First Class Conversations - The Weight of Small Talk

The days, the hours, the seconds are clicking by . . . every school employee is trying to stop time, soak in these last minutes of sunshine and freedom. And not flip the calendar to August. But here we are . . . it’s time to get back to work. Doing what we love.

Of course, I am just like you . . . I don’t want to head back to work . . . I’m not quite ready to pick back up the emotional weight I carry during the year. But in my house . . . live 4 school age kids. A 9th grader, a 5th grader, and two 3rd graders. And when I see how excited they are to find out who their teachers are, and I see the nervous excitement of a kid about to walk into high school for the first time and another one about to walk into elementary for the first last time . . . man, I hope their teachers aren’t dreading this school year. We owe it to our students to not only be ready, but to be great.

I know there is a vicious cycle of: our jobs are too hard – the expectations are too high – we are burned out – parents are ungrateful – no one understands what we do – teachers get blamed for everything - we are underfunded… The thing about cycles is there has to be a break somewhere.  I have heard Joe Sanfelippo, a superintendent from Wisconsin, speak several times but I got to see him again at a conference recently. I follow him on social media the way Andrew follows Jennifer Gonzalez. With awe. (IYKYK) But Joe is big on making sure we tell our own stories so no one else tells it for us. It made me wonder how it would change the script of public perception if every time someone asked us in the next couple of weeks, “Are you ready to go back to work?” we answered with some version of intention instead of flippant sarcasm. Generally, people start asking around the 4th of July and of course, we aren’t ready on the 4th of July!  We still have a month left! Let us live! But what if the conversation we have with that one random person making small talk on July 5th is the only conversation they have with a teacher all summer? We get frustrated because the way people talk about and treat teachers isn’t held in high regard. How does what we say influence how people think about our jobs? What would you want them to know about your school? About you students? About teaching? What if you knew they were going to repeat your story to another random person? Because instead of a generic “Hell no!” you took them by surprise and said something memorable. Something they felt emotionally connected to. Something that made them go, “Oh, I wish that was my kid’s teacher.”

In a series of unlikely events, I found myself in a first-class seat on a flight last week. Just lucky. Mimosa in hand, I was visiting with the lovely lady next to me. Making small talk about Omaha and where we were traveling to. She asked if I worked. I said, “Yes, I’m a school counselor.” And inevitably, after she took the appropriate time to wonder how I got into the seat next to her, I knew what the follow up question would be, “Are you ready to go back?” And for the first time in 22 years, this felt like a loaded question. I was already thinking about this blog and here was my chance to walk the walk. What did I want her to know about my job, my school, my students, the work we do . . . Trust, she wasn’t ready. She was expecting the “hell no” and to go back to scrolling her Facebook page on her phone. But I answered in the most honest way I could. Not exuberant but definitely vulnerable, “Honestly, I can’t wait. I work in a title 1 elementary school, and I need to see the kids again. I need to see they are ok.” She nodded politely and I continued, “Our school is mostly Hispanic students, and we have no way of knowing if any of our families were deported or detained this summer.” I felt her immediately prickle. I looked down and realized the print on her shoes matched the print on her blouse. I was trying hard not to assume what her stance was on immigration. But the prickle confirmed my bias. She did not respond, and I did not try to fill the silence. I wondered what she imagined my students to look like. I wondered if she had questions but was afraid to ask. So, I wondered aloud. . . more to stale airplane air than to her, “I can’t imagine what my students have been through this summer.” One of my favorite authors, Glennon Doyle, says there are two kinds of “imagining.” One that is full of judgment and one that is full of empathy. I wondered what kind of imagining my story was filling her with. I could have let her sit with that uncomfortable silence in our very comfortable first-class seats for the next couple of hours but I didn’t have a good feel yet for how she would retell the events of her flight to whomever was picking her up at the next stop. So, I smiled and told her how the best part of my days last year was the way my little friend Henry, who was just learning English, would greet me every morning at the front door with an “Hola Maestra!” I shared how in the mornings at our school every kid has at least one adult that says good morning and offers a fist bump. It’s the easiest way to assess what kind of morning that kid had and also an easy opportunity to form a connection. She seemed mildly interested which was a step up from the prickly avoidance. So, I told her another thing I hoped she would repeat . . . our kids are amazing. The rate at which most of them are learning English blows me away. The way a kid always steps up to interpret when we need them to; for their peers, for the teachers, for the nurse . . . they help each other be successful. I told her how our principal is awesome and tries so hard to learn Spanish from them and the kids think it’s so funny that she is so bad at it. But she keeps trying. And then the woman with perfect eyeliner and designer watch, asked her first question, “Where is your school located?” and this led to an actual conversation. About where our students live and what our families do for work and how fear was evident in our hallways the last couple of months before summer. Eventually . . . I pulled out my book and she got back on her phone, and we flew in silence, drinking our free mimosas the way people in first class do . . . I have no idea what story she told when she got off the plane, but I know she smiled warmly at me when we deplaned. I told the story I wanted her to repeat. And I hope now her imagining will feel a little deeper when she watches the news, or meets another teacher, or maybe even when she is thinking about what charity to give to this year.

Of course, your story is different than mine, but we all have good things happening in our classrooms that deserve to be celebrated and reshared. Don’t be afraid to be the voice of your story. No one else will tell it the way you do.