New School, Lost Identity, Spaces
We’re teachers. That’s what we are, and it’s different from most other professions because for many of us, we might stay in a similar position for much of our careers. Some of us may desire to move into administration or adjunct on the side, but for the vast majority, if we’re a high school science teacher, we might remain a high school science teacher until our retirement party. If we’re a third grade teacher, we might still be a third grade teacher even when that banner congratulating us on thirty-five years gets hung up in the staff lounge. There’s a memorable scene from Alexander Payne’s 1999 film Election where Matthew Broderick’s character, a civics teacher, repeatedly triangles out the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government year after year as his hair greys from that of a young man to an educator of middle age, his voice also having lost the perk of excitement that once accompanied the lesson. For many of us, we are what we teach. It’s our identity, or at least a significant part of it.
So what happens when suddenly it’s gone? Last summer, I left a job I had been at for over a decade. I did it. It was my doing, a conscious decision. I’d wanted to pursue more leadership opportunities, and in order to do that, I needed to shift from the independent school world back into public. And I’d gotten a job that I was excited to start, so from the outside looking in, everything should have seemed great, ready-to-go, smooth sailing. But it wasn’t. Perhaps it was because I was coming from the unique environment of a boarding school where so much of my life was seamlessly intertwined with my professional existence. I’d even lived on campus, so my home literally was…school. My apartment was attached to a dorm. And I coached, so some days would consist of teaching all day, two-plus hours of coaching, perhaps eating in the dining hall, and then dorm duty until 11:30pm. My job was my life.
However, over the months that followed, I came to realize that it wasn’t that engorged complexity or boarding life that made me feel such loss. It wasn’t even the students who I’d grown so close with from serving in such a multifaceted capacity–in loco di parentis to the hilt. I quite quickly forged bonds with the students at my new school, and having them seek me out for support beyond their academic needs assured me that I would carry on being the type of educator I wished to be. No–it was no longer feeling attached to the other adults in the building. My friends were gone, acquaintances were gone, and even those whom I’d never been particularly involved with socially–conversation with them was gone. The discourse, the daily minutia we might never even think of as valuable–it had been erased. That’s what made me feel like I’d lost the only version of myself that I knew. The existence of how we move through our days in our “teacher role,” and how that persona is set against everyone else who comes in contact with it, it’s impossible to place the level of value on it that it rightfully deserves until it’s gone.
Others might not understand it. Those who view moving onto a new corporation for the sake of advancement as commonplace may not grasp the gravity of how impacting it can be to have your label–your name that students write on their folders, header on their assignments, and adults even address you as in both second and third person–suddenly an enigma that no one associates a feeling with, a history with. As teachers, we are part of the school community’s collective perception around us. We might think that stepping out of our bubbles is brave, and brave we may be, but if you’ve ever made a shift to a new school and feel like you’re apart from something that no longer exists, and thus have trouble establishing your new existence…we see you.
