How should one approach a new year? How about the end? I shared a lot of laughs with a graduating senior at the end of the 2017-2018 school year while he taught me how to make memes. The best of his memes ultimately touched a finger to a cold, icy truth. Most related to his propensity to turn in late work despite the rigid late work consequences. Others made fun of me for being overzealous and for assigning too much work. By and large it felt good to laugh after a long year of wearing The Face. The Face, all of you teachers know, is the rigid mask of professionalism that comes with being a teacher. And, late policies, while they may seem important at the time, really don't tower over the grand concerns of life... so it felt good to laugh a bit at what was taken so seriously throughout the year. One particular meme this student helped me to create was based on a picture of Alex Jones holding up a champagne glass and looking pained in only the way Alex Jones knows how. The text read "Welcoming in a new wave of seniors... even though you know it will be a new wave of Hell." I spent a lot of time reviling Jones in the classroom, and of course the suggestion that I was somehow supposed to be Jones was ironic. The fact that Jones is expressing distain for meeting new people is also ironic considering that it is one of my deepest joys in life. For me, Hell would be sitting in a room alone for 8 hours a day. I cannot emphasize enough that I love teaching adolescents. So... what about love? And teaching?
Now that I think of it, the meme's sentiment is not too far removed from the last scene of To Sir, With Love, in which the graduating students are having loving exchanges with Sir, which involve singing him a song and giving him a present. Sir is overcome with emotion and he retires to his classroom to process what has happened. It is here that some new hellion underclassmen are already rip roaring around the room "I'm in yer bleedin' class next term!" Sir sits, pensive... Finally, alone with his thoughts, he stands and tears the resignation letter he had planned to serve to the board.
There's work to be done, by God.
I want to suggest that Sir's resolution is not too far removed from how veteran teachers should be mentally preparing to reoccupy the classroom every fall. The time I spent laughing and making memes with my graduating senior was a kind of gift, and soon I will be looking with grim determination at a roster full of mostly unfamiliar names. Teaching them will be an act of love, because, of course, the only force powerful enough to overcome Hell is love.
