say to my beautiful wife, “I think I just need to shut up.” Yet, I can’t help myself. Stories connect us.
So, here’s a story about our graduation that I spoke at and hopefully there were a few key lessons that the audience picked up on. I started off talking about my coworker, the one who brought Project Search to the district, and that she is retiring. One of the things that resonated with me about our relationship is how she once told me, “You are the face of Project Search for our district.” Over the past two years, I found her words to ring true. I was the face, but what I wanted her and the crowd to hear was that she is the backbone. Certainly, the staff at the local hospital and many others see me representing the program and working directly with the students. However, the truth is that none of it would have ever been successful without her. She held the program up and together. I bet if you look within your workplace or even your family structure, you will find out who the backbone is. They are the ones you go to when you need to get stuff done or need an answer moving forward. They typically have a vision and will guide you towards that vision. We are all the face at times, and if you have built the skill and wisdom, you could very well be the backbone. My belief is that if you are the face, the one out front who everyone sees, step back and recognize who is truly carrying the load.
I went on to talk about how in life we never know what direction those little moves we make will take us. Look back at your life and think about the path that you were on and how one single move, one decision you made, changed the course of your life. You didn’t even know it at the time, but that one decision changed the trajectory of your existence and who you are. It could have turned out to be a good or bad experience, but nevertheless, it changed you. I have found most of my moves, the decisions I made, have brought me to wonderful people and places that I would have never met or been otherwise. I had a few people say to me a couple of years ago when I changed school districts, “I can’t keep up with you.” It was their way of trying to cut me down. However, I look at the moves I made as necessary and open doors that would have never been found and stay closed. It is why I am heading to a different position within my district that I think was built for me and the skills I have developed over the years.
This led to me talking about the hospital staff that I have come to know and love. I mentioned how I was worried when I left the schools and came to the district to be the Project Search Instructor. However, before I started the position a couple of years ago, I remember sitting in the woods reflecting and realizing that I need to go back to my core belief, which is that relationships are the foundation of everything we do. As I began my role and started to get to know everyone from the housekeeping staff, to surgical and imaging technicians, ER staff, and surgeons, it all came back to being true to myself and building relationships with them. This is what life is about as well. It is taking the time to know others, show empathy and compassion, and listen. Be that person who stops them for a moment in the hallway when they are struggling and ask those six magic words that connect people on a deeper level, “How are you? Are you okay?” I hope the staff heard my message to them. They became my coworkers and even though I missed being in the schools, I had a community each and every day. Community is essential to our growth and development, and to being human.
As I turned my attention to my students I said, “One of the most important things a teacher can do is build community in the classroom.” This is such a simple concept but it is crucial, and I have seen it be very difficult for many teachers. So many educators, teachers, paras, and administrators alike, forget that if they don’t take time to build community, relationships, and trust, they don’t have anything. Many teachers want to jump into their curriculum and they forget about the crucial steps of taking time to build a “family” within their classroom and then continue that for the remainder of the school year. When I hear about a teacher or administrator struggling in November, I often want to ask them, “Did you take the time to build community the first week of school, or did you just jump right into your agenda.” Relationships should be number one on your agenda, and this goes for building relationships with the student’s parents too. Stop being afraid of parents and make them part of the team. The most important thing is to remember that it is never too late to build community. The time you take will put in deposits that you will collect when needed most. Trust me on this.
With that, I talked to my students and the audience about how loss brought us all together. Every single person that sat in my classroom this year, including myself, had experienced a loss of either a parent, friend, or beloved pet during the school year. This brought us to sharing our emotions together, but more importantly, understanding grief. I make Mondays in my classroom, “Mental Health Monday.” It’s a specific lesson that I teach on bringing awareness to mental health and then how to cope and build resilience. The lessons, I find, are ongoing throughout the school year, and my hope is that it builds a foundation for students to carry with them throughout their lives. Loss does bring people together, if they allow it. It can also rip apart relationships, or as I have found, it makes some people avoid you. Death is a part of life and nothing to be afraid of but to accept it fully, and then make sure you are living the life you want. Our moments are what make a wonderful life, so recognize them.
I handed each of my students an envelope. In it were two letters. A letter I had them write to their future self. I wanted them to write something meaningful about their time in my classroom and how they are doing at the age they are now, especially socially/emotionally, and then in years to come, maybe a decade from now, open that letter up and reflect on how far they had come at that moment in their life. The second letter was from me, a summary of many of the lessons that I taught them throughout the year. Life lessons, the things that we need to navigate the difficult times, and I told them that one day they will be struggling and maybe not know what to do and that is when they should open it. I went on to tell the audience that life is moments of joy and then moments of suffering. We need to be mindful of those joyous times and grateful for them, but the difficult times will test us and those are the moments we need to prepare for. Otherwise, we become victims letting situations and bad events control us. That is not how you live a good life. Learning how to suffer is crucial, but being aware during those wonderful, joyous times is a must. Being aware of the people around you because they can be gone in a single breath. With the state of the declining mental health in our schools, with staff and students, I do not see any other way but to spend time bringing awareness to the issues and then learning how to cope with them.
I am not sure if I will ever have my own classroom again. My new role will require me to move around the school buildings, to the various programs that I will support, and to stay true to what I believe, that relationships are the key to everything we do. Making strong connections with people and taking the time to hear them, listen with intention, and then offer them what I can, to serve, will be my focus.
I hope my students and the audience were listening that day. I tried my best to convey life. The wonderful, joyful, messy, dark, difficult, and blissful experiences that make up our time here on earth. If we are lucky, we will live long enough to deplete all that we have arrived with and gained since our birth. To leave nothing but memories, and maybe a legacy, will be a life worth living.
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