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I have been intrigued by NPRs newest series that is to explore the secret lives of teachers – where they go and what they do after the school bell rings. I remember, when I was a student, we would spend countless hours on the phone wondering the most ridiculous things about our teachers, where Miss Bad Chemistry Teacher bought her boots (she seemed to have five or six pairs of the same shoe), if Mr. English would recite Romeo and Juliette to his wife at the dinner table the same way he recited it to us, if maybe, Mr. Physical Science teacher was a spy. It seemed that there must have been some great mysteries beyond what they taught us – something at the root of their quirkiness, brilliance, or even just downright nonsensical weirdness.
I’ve been teaching French for almost twelve years now – a path that opened itself to me without my actively setting that as my career goal. I went to college to study creative writing, was inspired by my amazing French professors, felt that studying a second language was the best thing for an aspiring poet (what could be better than reading Rimbaud or Proust in the original language or spending those early angst-filled years wandering the streets of Paris?), had opportunities to teach young French children and university students in Ho Chi Minh City English as a second language, felt I had a knack for it, and kept running with it. I have been running with it ever since.
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Even though I’m very much a teacher at heart (I always feel alive when I’m in the classroom), it does not define me. I do have a secret life away from school, one that I protect and around which I draw boundaries. I wrote earlier about the importance of establishing clear ones between work and home as I still strongly adhere to the idea that a healthy life is not just one governed by work, but the connections we make with others, and lest we forget, the ones we make within ourselves.
This summer, I had the privilege of attending the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference for Poetry in Ripton, Vermont. It is the oldest writers’ conference in the country and is highly selective; I was completely surprised that there was a spot in it for me. Having been out of the poetry scene for quite some time, and feeling a strong ache to unearth that part of me, I went. I also wanted to connect with people who were all actively engaged in something artistic, creative.
And although teachers have to be creative in how they deal with people and make lessons, it is not the same thing. Most teachers see the quickest, clearest and most efficient way to get from point A to point B. I think the artist doesn’t necessarily look for the most efficient way, but for the most original one, which sometimes means going up, over and under the clouds, making quick turns and even, just plopping down on a sidewalk, back against a building and staring at the people walking by. I fall in between both worlds – between daydream and agenda, all of which can feel complimentary and contradictory.
I went to awaken my secret life. I went to feel like a student again on new territory, in the middle of peaceful woods, with their iconic lawn chairs and an inn which actually is the color of melted butter (appropriate for a loaf of bread) –-- I did not know anyone, starting from what felt like zero even though I’ve been writing my whole life. To reduce into one sentence what was almost an indescribable ten days of new encounters, amazing readings, ideas for new poems: my cup was filled to the point of overflowing. I felt lost for a few weeks when I came home, back to the routine of work – a schedule that runs as regularly as trains, where each week resembles the one it left behind and conversations are repeated from the year prior.
I realized that when I teach, my focus is completely off of me -- it is pushed outwards toward my students. It’s about their learning, their growth, what I can push them to produce, about trying to help them learn from their mistakes – it is to inspire them. It was nice, for a change, to have someone do that for me. I also realized that I don’t feel completely whole when I’m not writing; in the same respect, I don’t feel completely whole when I can’t practice being a teacher.
My biggest question, to which I don’t have a perfect answer, is where do I go from here? How to balance a writer’s life with a teacher’s one?
First, I protect the artist in me. I am fortunate to teach a language that is not the one in which I write poetry– if I had to spend hours grading stacks of writing in English, it would certainly mess with my own writing. French is different in that it was something I acquired later, as a teenager, something that I learned, studied and commanded – it is not the language of my poetry. So, already, both sides of me live on two different continents – close, but not on top of one another, all easily accessible by plane, so to speak, and from where I am able to carry treasures from one home to the other.
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Secondly, I try to cultivate the friendships made while there and try to engage in conversations that aren’t just about school policies, initiatives or politics, but about the creative process, what new book I should check out, or even about something random but is someone else's lived, authentic experience -- someone's purest story.
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Thirdly, I try to pen in a poem where I can. William Carlos Williams maintained his life as a doctor alongside his life as a poet – even jotted his poems on prescription pads in between patients. I have been trying to jot down at least one poem a week during the school day, whenever I can find a quiet moment—and the interesting thing about it is that when the artist’s lens becomes awakened in a school setting, I start to find beautiful things in my work day: the joy and laughter of girls hula hooping at recess, the arms that shoot up with so many burning questions and the tearful ache of a teenage girl who just realizes that life isn’t going to go as planned. There is poetry there.
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Lastly, I do not beat myself up (much easier said than done) when I can’t write, read or revise. It’s okay to come home after a day of teaching on my feet, sink into a couch and disconnect. I do what I can and try to savor the small steps instead of allowing myself to sink into the abyss of – I can do more. No, I do what I can.
As I water this, my secret life, I see my students differently. I come to them with an energy for work and discovery because I have mine, fanned and flamed, alongside theirs. This is the way not to burn out; it is, ironically, to keep burning – your own fire, next to them; it makes the forest all the more warm in the dark.
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